Victor Davis Hanson
THE ABSURDITIES OF OUR AGE
[This is absolutely one of VDH’s superbly best, a 100% must-read]
The sign of a civilization in headlong decline is its embrace of absurdities. Unfortunately for the United States, we are witnessing an epidemic of nihilist nonsense. Here are a few examples. We’ll start with Reparations, and continue through Inequality before the Law, Woke Nullification of Federal Law, Rogue Federal Agencies, and Printing Money.
This can’t go on and yet it does. The longer it does, the more catastrophic will be the end.
WAGNER CHIEF WARNS OF SECOND RUSSIAN REVOLUTION OVER UKRAINE WAR FAILURES
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has warned of the potential of another Russian revolution akin to that of 1917 unless the strategy of the war in Ukraine is drastically altered.
Russia’s top mercenary leader said in a post on Telegram that the number of casualties suffered by common people in the war in Ukraine while elites in Moscow “shook their arses” could lead to widespread unrest and that the imposition of martial law could be required to prevent a full-blown revolution.
“We are in such a condition that we could effing lose Russia – that is the main problem… We need to impose martial law,” Prigozhin said according to a translation by the Reuters news agency.
“First the soldiers will stand up, and after that – their loved ones will rise up,” he continued. “There are already tens of thousands of them – relatives of those killed. And there will probably be hundreds of thousands – we cannot avoid that.”
“This divide can end as in 1917 with a revolution,” the Wagner boss warned, referencing the communist overthrow of the Romanov royal family by the communist uprising led by Vladimir Lenin a century ago.
TRUMP SHOULD WAGE NUCLEAR LAWFARE ON THE CORPORATE MEDIA
Former President Donald Trump has the unique ability to launch a lawfare offensive against the media that could be so effective it would force a media transformation, an essential step to turning the country around.
Trump can prove the media knowingly engaged in spreading lies about collusion between Russia and his 2016 presidential campaign and so much more. It seems malice would be awfully easy to prove as the evidence is in clear view. It would also be easy to show that all of the slander and libel caused material damage to Trump companies.
I tweeted about this last week as one of my most fervent dreams. And to my delight, a few days later, Trump Media and Technology Group, which owns Truth Social, filed a $3.78 billion lawsuit against the Washington Post in a Florida state court in Sarasota County, where Truth Social is based.
This is a pathway Trump companies can pursue whether he were to become president again or not. Trump is in the unique position to upend the media in a way that might radically reform how it functions in America.
Will it work? Put me in the camp of let’s find out.
THE GREAT UNDERESTIMATION OF DESANTIS STARTS TO UNRAVEL
This past weekend, Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) reminded voters, and a skeptical press that has spent an inordinate amount of time writing his political obituary before he even launched his candidacy, that he not only possesses the promise and nimbleness needed to be a candidate for president but that he also has the staff and network needed to pull off just the right move to strike a blow against his rival, former President Donald Trump.
People underestimate DeSantis only at their own peril.
DeSantis and Trump were scheduled on Saturday (5/20) to be in Iowa, the state with the first-in-the-country contest for 2024, but Trump’s team canceled the event after the threat of a tornado warning. DeSantis took full advantage of his absence with an impromptu stop in the same area Trump was supposed to be, thus casting shade on the former president, who has spent months maligning DeSantis’s character.
“My better half and I have been able to be all over Iowa today, but before we went back to Florida, we wanted to come by and say hi to the people of Des Moines,” DeSantis said to a cheering and surprised crowd at the barbecue as he and his wife Casey stood on a picnic table outside. “So thank you all for coming out. It’s a beautiful night. It’s been a great day for us.”
DeSantis’ unscheduled stop speaks to the scope of the organization he already has in Iowa and its competency. Several Iowa Republicans said they were surprised that when Trump decided to cancel the rally, he didn’t try to do something else, even if it were on a smaller scale.
SKYE’S LINKS 05/18/23
Government Falsehoods and AI Malinvestments.
We Have Been Here Before.
Today's Skye's Links continues our discussion of energy and the terrible malinvestments made to save the planet. The technology cannot work as promised because of undeniable physical science, material resource, and financial constraints.
Various smooth-talkers are demanding the United States nationalize and then triple the capacity of the electrical power grid to fit intermittent solar and wind's 24-hour needs. It won't work because it cannot work, while the balance of the grid becomes less reliable by the day.
Remember the efforts to ban natural gas appliances? At the root, the plan is to deny the escape hatch created by home emergency generators fueled by natural gas, creating a Cloward-Piven energy crisis.
