Authored by Breck Henderson via RealClearDefense,

When I woke up on the morning of November 6, I felt that America had changed.  A new spirit was suddenly alive.  The day before I had been afraid my country would be forced to endure more years of living out the lies of “wokeism,” the ideology of the radical Left and the current government.  What’s bad about that?  The best and most concise description of wokeness I’ve found comes from professor of philosophy Edward Fesser who wrote:

Wokeness is] a paranoid delusional hyper-egalitarian mindset that seems to see oppression and injustice where they do not exist or greatly exaggerate them where they do exist.

In general, wokeness . . . is essentially about the radical subversion of normal human life in the name of a paranoid metaphysical delusion. It is fueled by a seething envy and resentment directed against the natural order of things.

The repercussions of trying to live out a “paranoid delusion” are widespread.  For those who resist the delusions, it can mean alienation from family and friends or the destruction of one’s professional life.  Basically, becoming a victim of cancel culture.  A woke oligarchy in charge of American institutions brings a multitude of threats — from having gender dysphoric children taken away from parents to the destruction of our military’s morale and readiness.           

But maintaining a paranoid delusion is strenuous.  It requires a great deal of mental energy, and as a nation I sense that we are exhausted from the effort.  Among the delusions have been that human gender is fluid and multifaceted, that we must adopt BLM’s racist ideology, that America is incurably racist, that Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is the solution to American racism, that masculinity is somehow toxic, and much more.  When something simply can’t go on any longer, it ends, and I’m beginning to sense that wokeism can’t go on.

The decisiveness of Trump’s victory signaled a huge shift in American politics, a mass retreat from wokeism, and I believe a big factor in that shift was plain old exhaustion with the lies and delusions foisted upon us by the radical, woke Left. 

When such a seismic shift occurs, it reverberates throughout America and then throughout the world.  It means it’s safe to acknowledge the truth again, and that goes right down to the local level.

There is not a clearer example of this than Daniel Penny’s recent acquittal on manslaughter charges by a New York jury.  After living through a period during which courage has been defined as going public with one’s homosexuality or gender dysphoria, real courage has been vindicated in a very public way.

The nature of the event that landed Penny in court was absolutely clear.  A courageous young man, a former U.S. Marine, protected people in a New York subway car from a dangerous, threatening psychotic.  Penny had no intention of killing that man — Jordan Neely — he only wanted to prevent him from carrying out the threats he was making. 

Penny should never have been indicted.  Had this happened in Texas, or most other places outside of New York, no Grand Jury would have returned an indictment.  Had Neely been white, no indictment would have been brought.  Only in the supercharged racial atmosphere evoked by the paranoid delusions of BLM politics could such a charge have gained traction.  If you haven’t done so, I urge you to watch the interview with Penny streaming now on Fox Nation here.

Penny recounts that Neely barged into the subway car and immediately began demanding things, then threatening to kill people, saying he was going to jail for life. Penny said that, in the subway car, there was a mother with a child in her arms, young school children, and others, and they were all scared.  He was scared as well.

Penny said he removed his ear buds and handed them along with his cell phone to someone sitting next to him and then grabbed Neely, pulling the man down to the floor on top of himself.  They struggled there for several minutes.  Penny said Neely was extremely strong and had amazing endurance.

Penny suspected Neely had been using a drug called K2.  According to information from American Addiction Centers, K2 is a synthetic cannabinoid, 660 times more potent than marijuana.  It is strongly associated with psychosis, agitation and irritability, and can lead to seizures, convulsions, stroke, elevated blood pressure, heart rhythm abnormalities, kidney failure, heart attack, and sometimes death.  The autopsy showed that Penny was correct, K2 was in his system and likely caused his death.

Daniel Penny is a talented, thoughtful, courageous, and highly moral young man.  He became a U.S. Marine because he wanted to serve his country, and he credits this decision for bringing out the best in himself.  He said: “I became who I am in the Marine Corps.  I met amazing people who brought out who I truly am.  “There’s this image of a Marine as a stone-faced jarhead, but you have to have compassion to be a competent Marine,” he said.

