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America First – Why We Need To End All “Foreign Aid” – with Joshua Smith
Posted by M. C. on May 8, 2024
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Opposing The War Machine Is Cool Again, And The Empire’s Getting Nervous
Posted by M. C. on May 8, 2024
Seriously, how can a bunch of boring empire managers in DC and Virginia hope to compete once that happens? What are they going to do, win the young back by writing another Wall Street Journal think piece? Have Netanyahu rap about how Zionism is rad while Tony Blinken plays guitar? They’ve got nothing.
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/opposing-the-war-machine-is-cool
American rapper Macklemore has released a single titled “Hind’s Hall”, the name given to Columbia University’s Hamilton Hall by anti-genocide protesters in honor of the six year-old Hind Rajab who was murdered in Gaza by Israeli forces. The artist says all proceeds from the track will go to UNRWA.
The song with its accompanying video is such a scathing indictment of the US-backed destruction of Gaza that Google-owned YouTube promptly age-restricted it. Macklemore attacks Biden, the brutal police crackdowns on protesters, the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-semitism, US politicians and the Israel lobby, with lines that will haunt you for days like “The Nakba never ended, the colonizer lied.”
This marks the first really mainstream artist to take on this issue in their chosen medium with a track intended for widespread circulation. It probably won’t be the last. Opposing the Gaza genocide is quickly moving from the right thing to do to the cool thing to do, which is a major problem for the empire.
The empire can handle being on the wrong side of an issue; it has all the media and mainstream culture-manufacturing institutions on its side, which allows it to frame public perception of that issue in a way that quells dissent. What it absolutely cannot handle is a critical mass of young people deciding the imperial murder machine sucks, and that opposing it is fun and makes you cool.
That’s when dissent takes on a momentum of its own. As long as opposing militarism and imperialism is just the morally correct thing to do it will always be a marginal position in an information ecosystem that’s controlled by the powerful, because simply being on the right side of an issue has little natural magnetism of its own. But the instant it moves from being about morality to being fun and cool it suddenly starts crackling with energy and drawing in huge numbers of people who normally wouldn’t be that interested on their own.
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ruinous prices – paid by others
Posted by M. C. on May 8, 2024
Thomas Sowell
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The Flat Tax Revisited Yet Again
Posted by M. C. on May 7, 2024
There is nothing moral about a flat tax or any other tax that confiscates 17 percent, or any other percent, of someone’s income and then redistributes it, wastes it on government boondoggles, spends it on unconstitutional agencies or programs, sends it to foreigners and their governments, and funds unnecessary and immoral foreign military adventures.
Having a progressive income tax is indeed one of the 10 key planks of the Communist Manifesto and an instrument of class warfare. Yet the flat tax is also progressive, just like the current tax system with its seven tax brackets.
Tax season ended last month, but talk of tax reform is still very much with us.What is really needed is the abolition of welfare-warfare programs, along with the income tax that funds them.
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Many provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) that the Republican-controlled Congress passed, and President Trump signed into law, in 2017 will expire at the end of 2025, along with other temporary tax provisions not enacted by the TCJA—commonly known as “tax extenders.”
After 2025, marginal tax rates will revert to their pre-TCJA levels of 10, 15, 25, 28, 33, 35, and 39.6 percent. The basic standard deduction amounts will revert to their lower pre-TCJA levels and then be adjusted for inflation. The personal exemption will be reinstated and then be adjusted for inflation. The child credit will revert to its lower pre-TCJA amount. The “credit for other dependents” or “other dependent credit” (ODC) instituted by the TCJA will also expire. Cash contributions to charity will generally be limited to 50 percent of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI). Taxpayers who itemize their deductions will no longer have a cap on their state and local tax (SALT) deduction, and the estate and gift tax exclusion amount will be cut in half and then be adjusted annually for inflation.
At a recent event in New York City, Steve Forbes—the editor-in-chief of Forbes who sought the Republican presidential nomination in 1996 and 2000—said that “he is advocating for Trump to support a flat 17% tax rate for all income brackets with ‘generous’ exemptions.’” For a family of four, Forbes suggests that the first $54,000 of income be exempt from federal income tax.
The event was organized by the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, whose mission is “to educate policy makers and the public about government policies that have been proven, in practice, to maximize economic growth and equitable prosperity in America and around the world.” The founders of the committee are Arthur Laffer, Stephen Moore, Larry Kudlow, and Steve Forbes.
Forbes has been one of the biggest proponents of a flat tax, and it was the centerpiece of his presidential campaigns and the subject of his 2005 book, Flat Tax Revolution: Using a Postcard to Abolish the IRS (Regnery, 2005).