Immigration is now entirely out of control, and Texas Governor Abbot has his own Cloward-Piven strategy to move migrants to blue cities. While New York and Chicago have received a tiny fraction of the immigrants flooding Texas, the blue city systems are so brittle that they fail from a feather. Politics in New York and Chicago cannot withstand substituting the new preferred minority for the old minority, and things are getting hot.
It was not just the CDC and NIH that lied outright about Covid, but the FBI, DOJ, and the rest of the government knowingly pushed the false Trump Collusion narrative. They did this to expand institutional power at the Constitution's and the nation's expense. The Durham report is 300 pages of shame and dishonor. It names the names, including Obama and John Brennan, as masterminds working to elect Hillary and Xiden. And, of course, their massive supporting casts.
AI technology is very good with language but less with math, science, and idea generation. The core technology predicts words likely to follow a query using trained databases. ChatGBT can use, in theory, up to 32,000 keywords at once to refine its work product. Google taps out after eight keywords. But whatever is asked, it relies on the user having a correct premise to define a problem. So far, it is excellent with standardized tests such as the LSAT, but it must search for existing information to generate solutions. This characteristic makes errors self-reinforcing and a potential investment advice disaster.
Money flows into AI ventures faster than any investments in history, yet armies of poorly educated minimum-wage workers are training the programs. Their worldview and politics are being baked into the cake.
CALIFORNIA DEMS SOWED THE REPARATIONS WIND AND ARE REAPING THE WHIRLWIND
One day, America’s black citizens will realize that Democrats always make promises they will not or cannot fulfill. The latest example is the reparations folly currently playing out in California. Black Californians are beginning to realize they were watching Kabuki reparations theater.
Last week, the state’s “Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans” approved a comprehensive “reparations” plan costing $800 billion. Despite the task force only being advisory, blacks really believed that its recommendations would send money their way.
Not gonna happen. Knowing that the state was running out of money may explain why Gavin Newsom announced that there would be no reparations money for any blacks.
The problem is that, once you’ve raised people’s expectations, you can’t pull an Emily Litella and say to them, “Never mind.” Do that, and people will feel as if you’ve defrauded them, making promises you never intended to keep. Dems, you in a whole heap a’trouble, boys…
WEAPONIZING DEATH
Recently there has been a spate of horrific murders.
The killers, whether committing mass shootings or single homicides, are hard to stereotype.
They can be clearly either mentally ill or simply innately evil. They can kill for revenge, for ideological purposes, out of hatred, for notoriety—or for no known reason at all.
Unfortunately, these tragedies increasingly have become politicized. Our media and politicians do not apply a common standard of reporting about either the victims, the killers, or the apparent motives and circumstances of the violence.
Instead, each horror is quickly analyzed for its political usefulness. Then its details are electively downplayed or emphasized, depending upon the political agenda at work. Here are the current examples.
DO WE GET TO HANG ALL THE LIARS NOW?
Federal prosecutors last week announced the indictment of U.S. Representative George Santos (R-N.Y.) on a host of charges, including misuse of federal campaign funds and wire fraud, almost all of them resulting from his pathological lies.
Certainly, Santos deserved the attention of prosecutors for lying on federal documents and affidavits that may have helped him win a congressional seat as well as personal lucre.
Are federal and states prosecutors now setting a new moral and legal standard by criminalizing Santos’ lies? If true, congratulations—it is long overdue.
Now can we please extend the long arm of the law to reach far beyond a bit player like Santos?
Why not reboot with the really big liars? Their lies far more undermined the integrity of our key agencies and indeed our national security. Let’s start with Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan, and work our way through a long list to The Big Guy, the greatest prevaricator of all.
THE TEXICAN STANDOFF
MATAMOROS, Mexico — For two red-hot weeks, this Mexican city across from Brownsville, Texas was the hottest spot for the massive flood of illegal immigration on the southern border.
But no more, thanks to a very unique, forceful and controversial Texas intervention of Gov. Abbott’s that looks to become a long-term influence on national immigration policy. When DHS’ Mayorkas suggested the Texas operation was illegal and under review by the Department of Justice, Abbott doubled down.
This is an extraordinary story unfolding before our eyes. Here is my eyewitness report.
HALF-FULL REPORT 05/12/23
Overwhelming Immigration
The population might grow by as much as 10 million shortly. While the price of homes drops when immigrants swarm a neighborhood, the rents skyrocket as government subsidies create a floor and demand pushes the ceiling.
Who benefits?