I asked retired Marine Corps Major General Bob Hollingsworth if he would expect every Marine to act the way Daniel Penny did: “Marines are taught to analyze a situation and if there is danger to take action.  I pray that every Marine would do that.”

Penny’s platoon sergeant testified at his trial, saying that all Marines are taught to uphold the Marine Corps values of “honor, courage and commitment.”  “If you don’t uphold those values, you don’t get promoted,” he said.  Penny was promoted to Sergeant (pay grade E-5) during his four-year service.

General Hollingsworth mentioned that he was also proud back in 2015 of U.S. Air Force Airman First Class Spencer Stone, Oregon National Guard Specialist Alek Skarlatos and college senior Anthony Sadler, all friends from childhood, who subdued a radical Islamic terrorist on a train in France.  Read about it here.

The three were on leave and taking a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris when they saw a man get on the train with an AK-47 and a handgun.  They immediately rushed to tackle him, disarmed him and prevented what could easily have been a massacre had they not acted.  Airman Stone was seriously injured by the terrorist who wielded a box cutter during the struggle.  In this case, the three plus a British man who assisted them, were hailed as heroes and congratulated by President Obama and European leaders.       

Neither New York nor the mainstream media were so discerning or kind to Daniel Penny.  Since leaving the Marine Corps he has been studying to become an architect.  He has always lived in or near New York City and he said the buildings and skyline have inspired him to study architecture as a career.  What a tragedy it would have been had this young man been convicted and his life destroyed by a lie. 

Penny said when asked why he chose to physically subdue Neely: 

If I didn’t do something the guilt I would have felt if someone did get hurt, if he did what he was threatening to do — I would never be able to live with myself — and I’ll take a million court appearances, people calling me names, people hating me, just to keep one of those people from getting hurt or killed.

General Hollingsworth praised that sentiment. “Daniel Penny has my respect,” he said.

The facts surrounding Penny’s actions were obvious to any clear thinking American citizen from the start, but BLM delusions have been so vigorously enforced since the summer of 2020’s George Floyd riots, that the Manhattan jury apparently had a tough time reaching its verdict.  I don’t believe those jurors could have felt empowered to act on the truth had President Trump not won a decisive victory on November 5.

In the end, Daniel Penny is an American hero — a man who could not sit by and let a psychotic man hurt others when it was within his power to prevent it.  The prosecutors denigrated his military training and experience.  In a rational society people should admire and encourage willingness to train and become a “compassionate warrior” — the world would be a far better place if every young man aspired to and trained for that ethic.

Is Penny bitter because his good deed resulted in his life being disrupted for more than a year, and weeks in court with the threat of being sent to prison?  Not at all.

People who were in the [subway] car remained on the platform and were thanking me.  Throughout the whole trial, I only cared about what those witnesses said.  I love America and that people have a right to protest, but they [protestors] didn’t have any of the facts.  They weren’t there.  The witnesses were there and they thanked me.  It’s disheartening that the prosecutor tried to discredit my military service and my awards.  I gave up four years of my life for no other reason than to serve my country.  It’s frustrating that there are people like this in our government, who do this [indict him for a good deed] who are supposed to be protecting people and our rights.

Penny said he doesn’t want praise or fame.  “Friends and everyone I’ve met have been supportive of me.  It’s been very humbling and I’m grateful for that.  Throughout the whole process I had faith in the system and my team and in God.”

I’m reminded of the famous poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling.  The first verse:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

Daniel Penny kept his head during a tense situation.  He trusted in himself and in God when it seemed everyone was against him.  He was patient, he told the truth, and he did not return the hate of those who hated him.  And he refuses to consider himself a hero.  As Kipling says in the final lines of the poem: 

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And — which is more — you’ll be a man, my son!