I have been one of the biggest critics of the flat tax—and the FairTax and every other conservative tax-reform plan. I first visited the flat tax idea in my 2006 review of Forbes’s book, and then again in my 2008 New American article, “The Flat Tax Is Not Flat.” I revisited the flat tax again in my 2015 LewRockwell.com article, “The Flat Tax Revisited.” I think it is now time to revisit the flat tax yet again.
According to Forbes:
NEXT TO THE UNSTABLE DOLLAR, the biggest deadweight today on the American economy is the horrific federal income tax code. It is past time we junked this incomprehensible, opportunity-killing and corrupting monstrosity and replaced it with a simple flat tax.
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Public Schools and the State’s Omnipotent Bayonet
Posted by M. C. on May 7, 2024
It’s one of those fascinating aspects of the institution so many people regard as indispensable — you can’t hold the state responsible for its actions or negligence. You can’t hold it responsible for school slaughters or overseas military murders. You can’t hold it responsible for its endless lies and the damage they cause. You can’t hold it responsible for balancing its budget. You can’t hold it responsible for deliberately debasing the currency.
But in the spirit of double standards, the state, backed by its omnipotent bayonet, can hold you responsible for anything it chooses, especially the payment of tribute. We’ve surrendered our freedom to armed government bureaucrats.
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/05/george-f-smith/public-schools-and-the-states-omnipotent-bayonet
From everything I read you would think we were incapable of solving social problems.
In truth, we find matters only getting worse because the proposed solutions almost always involve the culprit — the state — taking more control over our lives.
The state is a box we desperately need to think outside of if we’re ever going to establish civil relations among people. We would do well to remember that the state is absolutely not in the business of making our lives better. It is an institution appended to the rest of society through force for the purpose of enriching the lives of its members.
Modern welfare states might make this difficult to understand, but it’s no less true. The State is not in the business of producing wealth and then distributing it to the most needy or deserving. It is not the successful entrepreneur turned humanitarian when it dishes out payments to favored beggars, whether they be unemployed workers, corporate cronies, foreign dictators, research facilities, or any other rent seeker. It is best thought of as a homicidal thief who takes pains to appear as a good guy.
The state is fundamentally a criminal organization and liberty’s greatest enemy. It’s that simple, and that ugly. For starters see Anatomy of the State, The Criminality of the State, and The Left, the Right, and the State. “Your entire life is at the mercy of the State,” writes Hoppe in A Short History of Man.
The state, being criminal and criminally inept, creates the crises that naive or disingenuous people blame on liberty.
Interventionist mania has been hugely successful but only as a means of bloating the state. Otherwise it achieves the opposite of its stated aims. Has the state been successful in preventing terrorist attacks? Has it achieved its stated goal of eradicating poverty? Have state regulations in health care, which began long before ObamaCare, succeeded in making health care better and more affordable? Did its countless financial regulations prevent the recession of 2007-2008? How about the job it did following 9/11, with Orwell at home and bloody cakewalks overseas, both of which are running indefinitely? Should we be surprised the state is meddling in Israel – Hamas, Ukraine – Russia, and China – Taiwan? The American state seems bent on pursuing nuclear Armageddon.
School shootings
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History Repeats Itself As Communists Run Out Of Food
Posted by M. C. on May 7, 2024
Worldviews · May 1, 2024 · BabylonBee.com
https://babylonbee.com/news/history-repeats-itself-as-communists-run-out-of-food
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY — History has again repeated itself as communism once again devolved into mass starvation. The commies at Columbia University lasted less than twelve hours before running out of food and pleading for humanitarian aid, setting a new record for the collapse of communist food supply.
“Okay, time-out on the intifada revolution, we’re out of pizza rolls,” said Tara Gentry-Smith, protest organizer and self-proclaimed commie. “I’m going to go see if the people we just assaulted will send us some DoorDash. Ugh, why are we always running out of food?”
Communist protestors had barricaded themselves in buildings over the weekend and soon realized they had no means of production to feed themselves. Activists tried to enact communal ownership of the snacks they did have, but supplies ran out quickly.
“Man, why didn’t we take over the food court?” lamented protestor Drake Jones. “I’m so hungry. I haven’t had Chipotle in almost eight hours now! Still, I bet the people of Gaza are inspired by our sacrifice.”
As of publishing time, the protestors had told onlookers that true communism hadn’t been tried and that they were going to start a new, even better collective one building over.
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The World Economic Forum Is Still Conspiring Against Your Freedom
Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2024
by James Bovard
Australian senator Malcolm Roberts warned:
“The plan of the Great Reset is that you will die with nothing. Klaus Schwab’s ‘life by subscription’ is really serfdom. It’s slavery. Billionaire, globalist corporations will own everything — homes, factories, farms, cars, furniture — and everyday citizens will rent what they need, if their social credit score allows.”