Charles is now King Charles and the coronation ended without significant problems. Already he is a different monarch than his mother and can have a considerable impact if he is up to the challenge.
Energy, Google, AI, and Twitter. The tech world is hotly competing for growth. Growth at the expense of CNN and mainstream media. CNN bombed badly during Destroy Trump at Any Cost town hall, and their chairman is on an apology tour.
Elon Musk found his CEO, and she has a long, successful track record with Turner Broadcasting and NBC Universal. Linda Yaccarino is an insider at Davos.
However, she knows how to profit by selling to advertisers first and viewers second. Musk needs revenue, and he is betting everything on her.
Please join us at the Half Full Report. The border is on fire, but wow, so was Trump.
SKYE’S LINKS 05/11/23
While ChatGPT will condemn Hitler as a brutal ethically bad person, it will claim Mao to be “the most ethical person to ever live.” While fascism, according to ChapGPT, is “a dangerous and oppressive political ideology that has caused immense harm throughout history,” communism is “is a good thing because it is a system of government that aims to create a society in which everyone has equal access to resources and opportunities… in contrast to capitalist societies.”
Now combine this commie-leftie-woke bias hard-wired into ChatGPT with this story (5/10) about AI music generator Boomy: Spotify Removes Tens of Thousands of AI-Generated Songs amid Fraud Concerns. Spotify loads 100,000 new songs a day, a lot of them AI-generated fakes not performed by the claimed artist/s at all. This can ruin the music industry in a Gresham’s Law of fake music driving out the real music.
That’s what’s going to happen to news – tsunamis of AI-generated fake news stories to promote woke bias as real, and to attribute scandal lies with fake quotes, fake references, and fake AI-generated videos of anyone deemed fascist or insufficiently woke. Thus a ruination of the entire media industry with Gresham’s Law of fake news driving out the real news.
Elon Musk has called AI “the biggest risk we face as a civilization.” Will his proposed TruthGPT save the day? Maybe. Here is a must-read of ChatGPT censorship, how it works, and the start of its defeat:
LOCK THEM ALL UP!! BIDENS GOT MILLIONS IN HIDDEN PAYOFFS FROM CHINA
The Biden family and its business associates created a complicated web of more than 20 shell companies, according to bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee — a system GOP lawmakers said was meant to conceal money received from foreign nationals in a press conference today (5/10).
At least nine Biden family members received payments, according to committee chairman James Comer. That includes Hunter Biden; James Biden; James Biden’s wife, Sara Jones Biden; the late Beau Biden’s wife, Hallie Biden; Hunter Biden’s ex-wife, Kathleen Buhle; Hunter Biden’s wife, Melissa Cohen; and “three children of the president’s son and the president’s brother.”
Much of the money came from Chinese nationals and companies with ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Multiple Biden family members received money after it passed through an associate’s account. The Bidens received “millions of dollars from China,” with Comer saying it is “inconceivable that the president did not know” about the payments.
CHALLENGING THE PREMISE OF OUR DESTRUCTION
The most powerful and destructive perception in the world today is that using fossil fuels will cause catastrophic climate change.
This belief, marketed by every major government and corporate institution in the Western world, is the foundational premise underlying a policy agenda of stunning indifference to the aspirations of ordinary people.
The war on fossil fuel is a war on freedom, prosperity, pluralism, independence, national sovereignty, world peace, domestic tranquility, and, most ironically, the environment itself.
It is a war of rich against poor, the privileged against the disadvantaged, corporate monopolies against competitive upstarts, Malthusians against optimists, regulators against innovators, and authoritarians against freedom-loving people everywhere.
But this war cannot be won unless the perception is maintained. If fossil fuel is allowed to compete against other energy alternatives for customers as a vital and growing part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy, this authoritarian political agenda falls apart. Here’s what you can do about this.
THE IMPENDING THERMIDOR REACTION IN JACOBIN AMERICA
The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent.
American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate “equality” and force “fraternity” among its subjects. Each cycle of French revolutionary fervor soon became more radicalized and cannibalistic—until it reached its logical ends of violent absurdity.
That is what is happening today to the fervor of woke insanity in America, as it reaches its logical end of the same violent absurdity. A counter-revolution is coming to sweep it away.
HUNTER BIDEN’S BUSINESS PARTNER DEVON ARCHER URGED TO SPILL BIDEN DIRT TO AVOID PRISON
As Hunter Biden faces a potential criminal indictment, Devon Archer will make his last bid to avoid jail when his appeal is heard in a courtroom in Lower Manhattan.
