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They do it all the time.

Guess who’s the biggest welfare recipient in Mississippi state history. No, it’s not a single mom with three kids or a homeless drug addict.

It’s Brett Favre, an American football hero.

He’s worth $100 million.

Recently, a reporter named Anna Wolfe won the Pulitzer Prize for uncovering the largest federal embezzlement scandal to ever happen in Mississippi. It revolves around the legendary Favre, who pressured the state’s welfare office to spend $77 million on volleyball facilities for his daughter, a student at Southern Miss. When confronted, Favre went out of his way to portray himself as a clueless victim. As Sports Illustrated writes, Favre was “obsessed with not paying for it himself… He was relentless in his pursuit of government money.” He knew what he was doing. Favre didn’t stop with volleyball, either. He went on to press the governor for more money, via business grants and speaker fees. He even sent texts making sure the public didn’t know “where it came from.”

You’ll have fun reading the texts between Brett Favre and the state’s governor, Tate Reeves. It makes one thing painfully clear:

If you’re a star quarterback, you don’t have to work very hard to get powerful politicians to raise money for anything you want. When Favre asked for the volleyball stadium the governor replied, “We will have that thing built before you know it. One thing I know how to do is raise money.”

That’s interesting…

Mississippi routinely struggles to provide safe drinking water for its own citizens, many of whom live in extreme poverty. Last year residents in the state’s capital went months without drinking water at all. The problem loomed for years as the state continually refused to upgrade and maintain their water treatment facilities…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Doug Casey on the Death of Privacy… and What Comes Next

May 28, 2023

Doug Casey on the Death of Privacy… and What Comes Next

International Man: In practically every country, the allowable limit for cash withdrawals and transactions continues to be lowered.

Further, rampant currency debasement is lowering the real value of these ridiculous limits.

Why are governments so intent on phasing out cash? What is really behind this coordinated effort?

Doug Casey: Let me draw your attention to three truths that my friend Nick Giambruno has pointed out about money in bank accounts.

#1. The money isn’t really yours. You’re just another unsecured creditor if the bank goes bust.

#2. The money isn’t actually there. It’s been lent out to borrowers who are illiquid or insolvent.

#3. The money isn’t really money. It’s credit created out of thin air.

The point is that cash is freedom. And when the State limits the utility of cash—physical dollars that don’t leave an electronic trail—they are limiting your personal freedom to act and compromising your privacy. Governments are naturally opposed to personal freedom and personal privacy because those things limit their control, and governments are all about control.

International Man: Governments will probably mandate Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) as the “solution” when the next real or contrived crisis hits—which is likely not far off.

What’s your take? What are the implications for financial privacy?

Doug Casey: CBDCs are proposed as a solution, but in fact, they’re a gigantic problem.

Government is not your friend, and CBDCs are not a solution.

If they successfully implement CBDCs, it would mean that anything you buy or sell, and any income you earn, will go through CBDCs. You will have zero effective privacy. The Authorities will automatically know what you own, and they’ll be in a position to control your assets. Instantly.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

You Are Not Alone, Anger Is Building Across The World!

May 20, 2023

You Are Not Alone, Anger Is Building Across The World!

You are not alone if you are tired of watching your government grow increasingly oppressive and corrupt. Many people across the world share your pain. People continue to voice their anger and discontent, however, this is something the media often chooses not to report for it is owned by those same forces which are attempting to enslave us. Those on the left referred to the right as fascist or Nazi while those on the right refer to the left as communist.This tends to overlook the fact that both groups are rooted in wanting to expand control. The truth is that the angst and growing anger many people feel is kept under control by a mass media with a very strong agenda. Mass media has perfected the art of dividing us and at the same time keeping us in the dark. The greatest risk we face may be that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is coming at us fast and furious. Once it is here getting information will become almost impossible.

As of late, several times a day I find a song from the musical Les Miserables flowing through my mind. It is named, “The Song Of Angry Men” and screams enough is enough. Of course, in the video, the people seem very happy until the soldiers start killing them. This “killing thing” is of course what happens in totalitarian regimes. Sadly, the world has far too many totalitarian regimes and is moving in the direction of creating more. Yes, they can take away your freedom.

There are simply too many things happening for the bulk of society to stay focused on any one issue. Whether we are talking about corruption in Ukraine and how American money is being diverted or squandered rather than spent on what we see as necessary projects…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Fake News Curated by the Deep State: Government Spin Doctors Control the News Cycle

April 5, 2023

Fake News Curated by the Deep State: Government Spin Doctors Control the News Cycle

“We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth.”—Former New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg

Let’s talk about fake news stories, shall we?