 Daniel Penny is a man in the best sense — we should all be proud of him.

Breck Henderson is a retired Navy Reserve Officer, retired nuclear engineer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and retired journalist for Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine.  He writes regularly on Substack, and crafts fiction in the form of short stories, plays and screenplays when he’s not enjoying being a grandfather to eight grandchildren.

Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations,

Topline: When Boston City Councilor Tania Fernandes Anderson faces trial on public corruption charges, she’ll have the help of a public defender meant for those who can’t afford an attorney, the Boston Herald reported.

Anderson made $103,500 in 2023, according to payroll records at OpenTheBooks.com.

Key facts: Anderson allegedly organized a kickback scheme that netted her thousands of dollars of federal and city funds. The FBI arrested her in December, charged with wire fraud and theft. She has denied all wrongdoing.

Despite her decent public salary, Anderson said she is unable to pay for her own lawyer. 

ourt filings noted her “personal financial difficulty … which included missing monthly rent and car payments, an impending $5,000 civil liability from the Ethics Commission, and incurring bank overdraft fees, which resulted from Fernandes Anderson maintaining low daily bank balances,” according to the Boston Herald.

Attorneys appointed by the Federal Defender Program earn $172 per hour in non-capital cases. 

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com.

Critical quote: “It’s more than ironic that a woman who said she cared about the struggles of her constituents of limited means is taking money from the public coffers — money that could otherwise be used to help the very people she claimed to care about,” said Wendy Murphy, an attorney and columnist at the Boston Herald. “With such a good salary she should have to at least contribute.”

Background: While not all public defenders work with high-profile clients, many rake in huge profits from taxpayers. That’s on top of the often lucrative salaries they can earn in their private practice.

Federal defenders working on capital cases earn up to $220 per hour.

Hourly rates vary at the state level. Court-appointed attorneys in Maryland can legally earn up to $164 per hour, more than any other state, though the Maryland Public Defender Office told OpenTheBooks their budget only allows them to pay $75 per hour.

In New York, some lawyers are earning up to $428,000 per year from taxpayers while still earning a salary from their private firm, according to Buffalo News.

Summary: If Fernandes Anderson is guilty, she’s already taken enough from taxpayers without billing them for her legal fees.

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com

Authored by Josh Stylman via The Brownstone Institute,

When Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence, announced during Event 201’s pandemic drill in 2019 that they would “flood the zone with trusted sources,” few understood this preview of coordinated narrative control. Within months, we watched it unfold in real time—unified messaging across all platforms, suppression of dissent, and coordinated narrative control that fooled much of the world.

But not everyone stayed fooled forever. Some saw through it immediately, questioning every aspect from day one. Others thought it was just incompetent government trying to protect us. Many initially accepted the precautionary principle—better safe than sorry. But as each policy failure pointed in the same direction—toward more control and less human agency—the pattern became impossible to ignore. Anyone not completely subsumed by the system eventually had to confront its true purpose: not protecting health or safety, but expanding control.

Once you recognize this pattern of deception, two questions should immediately arise whenever major stories dominate headlines: “What are they lying about?” and “What are they distracting us from?” The pattern of coordinated deception becomes unmistakable. Consider how media outlets spent three years pushing Russiagate conspiracies, driving unprecedented social division while laying the groundwork for what would become the greatest psychological operation in history. Today, while the media floods us with Ukraine coverage, BlackRock positions itself to profit from both the destruction and reconstruction. The pattern becomes unmistakable once you see it—manufactured crises driving pre-planned “solutions” that always expand institutional control.

Mainstream media operates on twin deceptions: misdirection and manipulation. The same anchors who sold us WMDs in Iraq, promoted “Russia collusion,” and insisted Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation” still occupy prime time slots. Just as we see with RFK, Jr.’s HHS nomination, the pattern is consistent: coordinated attacks replace substantive debate, identical talking points appear across networks, and legitimate questions are dismissed through character assassination rather than evidence. Being consistently wrong isn’t a bug—it’s a feature. Their role isn’t to inform but to manufacture consent.