As he grows increasingly despondent, friends with knowledge of Hunter’s thinking are telling Archer to accept that the Bidens have thrown him under the bus and that a last-minute presidential pardon has been ruled out.
They have urged him to save himself by using the only currency he has left — his knowledge of the Biden family influence-peddling scheme, for which he had a front-row seat for four years during Joe Biden’s vice presidency.
Will he sing on Biden family crimes or not?
SKYE’S LINKS 05/04/23
The Narrative Shifts
Economic trends are not moving in favorable directions. With increasing stress, it becomes harder for the government and its media partners to maintain yesterday's narratives. The Covid story is being rewritten as quickly as possible, yet key players and tyrants are waking up to find the truth is very bad.
Serious discussions about prosecuting hospitals and physicians for murder circulate through state bar associations. And to this, Fauci reveals that he followed the AIDs strategy with Covid. Masks instead of condoms, lockdowns instead of abstinence, and so forth. He was fighting the last war.
Economics in the Blue Cities goes from bad to worse. It seems the left never accepted what happened to Baltimore and Detroit. We were all told that the future would be about huge cities, flying cars, and everyone wearing silver jumpsuits. That is not going to happen.
Economic trendlines are moving from bad to worse. If the government makes good on debt payments, conditions will be inflationary at an accelerating pace. However, the government, like all governments, exists for its benefit. Not for ours. Back when we lived in a Republic, the tendency for government to run roughshod was tempered. But today?
HUNTER’S COLLAPSING WORLD: WHY A CRIMINAL PLEA COULD BE HIS BEST OPTION
This week, Hunter Biden’s defense team traveled to Delaware seeking an update on the federal criminal investigation that has dragged on for almost five years. The reason seems clear: Time is running out on Hunter and the Biden family.
After years of delaying disclosures and admissions, Hunter could now be pushing to cap off the criminal side of the scandal before more information is released in Arkansas and Washington. For years, the Bidens have worked (with the media’s help) to delay any recognition of the influence peddling and corruption that may be revealed on Hunter Biden’s laptop.
It won’t work any more than his long refusal to acknowledge his fathering of his four-year-old child, Navy. Just as Hunter could not deny DNA, forensic and other evidence will soon make his laptop denials untenable in proceedings in which he and his counsel are required to tell the truth.
These proceedings are now colliding for the Bidens.
BLINKEN’S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is claiming the political version of the immaculate conception.
In a Fox interview, Blinken suggests that he is free of blame in the creation of the 2020 letter from former intelligence officials claiming that the Hunter Biden laptop story was likely Russian disinformation.
Despite the primary organizer of the letter naming him as the Biden campaign adviser who first raised the claim, Blinken insists that he remains without sin.
All of the letter signatories are taking the same position. No one is at fault in one of the most calculated false stories ever planted in the midst of an election cycle.
That would be hard enough to believe, but it’s not even the only lie Blinken is accused of telling in relation to Hunter Biden
HUNTER BIDEN MAY BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE
Hunter Biden’s showdown with baby mama Lunden Roberts in a Batesville, Ark., courtroom Monday (5/01) may be the first time in his life that he hasn’t been able to wheedle out of the consequences of his actions.
As Jonathan Turley on Fox reports:
“The viciousness of the Biden family toward Hunter's daughter, 4-year-old Navy Joan borders on monstrous. In the Biden family, the 4-year-old girl remains "she who shall not be named" literally. Not only has President Biden refused to refer to her as a grandchild or even include a Christmas stocking with the other children, her father Hunter is fighting to prevent her from using the Biden name. Indeed, the only reason that Hunter is coming to the same state that his daughter lives in is to seek to reduce his child support.”
The president’s son is crying poor and seeking to cut child support payments to Navy Joan, his unacknowledged 4-year-old daughter with Roberts, a former stripper with whom he had a monthslong affair.
SCOTUS GRANTS REVIEW OF CASE THAT WILL GUT THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
In the biggest news to come out of the Supreme Court of the United States since Roe v. Wade was overturned, the Court has granted a review of Loper Bright Enterprises vs. Raimondo.
In its deliberations, the court will deal with the question of whether to overrule the infamous Chevron Doctrine, a ’80s-era precedent that granted broad powers known as “Chevron Deference” to the bureaucratic state to interpret vague, often narrow statutes with near zero accountability.
The federal government has been completely out of control for decades, and the Chevron Doctrine has been at the heart of many of the abuses. Now, the Supreme Court is poised to overturn the doctrine at some major level. This is incredibly important.
A rollback of administrative agency power would positively impact American lives more than almost any policy Congress or a president could institute. It would send shockwaves throughout the federal government.