There’s the garden variety fake news that is not really “news” so much as it is titillating, tabloid-worthy material peddled by anyone with a Twitter account, a Facebook page and an active imagination. These stories run the gamut from the ridiculous and the obviously click-baity to the satirical and politically manipulative.

Anyone with an ounce of sense and access to the Internet should be able to ferret out the truth and lies in these stories with some basic research. That these stories flourish is largely owing to the general gullibility, laziness and media illiteracy of the general public, which through its learned compliance rarely questions, challenges or confronts.

Then there’s the more devious kind of news stories circulated by one of the biggest propagators of fake news: the U.S. government.

In the midst of the government and corporate media’s carefully curated apoplexy over fake news, you won’t hear much about the government’s own role in producing, planting and peddling propaganda-driven fake news—often with the help of the corporate news media—because that’s not how the game works.

Why?

Because the powers-that-be don’t want us skeptical of the government’s message or its corporate accomplices in the mainstream media. They don’t want us to be more discerning when it comes to what information we digest online. They just want us to be leery of independent or alternative news sources while trusting them—and their corporate colleagues—to vet the news for us.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Doug Casey on How Governments Use Global Crises to Take More Control

April 1, 2023

Doug Casey on How Governments Use Global Crises to Take More Control

International Man: Throughout history, governments have used crises—real or imagined—to eliminate freedoms, expand the power of the State, and justify all sorts of things the populace would never accept in normal times.

After World War II, Winston Churchill famously said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

This was when he and other leaders came together to form the United Nations, which they probably could not have created without the crisis of WWII.

Ever since, it seems that each new supposed crisis causes a further centralization of global power.

The War on (Some) Drugs, the War on Terror, the COVID hysteria, and the so-called climate crisis have all ratcheted up the centralization of power on a global scale.

What do you make of this trend?

Doug Casey: It makes sense that Rahm Emanuel, a sleazy Obama apparatchik, would have stolen the phrase from Churchill. But the statement is quite correct, regardless of the source. Government lives on crisis. As Randolph Bourne said, “War is the health of the State,” and there’s no crisis like a war. But any kind of crisis can work.

Whenever you have a crisis—whether it’s a military, political, economic, financial, or social crisis—the mob calls for strong leaders to kiss it and make it better.

This plays perfectly into the hands of the kind of people who work for the State. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a psychological flaw in humans, stemming from the fact that we’re pack animals.

Pack animals want leaders.

I’m not sure how we solve this problem other than delegitimizing the idea of the State and defanging it as much as possible. And stop lauding, even apotheosizing, its employees…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

How New Zealand Dealt with “Disinformation”

February 21, 2023

How New Zealand Dealt with “Disinformation”

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is spectacular, with Orcs, Elves and breathtaking scenery filmed on location in New Zealand. The special effects were good too – the eye of Sauron looked very realistic – perhaps it is.

We have come across a minimally redacted 28-page draft of a Kiwi Government document entitled “Communications approach to managing disinformation, online harms and scams” dated 10 Dec 2021 (Available here).

The document’s aim appears to be coordinating countering disinformation seeking to harm “by threatening public safety, fracturing community cohesion and reduced trust in democracy.” All well and good then; it’s a bit like saying, do not open fire on the Red Cross.

Except that the object is “disinformation” relating to the Kiwi government’s response to the Covid pandemic. The definition of disinformation in the document is on page 5:

We will not summarise the complex and superficial content of the document other than to note that this is precisely the attempt at normalising the message of the pandemic that we have reported. The government has put out a message, and its credibility must be defended at all costs, with tech media partners, academics, the community and, of course, the armies of Sauron.

One consideration is that the Covid narrative in Middle Earth (as elsewhere) is based on the misuse and misinterpretation of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and the death of clinical medicine, as we have made clear.

Cases may not have been active cases, hospitalisations may not be due to SARS-CoV-2, and deaths may be due to various causes related or unrelated to SARS-CoV-2. We will never know for sure. Why? Because the PCR cycle threshold for testing PCR “positive” in Middle Earth was 40 to 45, ensuring that most tested people would test positive even in the total absence of contamination (a very tall order).

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The French Pension War

February 15, 2023

The French Pension War

When a million people protest on the streets of Paris and most major French cities, you know there is a serious problem in French society…

The protests, which had been going on for four days, culminated on Feb. 11 in Paris, where reportedly half a million people participated. The vitriol directed at the president during these protests was uncivilised and contemptuous of government reform proposals.

Reminiscent of the Yellow Vest Revolution in 2018, which was initially directed at a hike in the price of fuel, it soon morphed into a demand to raise the minimum net wage in France, which is now around €1,679 (US$1,800) per month.