The template is consistent: Saturate media with emotional spectacles while advancing institutional agendas with minimal scrutiny. Like learning to spot a fake smile or hearing a false note in music, you develop an instinct for the timing:

Money and Power:

• While the media fixated on January 6th, BlackRock and Vanguard quietly tightened their grip on the residential real estate market
• While coverage obsessed over Trump’s Twitter ban, Congress passed the largest upward transfer of wealth under cover of “Covid relief“
• While breathless reporting tracked every move of the Johnny Depp trial, the Fed printed more money than in the entire previous century
• While media flooded us with Ukraine coverage, unprecedented restrictions on energy production reshaped the global economy
• While reporters breathlessly tracked Trump indictments, central banks accelerated plans for programmable digital currency

Medical Control:

• While media focused on celebrity vaccine promotion, unprecedented numbers of young athletes collapsed on field
• While networks ran wall-to-wall coverage of school shootings, documents revealed Pfizer knew about hundreds of side effects
• While coverage fixated on anti-vax “misinformation,” insurance data showed alarming excess death rates

Digital Control:

• While media obsessed over Twitter content moderation, digital ID infrastructure was quietly built worldwide
• While coverage focused on TikTok privacy concerns, central banks accelerated digital currency development
• While endless AI chatbot debates dominated headlines, biometric surveillance systems expanded globally

As these deceptions become more obvious, different forms of resistance emerge. The truth-seeking takes different forms. Some become deep experts in specific deceptions—documenting early treatment successes with repurposed drugs, uncovering hospital protocol failures, or exploring the impact of vaccine injuries. Others develop a broader lens for seeing how narratives themselves are engineered.

Walter Kirn’s brilliant pattern recognition cuts to the heart of our manufactured reality. His tweets dissecting the United CEO murder coverage expose how even violent crimes are now packaged as entertainment spectacles, complete with character arcs and narrative twists. Kirn’s insight highlights a critical dimension of media control: by turning every crisis into an entertainment narrative, they divert attention from deeper questions. Instead of asking why institutional safeguards fail or who benefits, audiences become captivated by carefully scripted outrage. This deliberate distraction ensures that institutional agendas move forward without scrutiny.

His insight reveals how entertainment packaging serves the broader control system. While each investigation requires its own expertise, this pattern of narrative manipulation connects to a larger grid of deception. As I’ve explored in “The Information Factory” and “Engineering Reality,” everything from education to medicine to currency itself has been captured by systems designed to shape not just our choices, but our very perception of reality.

Most revealing is what they don’t cover. Notice how quickly stories disappear when they threaten institutional interests. Remember the Epstein client list? The Maui land grab? The mounting vaccine injuries? The silence speaks volumes. 

Consider the recent whistleblower testimonies revealing suppressed safety concerns at Boeing, a company long entangled with regulatory agencies and government contracts. Two whistleblowers—both former employees who raised alarms about safety issues—died under suspicious circumstances. Coverage of their deaths disappeared almost overnight, despite the profound implications for public safety and corporate accountability. This pattern repeats in countless cases where accountability would disrupt entrenched power structures, leaving crucial questions unanswered and narratives tightly controlled.

These decisions aren’t accidental—they result from media ownership, advertiser influence, and government pressure, ensuring the narrative remains tightly controlled.

But perhaps most striking isn’t the media’s deception itself, but how thoroughly it shapes its consumers’ reality. Watch how confidently they repeat phrases clearly engineered in think tanks. Listen as they parrot talking points with religious conviction: “January 6th was worse than 9/11,” “Trust The Science™,” “Democracy is on the ballot” and, perhaps the most consequential lie in modern history, “Safe and Effective.”