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/28/23
Shifting Fortunes Lithium in the West Sudan Erupts in the East
The Old Order continues to crumble as a new one emerges. This week we will look at a power play by China for global lithium dominance at the same time as the Biden Administration announces plans to convert the entire U.S. Military to China-sourced lithium battery power.
According to Biden's latest executive order, Environmental Justice Commissars will now flood Executive Branch departments. Can't fool us; we know that these highly paid make-work jobs are Democrat Party influences. The Executive is now politicized, above and beyond the Diversity Tsar concept.
Fox News's history of abruptly firing talent exposes their place in the Grand Narrative. Remember Lou Dobbs? He was so happy to join Fox after CNN, but they sacked him. Dobbs was first, many followed, and now Tucker Carlson.
Elon Musk is learning that these former anchors have real drawing power, eclipsing all cabal news viewership while requiring minimal overhead or production time lag. Twitter offers faster, fresher news.
Might we see the Tusk News Service, Tucker Carlson, and friends on Elon Musk's Twitter?
We might, and it will change everything…
SKYES LINKS 04/27/23
At 1am this morning (4/27), Tucker released a video on his Twitter feed. Overall, his message is one TTP has been banging the drum on for many moons now: that the media refuses to discuss issues of real importance in a desperate attempt to misdirect their audiences with attention-getting irrelevant issues.
So true – yet puzzlingly, he named no specific issues, real or irrelevant, at all. Just “emerging science” or “demographic issues,” instead of say, “climate change – fact or fraud?” or “deficit spending and inflation.” Maybe that’s because he’s neither a scientist or economist, or maybe this is just a broad-brush intro to what he’ll be talking about in detail later.
In any regard, feel free to judge for yourself in his video below. One thing’s for sure – we’ll be hearing a LOT more from Tucker from now on.
There’s also a LOT more in this issue of Skye’s Links – good news, fun news, news important for you to know, and really intriguing news, like how interest rate repression and inflation are time warpers. Come on in!
VOTERS SAY NO TO BIDEN, BUT JOE IS INTENT ON FINISHING THE (AWFUL) JOB
One of Donald Trump’s gifts is that he drives his enemies so crazy that they do really weird things. The latest evidence came yesterday morning (4/25) when Joe Biden released a three-minute video announcing he is seeking re-election.
The world’s a mess, America is spiraling downward at a rapid rate and Biden would be older than dirt at the end of a second term, but he wants to “finish the job.”
Finish the job?? Apparently not satisfied with merely damaging America, he aims to destroy it. He’s so despised that even most of Biden’s fellow Democrats believe it’s time for him to say goodbye. Yesterday – the day of his announcement, NBC reported polling showing 70% of Americans don’t want Biden to run again – while a majority of 51% of Democrats don’t want him.
So why is he running? I believe there is hidden reason why the president is compelled to run again. Here it is.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR TUCKER
I wouldn’t exactly call Tucker Carlson a friend – even though I appeared on his show at least 50 times.
I’ve never had a beer or a coffee off-set with Tucker. We have very similar views on some issues, like the dangers of cannabis and mRNA jabs, but very different on others like Ukraine.
On the other hand, I wouldn’t exactly say Tucker is just an acquaintance, just another news anchor who interviewed me, either. For two years of Covid and vaccine madness, we had a certain ride or die relationship.
I don’t know why Tucker and Fox parted ways so abruptly. What I do know: The glee on the left about Tucker’s departure is misplaced. Tucker isn’t going anywhere. He has said he won’t run for President. Make no mistake, he would instantly be a serious threat for the Republican nomination if he did.
But if he chooses to stay in media, he will be in line for a payday from a streaming service far, far larger than what he currently makes at Fox. Here’s why.
WHY IS THE FBI HIDING THE NASHVILLE TRANNY TERRORIST’S MANIFESTO?
[Note by JW: Women have more testosterone receptors in their brain than men. As they have no testicles, their ovaries produce well over a magnitude less testosterone than men. To compensate for this, a child or teenage girl’s developing brain produces more receptors. Thus, when a gender dysphoric young woman like Audrey Hale takes testosterone injections to try to be a man, it can send their capacity for aggression to fully psychotic levels.]
If the Nashville shooter had been a straight constitutional conservative would the FBI be blocking the killer's manifesto, or would it be scrutinized for months on every mainstream media platform from day one?
Twenty journals, five laptops, a suicide note and various other notes written by Hale were seized from the house she shared with her parents as well as two memoirs, five Covenant School yearbooks and seven cellphones, according to a FBI search warrant. The FBI is refusing to release them. Can you guess why? Of course you can.