The recent proposal, which earned the wrath of the protestors, concerns President Emmanuel Macron’s plan to raise the pension age from 62 to 64. It is a response to the dire situation of the French pension system.

In France, retirees might be paid 50 per cent of their income, with a maximum of €41,136 annually. The state scheme is financed by “social security contributions”—a payroll tax that burdens French businesses.

It could be argued that the French president’s proposal constitutes a justifiable attempt at containing the burgeoning cost of the pension scheme, which otherwise would become unsustainable.

That the pension scheme is economically untenable is an unavoidable consequence of changes in French demographics.

A protester holds a placard reading “Macron pensions, it’s no!” during a demonstration on the fourth day of nationwide rallies organised since the start of the year against a deeply unpopular pensions overhaul, in Paris, on Feb. 11, 2023. (Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images)

In 1910, when the first pension law came into effect, life expectancy was 51.3 years, whereas now it is 82.4 years. Also, the population has increased exponentially since 1910 and now stands at around 65 million, compared to around 39 million in 1910.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Covid Emergency, Climate Emergency: Same Thing

February 15, 2023

Covid Emergency, Climate Emergency: Same Thing

Would a ‘Climate Emergency’ Open the Same Door to Authoritarian Governance as the ‘COVID Emergency?’

I am always happy to welcome new content from The Brownstone Institute, one of the last few beacons of common sense left in the world.

This week they published a new piece on how, as the Covid emergency fades away, the climate emergency is becoming prominent. After lamenting the rights that were taken from citizens during the Covid emergency, the article looks at exactly what superpowers the government would get in declaring a climate emergency. You guessed it: more power to ram through ways for government to micromanage your life, interfere with the economy and – best of all – further the Keynesian nightmare by printing and spend as many U.S. dollars as they want without consequences.

I reached out to the publication last year and requested permission to share their content when I enjoy it, in full, with my readers, which they kindly granted. If you’re interested in the topic – or simply just having a grasp on the objective truth – I believe it is a “must read”.

The article is written by W. Aaron Vandiver, a writer, former litigator, and wildlife conservationist. He is the author of the novel, Under a Poacher’s Moon. Photographic annotations have been added by QTR.

In February 2022, 1,140 organizations sent President Biden a letter urging him to declare a “climate emergency.” A group of US Senators did the same, in October 2022, and a House bill, introduced in 2021, also called on the president to “declare a national climate emergency under the National Emergencies Act.”

Biden has considered declaring such an emergency, but so far he has declined, to the disappointment of many progressives.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Global Debt & Death Spiral – John Rubino

February 14, 2023

Global Debt & Death Spiral – John Rubino

Analyst and financial writer John Rubino says we’re are in a “debt and death spiral” that will force dramatic changes on the world. Rubino explains, “The debt spiral part of this means things from here continue to get worse and worse for the big currencies of the world until they die. In other words, until people lose faith in them, refuse to use them and hold them anymore until their value falls to their intrinsic value, which is zero. That manifests to hyperinflation. The value of the currency falls as opposed to the things you buy with it. . . . Things feel basically okay for a long time as long as governments could force interest rates down to really low levels. The side effects of that are massive money creation and, eventually, inflation. That’s what we are dealing with now. So, here we go. Welcome to the end game for the world’s big currencies.”

Rubino contends things have gotten so out of control that there is no stopping what is coming. Rubino says, “We are in the part of the cycle now where things just get worse, and there is nothing we can do about it. You are going to see companies that have borrowed huge amounts of money to buy back their stock, and now they see their interest costs explode. Governments around the world have the same problem, and there is nothing central banks can do about this. The next stage of this is when everybody realizes that there is no fix. Daddy is not going to come home and take care of all of this, and there is no adult supervision. The financial markets are basically on their own with so much debt that there is nothing left to do…

…click on the above link to read the rest…

What Is Anarcho-Tyranny and Are We Living in It?

February 8, 2023

What Is Anarcho-Tyranny and Are We Living in It?

Question: How does one best explain the brutal crackdown on COVID-19 protesters worldwide for the sake of Public Health™ while, at the same time, Black Lives Matter was permitted to run hog-wild on America’s streets?

How are elected Democrat leaders allowed to literally incite race riots while those same leaders pearl-clutch about January 6 in never-ending televised witch trials?

Answer: Anarcho-tyranny

The term anarcho-tyranny, on its face, is an oxymoron, a glaring contradiction. Indeed, it’s the biggest possible contradiction of political system descriptors, as anarchy and tyranny occupy diametrically opposite ends of the government force continuum.