The professional-managerial class proves especially susceptible to this programming. Their expertise becomes a prison of status—the more they’ve invested in institutional approval, the more fervently they defend institutional narratives. Watch how quickly a doctor who questions vaccine safety loses his license, how swiftly a professor questioning gender ideology faces review, how rapidly a journalist stepping out of line gets blacklisted.

The system ensures compliance through economic capture: your mortgage becomes your leash, your professional status your prison guard. The same lawyers who prides themselves on critical thinking will aggressively shut down any questioning of official narratives. The professor who teaches “questioning power structures” becomes apoplectic when students question pharmaceutical companies.

The circular validation makes the programming nearly impenetrable:

• Media cites “experts”
• Experts cite peer-reviewed studies
• Studies are funded by industry
• Industry shapes media coverage
• “Fact-checkers” cite media consensus
• Academia enforces approved conclusions

This self-reinforcing system forms a perfect closed loop:

Each component validates the others while excluding outside information. Try finding the entry point for actual truth in this closed system. The professional class’s pride in their critical thinking becomes darkly ironic—they’ve simply outsourced their opinions to “authoritative sources.”

Most disturbing is how willingly they’ve surrendered their sovereignty. Watch them defer:

• “I follow the science” (translation: I wait for approved conclusions)
• “According to experts” (translation: I don’t think for myself)
• “Fact-checkers say” (translation: I let others determine truth)
• “The consensus is” (translation: I align with power)

Their empathy becomes a weapon used against them. Question lockdowns? You’re killing grandma. Doubt transition surgery for minors? You’re causing suicides. Resist equity initiatives? You’re perpetuating oppression. The programming works by making resistance feel like cruelty.

Something remarkable is happening beneath the surface noise: a genuine awakening that defies traditional political boundaries. You see it in the subtle exchanges between colleagues when official narratives strain credibility. In the growing silence at dinner parties as propaganda talking points fall flat. In the knowing looks between strangers when public health theatre reaches new heights of absurdity.

This isn’t a movement in the traditional sense—it can’t be, since traditional movement structures are vulnerable to infiltration, subversion, and capture. Instead, it’s more like a spontaneous emergence of pattern recognition. A distributed awakening without central leadership or formal organization. Those who see through the patterns recognize the mass formation for what it is, while its subjects project their own programming onto others, dismissing pattern recognition as “conspiracy theories,” “anti-science,” or other reflexive labels designed to prevent genuine examination.

The hardest truth isn’t recognizing the programming—it’s confronting what it means for human consciousness and society itself. We’re watching real-time evidence that most human minds can be captured and redirected through sophisticated psychological operations. Their thoughts aren’t their own, yet they’d die defending what they’ve been programmed to believe.

This isn’t just media criticism anymore—it’s an existential question about human consciousness and free will. What does it mean when a species’ capacity for independent thought can be so thoroughly hijacked? When natural empathy and moral instincts become weapons of control? When education and expertise actually decrease resistance to programming?

The programming works because it hijacks core human drives:

• The need for social acceptance (e.g., masking as a visible symbol of conformity)
• The desire to be seen as good/moral (e.g., adopting performative stances on social issues without deeper understanding)
• The instinct to trust authority (e.g., faith in public health officials despite repeated policy reversals)
• The fear of ostracism (e.g., avoiding dissent to maintain social harmony)
• The comfort of conformity (e.g., parroting narratives to avoid cognitive dissonance)
• The addiction to status (e.g., signaling compliance to maintain professional or social standing)

Each natural human trait becomes a vulnerability to be exploited. The most educated become the most programmable because their status addiction runs deepest. Their “critical thinking” becomes a script running on corrupted hardware.

This is the core challenge of our time: Can human consciousness evolve faster than the systems designed to hijack it? Can pattern recognition and awareness spread faster than manufactured consensus? Can enough people learn to read between the lies before the programming becomes complete?

The stakes could not be higher. This isn’t just about politics or media literacy—it’s about the future of human consciousness itself. Whether our species maintains the capacity for independent thought may depend on those who can still access it helping others break free from the spell.