SPY LETTER ABOUT HUNTER BIDEN SHOWS HOW DEMS ARE UNDERMINING DEMOCRACY
In the closing address at last month’s Summit for Democracy, Secretary of State Antony Blinken piously proclaimed, “As President Biden has said, democracy doesn’t happen by accident. It requires constant effort.”
Or in the case of the 2020 election, it required deceiving American voters.
The House Judiciary Committee has revealed that Blinken, then a top Biden adviser, orchestrated the letter from 51 top intelligence officials claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was nothing but a Russian disinformation campaign.
Blinken contacted former acting CIA chief Mike Morell, who swayed scores of other former top officials — including three ex-CIA chiefs — to sign that letter to debunk the biggest threat to the Biden presidential campaign.
Polls show that Biden would have lost the election if the media had accurately reported the contents of that laptop.
SKYE’S LINKS 04/20/23
The A.I. Apocalypse
Authenticity is rapidly becoming the most valuable attribute as the world spins into a whirlpool of computer-generated fake reality. Covid and the trillions spent on narrative control uncovered the vast potential to manipulate people to believe whatever authorities can imagine. The phrase "Fifth Generation Warfare" summarizes the situation where each person is delivered a customized narrative to overcome biases and values via the smartphone interface.
Just today, April 20, Acting CIA Director Michael Morell told Congress that he organized the 51-security professional letter that called the Hunter Biden laptop Russian disinformation under the order of Anthony Blinken. The letter was not an intelligence service work product but a political move motivated by Xiden's promise to make Blinken Secretary of State and Morell the National Security Advisor. The letter was the ultimate political dirty trick and the ultimate election interference. Morell testified to Jim Jordan that they knew the laptop was actual and that their political careers depended upon Xiden.
We will be looking at how A.I. is used to deflect the narrative away from looting Chicago Wal-Marts, manipulating American foreign policy, selling derivatives, or altering elections in today's links.
Under the U.S. Constitution, voting assumes that individuals hold an understanding of truth that is geographically based. The voter can open the front door, walk outside and see reality. While pamphleteers two centuries ago, yellow journalism a century ago, and mass media altered perceptions during the most recent hundred years, A.I. is raising distortion to the stratosphere.
An example is the recently released collection of Pentagon Papers. While they contain some truth, gamers, and others changed statistics, altered paragraphs, inserted new text, and otherwise generated hundreds of falsified documents.
Why did they do it? For sport? Or to alert the world that everything is now fake. Official documents are no longer trustworthy. Even worse, videos and audio recordings can now be easily faked. This manipulation goes well beyond the Film, Wag the Dog, where a fake war was created to manipulate public opinion.
IF MTG IS RIGHT ABOUT BIDEN, IT’S MIND BLOWING
Hunter Biden’s hard drive, which he’s now conceded is legitimate, proved that Hunter was an exceptionally debauched character. Drugs and prostitutes dominated his life for a long time, and his own family didn’t trust him around teenage girls.
That’s why it’s easy to believe Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s as-yet unsubstantiated claim that the Biden family was benefitting from human trafficking both in the U.S. and Eastern Europe—including Russia and (pre-Zelensky) Ukraine. Just because she says it doesn’t mean it’s true, so the real shock is that we live in a world in which it seems possible, even likely.
According to her, in addition to money coming to the Bidens from various foreign countries,
“I just saw evidence of human trafficking. This involved prostitutes not only from here in the United States, but foreign countries like Russia and Ukraine. This is unbelievable that a President and a former Vice President, not only his son Hunter Biden, but many more family members extending past Hunter Biden and his immediate family.”
FORGET MACRON – US AND EUROPE SEE EYE-TO-EYE ON CHINA
In its geopolitical competition with the West, China has long sought to divide the U.S. from Europe. Last week it appeared to score a coup when French President Emmanuel Macron declared Europe wouldn’t follow the U.S.’s approach toward Beijing.
Appearances, though, are deceiving. In fact, the European Union has decisively changed its approach to China in the past year. Europeans use milder language than Americans, saying they wish to “de-risk” their economic relationship with China, not “decouple.”
But in substance, European de-risking and American decoupling look much the same. Indeed, Europe is erecting economic defenses against China that in some cases go further than the U.S.
Which leads to a question: Why do European companies know more about the dangers of doing business with China than Elon Musk?