So it’s obvious nonsense, right? Well, if we lived in a politically coherent environment, governed by rule of law, it would be. But in a Kafkaesque world of arbitrary exercise of government power, it becomes much more descriptive.

Samuel Francis first coined the term “anarcho-tyranny” in a 1994 essay titled Anarcho-Tyranny, U.S.A., summarized as:

“A concept where the state is more interested in controlling citizens so that they don’t oppose managerial class, rather than tending to real criminals. Laws are argued to be enforced selectively depending on what is beneficial to the ruling elite.”

It essentially describes a situation in which the government has the necessary tools and capabilities to wield oppressive power over its subjects, and does so to further its own interests.

On the other hand, the government actors themselves — and, importantly, their footsoldiers (like Antifa and BLM in the modern American context) — act with impunity, immune from legal consequences.

Exhibit A: the recent hullabaloo over classified documents. When Trump was discovered to have stashed them in his private residence, the full weight of the state fell upon his estate in the dead of night.

“Why [would] anyone be that irresponsible?” an exasperated Biden quipped, his sentiments echoed over and over and over in corporate media.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Canada’s Bill C-26: Yet Another Government Power Grab

January 28, 2023

Canada’s Bill C-26: Yet Another Government Power Grab

Technocracy – a 1933 cartoon by Winsor McCay.

Soviet Era Ethos Stomps Privacy and Due-Process

Another doozy from the Canadian government.

Following along several other bills winding their way along the Road to Serfdom…

Bill C-11 regulates the internet under the CRTC and paves the way toward institutionalized content moderation, the requirement for licenses to publish online, and regulation of user generated content (in Senate)
Bill C-36 the Online Harms Bill sought to designate political dissent as “hate speech” and invoked penalties for criticizing politicians (not sure where this one is at the moment).
Bill C-18 throws a funding lifeline to Canada’s flailing agitprop industry (a.k.a the mainsteam media), in that it will require tech platforms to pay licensing fees for content the media outlets post there (passed third reading in November). This bill will reward big media conglomerates like Bell, while freezing out small and independent organizations.

Here comes another one, Bill C-36: An Act respecting cyber security, amending the Telecommunications Act and making consequential amendments to other Acts, which passed first reading last June.

It’s been largely flying under everybody’s radar so far. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association has been actively raising awareness and Michael Geist had Brenda McPhail, their Director of the Privacy, Technology and Surveillance Program on his podcast last October.

We mentioned C-26 in AxisOfEasy #273 citing Gowling WLG’s coverage of it by Brent Arnold (Brent Arnold sits on the Internet Society Canada Chapter board, as do I, but I am writing this post from my role as easyDNS CEO, and not ISCC.)The Government Hereby Grants Itself The Following Powers:

The new bill is ostensibly a cyber-security and critical infrastructure bill, but it is riddled with nebulous, open-ended terms, Kafka-esque secrecy provisions, onerous penalties and conspicuously absent of any semblance due process:

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences—How You Can Avoid Being Fleeced

January 23, 2023

Carbon Credits Are the Biggest Scam Since Indulgences—How You Can Avoid Being Fleeced

In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church convinced the commoners to buy indulgences to alleviate their sins. And they made a fortune in the process.

Similarly, today, our overlords—the mainstream media, central bankers, and their political allies—are working overtime to convince the commoners to pay for their alleged climate sins.

Enter carbon credits, government-issued permits that grant you the privilege to emit a certain amount of carbon dioxide.

Although advocates promote them as a way to “save the environment,” in reality, carbon credits are nothing more than a devious mechanism to tax, regulate, and control you.

It’s not a coincidence that the most philosophically and ethically bent people are promoting them.

For example, at a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos, participants revealed and touted an “individual carbon footprint tracker.” It will track where people travel, how they travel, what they eat, and what they consume.

Carbon accounting is already creeping into many places, like Google Flights.

A federal carbon tax is already a reality in Trudeau’s Canada, and it’s causing the price of food and other goods and services to soar. But Canadians haven’t seen anything yet—the federal carbon tax will triple by 2030.

In short, there’s a growing push to implement the carbon credit scam worldwide. And that’s not a coincidence.

Remember, central banks only exist to harvest wealth from the populace through inflation and redirect it to the politically connected, an insidious practice known as seigniorage.

Fiat currency is the usual mechanism central banks use to perpetuate this fraud. They get most people to run on a hamster wheel most of their lives chasing after confetti money they create with no effort.

However, there is a limit to this process.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Is New Zealand A Beta Test For Western Governments Micromanaging The Populace?

January 18, 2023

Is New Zealand A Beta Test For Western Governments Micromanaging The Populace?