The matrix of control deepens daily, but so does the awakening. The question is: Which spreads faster—the programming or the awareness of it? Our future as a species may depend on the answer.

The Deutche Bank 2025 global financial market survey had 471 responses from around the world, and was conducted between the 10th and 13th of December 2024. Here are the 14 main highlights:

1. Only 2% believe US growth will be below 1% in 2025, whereas that’s the average expected for Europe. The average expected for the US in 2.5%, no respondents think Europe will be at or above this level.

2. A global trade war is seen as the biggest observable risk for 2025, followed by a tech stock plunge and concerns over inflation and bond yields

3. Investors think Trump means business on tariffs but an average score of 5 means that they don’t think he’ll be as aggressive as the campaign pledges. Only 6.4% think he’ll be more extreme (8 and above)

4. The overwhelming majority (90%) believe the German debt brake will be reformed. However, only 12% believe the change will be significant.

5. German respondents were much more confident that there will be reform of some description, with only 2% thinking the debt brake will remain in its current form.

6. DB asked this question 3 times in both 2021 and 2024. Less think there’s a US tech bubble in 2024 than in 2021 but the overall number is still high. There’s been no real increase in the bubble score for the Mag-7 through 2024, even with a 72.5% climb YTD. Bitcoin sees the highest bubble risk and European equities are seen furthest away from this…

7. For the Mag-7 in 2025 while 33% believe they’ll decline and 22% think by more than 10%, 67% think they’ll be higher with an average overall gain of 6.8% expected, albeit down from the 12.9% expected in 2024

8. YE 2025 Treasury yield expectations (average 4.2%) are a bit lower than current levels with only 4% believing we’ll end 2025 >5%

9. Germany yields are seen steady in 2025 on average but with 50% expecting 10yr yields to end the year less than 2%

10. The S&P is expected to be +5.2% higher in 2025, with 23% believing it will be lower and 23% believing up >10%. The overwhelming consensus (35%) think between 5% to 10% and much more concentrated than in prior years.

11. Bitcoin and Nvidia are seen as more likely to halve than double, especially Bitcoin. However, 24% and 28%, respectively, believe they’ll double. We first asked in 2021, and both have doubled since but did halve into 2022 first

12. AI is increasingly infiltrating the office, but extensive use hasn’t increased in the last 5 months…

13. The US and Europe are clearly diverging in expected inflation, with US picking up again through 2024 but European expectations sharply lower since the summer and below 2% for the first time since Q4 2021.

14. Home Alone is your favorite Xmas movie. Let’s hope your house doesn’t end up the same as that one did this Xmas and that Die Hard isn’t your Xmas template either.

Authored by Hans Mahncke via Truth Over News,

I have been a huge fan of Vietnam and its people ever since my first visit 25 years ago. It is a truly special place, which is why I recently returned for the first time since the Covid pandemic. While Vietnam’s charm and uniqueness remain unchanged, this visit felt different. I have explored the Cu Chi Tunnels, the War Remnants Museum, and observed daily life in Vietnam many times before, but this time felt different. Perhaps because Trump had just been re-elected, offering a renewed possibility for change and peace, I found myself repeatedly reflecting on the Vietnam War—especially on the lessons it should have taught us about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

The War Remnants Museum in Saigon, in particular—filled with military equipment left behind by the United States—is a place that everyone should try to visit at least once. It stands as a powerful testament not only to the immense human cost of war—something all war museums convey—but also to the particular senselessness of the Vietnam War.

The centerpiece of the War Remnants Museum is its collection of abandoned American military equipment, and for good reason. These relics powerfully convey the museum’s core message: the folly of intervening in a distant conflict with inadequate understanding, engaging in extensive bombing, and then retreating when plans fail, leaving chaos behind. Yet, there’s no sense of triumph or gloating. The abandoned equipment speaks for itself. If blame is assigned at all, it points to the corrupt South Vietnamese leadership, while the United States is portrayed more as a misguided participant—entangled in a conflict it neither understood nor should have joined in the first place.