WITH THE BARBARIANS IN THE GATES, WE MAY NEED OUR OWN BARBARIANS
If you have failed to realize we are living through the most significant social, economic, and political revolution in history, it can only be by a herculean effort in self-deception. So powerful is man’s ability “to thrust aside what they do not desire,” is it any wonder history is replete with catastrophes born of those who would substitute hope for reason?
What makes today’s revolution different is the unholy coalescence of inconceivable powerful, yet wholly corrupt institutions; unimaginable technological capability; and the systematic indoctrination of the most depraved ideology the world has ever known.
What is to be done? One key: You cannot fight barbarians by Marquess of Queensberry rules. As with all decent men, to both their credit and their demise, they are unable to bring themselves to fight any other way.
But we have experience fighting barbarians. We had them in WWII, like Iron Pants LeMay and Blood & Guts Patton. We need such a man now.
MOSCOW ENGULFED BY ANXIETY OVER IMPENDING UKRAINE OFFENSIVE
Combat operations in the Donbas trenches remain deadlocked, but their diminishing intensity does not signify an impasse in the course of the Russo-Ukrainian war, which continues to evolve on the ground.
Most likely, the Russian command has tried to stockpile long-range missiles for a new series of strikes, perhaps aimed at disrupting supply routes for the expected Ukrainian offensive, possibly by hitting key bridges on the Dnipro River (Topwar.ru, April 13).
The mounting anxiety in Russia about the much-anticipated Ukrainian offensive operation constitutes the most significant change in the political context of the war, and it goes in parallel with the realization that the long-promised Russian winter-spring offensive did in fact happen — and spectacularly failing to yield any gains at enormous costs (Topwar.ru, April 10).
HALF-FULL REPORT 04/14/23
Another Animal Feeding Facility Explosion
Feedlot, Food Production, Agricultural Fires
Fires and explosions seem to be breaking out throughout the meat and protein production pipeline. These have been barn burners and not just small fires.The national media is silent, the government is quiet, and the food companies themselves are silent. Heck, even Bill Gates has remained silent.
This week we will look at the Obama-era technology forced upon large controlled animal feeding operations in the name of environmental justice by an incompetent EPA administrator.
Large feeding operations for chickens, hogs, and cows must install water pollution control technologies that produce explosive methane. Yet, the mandated technology lacks a process to dispose of the methane safely.
No air discharge permits are being written to flare off the explosive gas, thanks to an EPA that has repeatedly proven out of control.
Come on over to this week’s HFR, where we will talk about food plant fires. One thing is sure – nobody else is talking about this slow-rolling crisis.
SKYE’S LINKS 04/13/23
Free! Free at last! Well, not quite yet, but we may be on the way to the most important thing that has happened in America since FDR seized monetary gold nine decades ago. Get ready for a Holy Moses! moment. So calm down, get settled for first things first. Before the link below, read about the Texas Bullion Depository.
See texasbulliondepository.gov for details. Okay, now you’re prepped to read what’s below. Worried or terrified about CBDCs that eliminate cash and give the Deep State control over every dime you spend? Texas is riding to your rescue. Please study this well, and hold on to your hat:
Texas Bill Would Create State-Issued Gold-Backed Digital Currency
And what’s this about?
This Skye’s Links is a real blockbuster, so come on in to learn and enjoy!
AIR CELEBRATES THE AMERICAN DREAM
Imagine being able to take your children or grandchildren to a Hollywood blockbuster that tells the story of a great American business success, celebrates entrepreneurial values, isn’t woke, and includes only a little profanity.
Air — the story of how underdog shoe company Nike landed Michael Jordan’s revolutionary endorsement of the “Air Jordan” shoe — is exactly that. The Jordan shoe changed fashion and completely realigned how athletes benefit from products they associate with. It’s still one of the most successful consumer products ever.
Hollywood is fresh from observing how Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick broke box-office records a year ago and grossed over $1 billion worldwide. Though it will still produce many woke films, Hollywood may have decided that it has to pay for its frequent box-office losses by producing entertainment that people actually want to shell out money for.
That’s what Hollywood has done with Air, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. See the Trailer below.
THE NEXT MEDICAL REVOLUTION IS ON THE WAY
Twenty years ago, the idea of putting a live cell in a human, directing it to travel to a specific location, and having it do a specific task would have been considered impossible. Today it’s reality, and hundreds of companies are working on cell-therapy applications.
That’s only the beginning. Advancements arriving at an exponentially increasing rate lie ahead as new discoveries reach the clinic with breathtaking speed. We can now reasonably speculate about therapies that will give us the ability to clean tiny cancers from our bodies as routinely as dentists clean our teeth.