In the wake of the covid pandemic lockdowns and mandates, many western nations and states in the US witnessed a new eye opening level of government intrusion into the daily lives of citizens. Some, however, dealt with worse scenarios than others.

New Zealand in particular has popped up time and time again over the past couple of years with some of the most draconian restrictions on the public, and sadly the trend has not stopped just because the pandemic lockdowns stopped. The island nation seems to be intent on setting the standard for authoritarian policies and government micromanagement, and a series of recent laws are driving home the reality that they do not intend to relent.

Flashback: In 2018, New Zealand banned all offshore oil drilling exploration in the name of instituting a “carbon neutral future”, meaning tight energy restrictions are forthcoming in NZ as the decade progresses.

In 2019, NZ banned all semi-automatic weapons after the Christchurch mosque shootings, punishing millions of law abiding citizens for the crimes of one man. Video evidence of the Christchurch shootings is suspiciously illegal in NZ, and anyone caught viewing or downloading the event can be prosecuted. The gun bans were enforced just in time for the pandemic lockdowns.

In 2020, the government introduced internet censorship legislation which would give them the power to selectively filter “dangerous content.” Most of the provisions were ultimately scrapped after a public backlash, but future censorship remains a priority for the government.

In 2021, New Zealand Prime Minister and associate of the World Economic Forum, Jacinda Ardern, openly admitted to constructing a two tier society in which the vaccinated enjoy normal access to the economy, travel and social interaction while the unvaccinated would be deliberately choked with restrictions until they “chose” to comply and accept the mRNA jab.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

The Fed Is a Purely Political Institution, and It’s Definitely Not a Bank.

January 17, 2023

The Fed Is a Purely Political Institution, and It’s Definitely Not a Bank.

Those who know Wall Street lore sometimes recall that Fed chairman William Miller—Paul Volcker’s immediate predecessor—joked that most Americans believed the Federal Reserve was either an Indian reservation, a wildlife preserve, or a brand of whiskey. The Fed, of course, is none of those things, but there’s also one other thing the Federal Reserve is not: an actual bank. It is simply a government agency that does bank-like things.

It’s easy to see why many people might think it is a bank. “Bank” is right there in the name of the twelve regional banks that make up the system: for example, the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. The Fed also enjoys many titles that make it sound like a bank. It’s sometimes called the “lender of last resort.” Or it is sometimes called “a banker’s bank.” Moreover, many people often call the Fed “the central bank.” That phrase is useful enough, but not quite true.

Moreover, even critics of the bank often repeat the myth that the Federal Reserve is “a private bank,” as if that were the main problem with the Federal Reserve. And then there are the economists who like to spread fairy tales about how the Fed is “independent” from the political system and makes decisions based primarily on economic theory as interpreted by wise economists.

The de facto reality of the Federal Reserve is that it is a government agency, run by government technocrats, that enjoys the benefits of being subject to very little oversight from Congress. It is no more “private” than the Environmental Protection Agency, and it is no more a “bank” than the US Department of the Treasury.

It’s a Purely Political Institution

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary

January 4, 2023

Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary

For those who haven’t been following, a compilation of one-paragraph summaries of all the Twitter Files threads by every reporter. With links and notes on key revelations

It’s January 4th, 2023, which means Twitter Files stories have been coming out for over a month. Because these are weedsy tales, and may be hard to follow if you haven’t from the beginning, I’ve written up capsule summaries of each of the threads by all of the Twitter Files reporters, and added links to the threads and accounts of each. At the end, in response to some readers (especially foreign ones) who’ve found some of the alphabet-soup government agency names confusing, I’ve included a brief glossary of terms to help as well.

In order, the Twitter Files threads:

Twitter Files Part 1: December 2, 2022, by @mtaibbi
TWITTER AND THE HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY

Recounting the internal drama at Twitter surrounding the decision to block access to a New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden in October, 2020.

Key revelations: Twitter blocked the story on the basis of its “hacked materials” policy, but executives internally knew the decision was problematic. “Can we truthfully claim that this is part of the policy?” is how comms official Brandon Borrman put it. Also: when a Twitter contractor polls members of Congress about the decision, they hear Democratic members want more moderation, not less, and “the First Amendment isn’t absolute.”

1a. Twitter Files Supplemental, December 6, 2022, by @mtaibbi

THE “EXITING” OF TWITTER DEPUTY GENERAL COUNSEL JIM BAKER

A second round of Twitter Files releases was delayed, as new addition Bari Weiss discovers former FBI General Counsel and Twitter Deputy General Counsel Jim Baker was reviewing the first batches of Twitter Files documents, whose delivery to reporters had slowed.

…click on the above link to read the rest…

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