In the same vein, what struck me most during my visit, and not for the first time, was the remarkable warmth and kindness that the Vietnamese people extend toward foreigners, particularly Americans. This contrast between past conflict and present-day hospitality not only highlights the resilience and forgiveness of the Vietnamese people but also underscores the profound tragedy of the conflict. The pain and suffering endured appear even more tragic when contrasted with the reality that these two nations never needed to have confronted each other at all.

The Vietnam War was, at its core, a struggle for independence and self-determination. From the American perspective, however, it became a quagmire of fundamental misunderstandings and strategic missteps. Often overlooked amidst conflicting narratives is the fact that, after enduring a century of French colonial rule, the Vietnamese people’s foremost priority was achieving independence. Foreign intervention, regardless of intent, was unlikely to succeed in such a context. The United States’ failure to grasp this reality led to its involvement in a conflict that was both senseless and unwinnable. But, driven by exaggerated Cold War fears, much like media narratives shaping discussions of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the United States chose to intervene.

Indeed, the sense of futility surrounding the Vietnam War is not confined to history. The parallels with the current situation in Ukraine are striking. Once again, a regional dispute has been escalated by external powers, particularly the United States, under the banner of ideological or strategic imperatives. In both cases, local tensions were amplified, turning what might have remained contained conflicts into international crises with profound global repercussions.

What’s particularly tragic in both wars is the role of miscalculated intervention. In Vietnam, American involvement intensified a civil war, transforming it into a Cold War battleground at the cost of millions of lives. In Ukraine, while the stated motivations focus on defending sovereignty and democracy, the consequences are just as dire: countless dead, displaced populations, and a precarious drift toward World War III.

In both instances, U.S. involvement was framed as pursuing noble goals—whether fighting communism or upholding the international order—but the outcomes reveal a different reality, marked by immense human suffering and global instability.

The origins of the Ukraine war are more complex than often portrayed in legacy media narratives. It did not begin with Putin’s invasion in February 2022 but can be traced back to the political upheaval of February 2014, when then-Vice President Joe Biden approved a coup d’état that resulted in the ousting of Ukraine’s democratically elected government. This event ignited a decade-long civil conflict between the country’s Russian-speaking and Ukrainian-speaking regions.

Setting aside that Biden foolishly revived centuries-old ethnic tensions, what interest does the United States have in this situation? And how is American involvement going to resolve these deep-seated feuds?

But it’s even worse than that. American involvement in Ukraine is, in at least one key respect, even more problematic than its involvement in the Vietnam War. While Vietnam was already embroiled in a civil war before the U.S. became involved, in Ukraine, external intervention—specifically by Joe Biden—was instrumental in igniting the civil war in the first place. This distinction underscores the profound and far-reaching consequences of foreign intervention in local disputes, even when well-intentioned.

As I traveled through Vietnam, I felt the weight of these connections. A war fought decades ago in the name of ideology now serves as a stark lesson in unintended consequences, yet similar mistakes are being repeated today. The remnants of the Vietnam War—rusting tanks, poignant photographs of victims, and harrowing stories of suffering—stand as haunting reminders of the devastation wrought when foreign powers escalate regional disputes into proxy wars.

What makes this situation even more tragic is how avoidable such conflicts are. The Vietnam War did not have to unfold as it did. The United States did not have to assume the role it played. The lessons learned from Vietnam should inform our understanding of Ukraine: wars waged far from home, under the pretense of noble ideals, often cause more harm than good to those they purport to protect.

This visit to Vietnam left me with a profound sense of sorrow—more so than any previous trip. It was not only for the lives lost and futures shattered but also for the cyclical nature of human folly. Perhaps by acknowledging the senselessness of one war, we can prevent the unnecessary escalation of another.

Not content to The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) revealed this week that three senior DOJ officials violated internal policies and engaged in misconduct by leaking non-public investigative details to the media “days before an election.”