The world’s kingpins will need to tighten all the mental thumbscrews for propertyless serfs to “be happy.” Public euphoria could be in especially short supply considering other policies championed at the WEF…
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Georgia Accuses Washington of trying to overthrow the country in order to open a second front against Russia
Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2024
Paul Craig Roberts
It is just as I said, and Putin’s inability to recognize reality and endlessly prolonging the conflict in Ukraine is bringing Russia and the world more trouble.
Putin’s dithering has now brought the French Foreign Legion to the front lines in Ukraine, and western Ukraine is accumulating NATO troops. As I have emphasized from the beginning, wars need to be quickly won, not extended indefinitely.
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The World Economic Forum Is Still Conspiring Against Your Freedom
Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2024
by James Bovard
The WEF officials have complained bitterly that it is “misinformation” to assert that they are power-crazed maniacs. But consider its June 2020 call for a Great Reset for humanity:
To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.
“Misinformation” seems to include any facts which obstruct WEF cronies from ruling the earth.
Last January, humanity’s elite gathered again in Davos, Switzerland, to plan out the rest of our lives. World Economic Forum (WEF) honchos are morally superior because they are devoted to destroying your freedom to save the Earth, or at least to safeguard plant habitat.So many of the follies championed at Davos arise from the boneheaded delusion that political power is irredeemably benevolent.
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Sixty heads of government from around the world attended, as did endless Lear Jet–loads of multilateral officials. Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, out-blathered President Biden: “The world is not at a single inflection point; it is at multi-inflection points.” (Biden drags “inflection points” into almost every speech.)
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres told the WEF crowd that “deep reforms to global governance” were needed. And who better to deepen governance than the United Nations, the supreme tyrants’ club in the solar system?
Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, declared, “We have a responsibility to be stewards of our beautiful, small planet’s future. There is something that leaders need to embrace, and it is the responsibility to act, even if it’s not popular.” This spiel perfectly captured the prevailing disdain for democracy — or at least of any populace that fails to vote themselves into ever-greater subjection to their self-proclaimed-expert saviors. WEF Founder Klaus Schwab whooped up the Davos attendees as “trustees of the future.”
No wonder that Australian senator Alex Antic warned in the Australian Parliament: “The WEF is steeped in authoritarianism and Marxist ideology. It’s an ideology which is creeping into governments across the world.”
A world of censorship
The WEF had two big goals this year: “restore trust” and “crush dissent.” Okay, that last one is a paraphrase. Instead, the WEF is proclaiming that the greatest peril humanity now faces is “misinformation and disinformation.” And it knows this because its own truths are self-evident.
The WEF officials have complained bitterly that it is “misinformation” to assert that they are power-crazed maniacs. But consider its June 2020 call for a Great Reset for humanity:
To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.
“Misinformation” seems to include any facts which obstruct WEF cronies from ruling the earth. The WEF’s latest Global Risks Report warns, “Some governments and platforms … may fail to act to effectively curb falsified information and harmful content, making the definition of ‘truth’ increasingly contentious across societies.” In other words, governments must suppress “falsified” information to save truth. The WEF presumes governments are founts of truth — regardless of “politician” being a term of derision going back thousands of years. Or maybe the WEF considers “truth” the same type of luxury nowadays as eating meat.
The destruction of private property
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9 Changes Disney Is Bringing To ‘The Chosen’
Posted by M. C. on May 6, 2024
Entertainment · May 3, 2024 · BabylonBee.com
The official announcement that the popular biblical drama The Chosen will begin streaming on Disney+ elicited a mixed fan response, with some viewers wondering what types of changes Disney might make to the show.
In an exclusive report, The Babylon Bee can reveal the following list of changes Disney is bringing to The Chosen:
- Jesus now has two mommies: The Bible finally gets a little groundbreaking storytelling.
- Rose Tico stops Jesus from sacrificing Himself: “That’s how we’re gonna win.”
- Simon Peter will now be played by a woman of color: Time to add some diversity to the endless parade of male Middle-Eastern characters.
- The Walt Disney Company will now own the trademark to the New Testament: The House of Mouse drives a hard bargain at the negotiating table.
- God the Father is now voiced by Chris Pratt: He has an ironclad contract to play all voiceover roles in everything from now on.
- Jesus applauds the woman at the well for her empowering polyamorous relationship: She even teaches Jesus a thing or two about what it means to love others.
- Baby Yoda has been added as the 13th disciple: It’s all about that merch money.
- Each episode will now include a musical number written by Elton John: You’ll be hard-pressed not to tear up when Thomas sings his epic ballad “Without A Doubt.”
- The show ends when the bigoted, narrow-minded followers of Christ get converted to woke secular multiculturalism: Disney always makes sure the right side wins at the end.
Yes, Disney may be taking some artistic license with the story… but, it’s The Chosen. That’s nothing new.
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