We can look for the possibility of gaining immunity from dozens of viruses with a single vaccine and editing genes to eliminate many birth defects. We can picture growing new organs from patients’ own cells and even slowing the aging process. Here’s why and how.
OUR FRENCH REVOLUTION
We are in a Jacobin Revolution of the sort that in 1793-94 nearly destroyed France. And things are getting scary.
The Democrat Party vanished completely sometime in 2020.
It was absorbed by hard-left ideologues. They were bent on radically altering, or hijacking, existing institutions to force radical, equality-of-result agendas that otherwise do not earn majority support.
What triggered the collective madness and this Jacobin takeover? The catalysts are many.
America now has three potential futures and two are bad.
PUTIN’S BUBBLE
Decision-making in the Kremlin had been so erratic—even before the re-invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022—that the proposition of President Vladimir Putin inhabiting a bubble of servile courtiers and carefully doctored information appeared perfectly plausible.
Early April 2023 has brought even more evidence supporting this assumption of detachment from reality typical for mature autocratic regimes but aggravated by an unhealthy ambition for determining the course of global affairs.
Bubbles, however, are diaphanously short-lived by their nature. Is Putin’s approaching the bursting point?
SKYE’S LINKS 04/06/23
Institutional Loss of Faith
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Loss of faith in American – and global – institutions is accelerating. Whether the institutions are public or private, religious or secular, tangible or financial, the credibility gap is becoming a giant fissure.
People long for authenticity, the real deal, but are served up a diet of fake university outrage, indictments, and impeachments on counterfeit charges, fake science, and fake news.
Lately, we are being hammered with fake women. There was a day when it was more straightforward. Remember the advertising jingle for coconut/chocolate candy bars? “Almond Joy got nuts – Mounds don’t?” Once upon a time it only upset Miss Prissy, the fourth-grade English teacher. Singing that old ditty in the wrong place today will get a guy arrested.
Underlying all this is the realization that about half of the profit made in the United States from all sources is from finance. This means creating and servicing debt, and those that pull the biggest financial levers dominate the economy and American policy.
Marginal borrowers are being wiped out as interest rate increases force the repricing of underlying assets, yet the financial industry has no risk. They can always count on a bailout.
A rage is brewing, and each new insult and fake promise is like more gasoline on the fire. The government wants us to focus on fake eyelashes on fake women, but actual bankruptcies and business failures command attention.
These types of rages have happened before. In 1776, 1861, 1933, and now today. They bring change through violence as the ballot box is compromised.
TTPers will note the consistency of warnings of the growing rage and distrust of intuitions. With every car repossessed, every home foreclosed upon, and every vacation canceled, middle America is waking up to the calamity of being overleveraged. They thought they were following the path toward prosperity.
BRAGG’S COMPLETELY MORONIC NON-INDICTMENT INDICTMENT
[Dispensing with all the hysteria, Andy McCarthy cuts right to the bottom line so clearly that anyone can understand: this is literally no indictment at all. The absurdity of Trump’s persecution is bottomless—JW]
It’s always possible to be surprised. The indictment brought by Manhattan’s elected Democrat district attorney Alvin Bragg against Donald Trump is even worse than I’d imagined.
Bragg’s indictment fails to state a crime. Not once . . . but 34 times. On that ground alone, the case should be dismissed — before one ever gets to the facts that the statute of limitations has lapsed and that Bragg has no jurisdiction to enforce federal law. At his press conference, he blathered about federal campaign-finance law, but he knows he lacks jurisdiction to enforce federal law. He has no crime.
HOW TO PUT ALVIN BRAGG IN PRISON

Arrest Alvin Bragg T-shirt on sale here
On Monday night (4/03), it was leaked that Donald Trump will be charged with 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records. The details of the indictment were not supposed to be released, and Trump quickly called out District Attorney Alvin Bragg for illegally leaking the details of the indictment.
“Wow! District Attorney Bragg just illegally LEAKED the various points, and complete information, on the pathetic Indictment against me,” Trump wrote in a post shared on Truth Social. “I know the reporter and so, unfortunately, does he. This means that he MUST BE IMMEDIATELY INDICTED. Now, if he wants to really clean up his reputation, he will do the honorable thing and, as District Attorney, INDICT HIMSELF.”
Bragg certainly won’t indict himself, but, as Tucker Carlson noted, leaking details from Trump’s sealed indictment is bigger than the crimes for which Trump has been indicted. The act of leaking grand jury testimony is considered a Class E felony under New York state law.