The OIG, led by Michael Horowitz since 2012, conducted the investigation following a complaint alleging politically motivated disclosures related to ongoing DOJ matters.

“The OIG investigation found that three then Senior DOJ Officials violated DOJ’s Confidentiality and Media Contacts Policy by leaking to select reporters, days before an election, non-public DOJ investigative information regarding ongoing DOJ investigative matters, resulting in the publication of two news articles that included the non-public DOJ investigative information,” the OIG stated in a brief investigative summary.

The summary further noted that one of the officials compounded the misconduct by using a DOJ social media account to share links to the resulting news articles, a violation of both the Confidentiality and Media Contacts Policy and the DOJ’s Social Media Policy.

Of course, in typical Horowitz fashion – we have no clue who leaked what to whom…

The investigation faced limitations as the three implicated officials were no longer employed by the DOJ at the time of the probe, and either declined or failed to respond to interview requests. The OIG does not have the authority to compel testimony from former employees.

Horowitz’s office confirmed that the findings have been referred to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General and the Professional Misconduct Review Unit for appropriate action. Additionally, the report has been shared with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel for further investigation into potential violations of the Hatch Act, which restricts political activities by federal employees.

Unspecified Investigation at the Heart of the Leak

The nature of the investigation leaked by the former officials remains unclear. However, similar concerns have been raised in other high-profile cases involving DOJ leaks. In September, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray, as well as Horowitz, accusing the DOJ and FBI of leaking information about a now-closed investigation into President-elect Donald Trump.

The investigation in question involved allegations that Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi attempted to bolster Trump’s 2016 campaign with $10 million in cash. Initially handled by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, the probe was closed in June 2020 due to insufficient evidence, but details of the case were reported by The Washington Post in August 2024. The newspaper’s reporting cited “people familiar with the case” and “thousands of pages of government records, including sealed court filings.”

Broader Pattern of DOJ Leaks and Misconduct

Leaks have been a recurring issue within the DOJ. Trump, while campaigning for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, accused Special Counsel Jack Smith of having “illegally leaked” information about the classified documents investigation against him. This included allegations that Smith leaked an audio recording of Trump discussing a classified document related to Iran, which was later included in a now-dismissed indictment.

During Trump’s first term, leaks about the FBI’s investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and his 2016 campaign led to scathing reports by the OIG and subsequent investigations by Mueller and Special Counsel John Durham. Notably, former FBI Director James Comey was referred for prosecution in 2019 for leaking internal memos to the media, though the DOJ ultimately declined to press charges.

Update (1723ET):

“We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself,” Tesla’s Elon Musk wrote on X, “All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion.” 

We have now confirmed that the explosion was caused by very large fireworks and/or a bomb carried in the bed of the rented Cybertruck and is unrelated to the vehicle itself.

All vehicle telemetry was positive at the time of the explosion. https://t.co/HRjb87YbaJ

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2025

*   *   * 

Update (1534ET):

Government officials told ABC News that the Tesla Cybertruck explosion on Wednesday outside the Trump Las Vegas hotel in Nevada is being investigated as a “possible act of terror.”

Here’s more from ABC:

Investigators do not know what caused the blast, such as whether something was wrong with the vehicle or whether something external prompted it. Determining what was behind the explosion is the key focus of the probe.

An official briefed on the probe told ABC News that the Tesla Cybertruck had a load of fireworks-style mortars onboard. Investigators are urgently working to determine a motive and whether the driver intended to set off an explosion and why.

Until a motive is determined and other possibilities are ruled out, police are treating the explosion like a possible criminal act and a possible act of terror. Evidence collection and investigation are ongoing.

Tesla’s Elon Musk responded:

The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now.

Will post more information as soon as we learn anything.

We’ve never seen anything like this. https://t.co/MpmICGvLXf

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 1, 2025

*    *   * 

With everyone on edge after the New Orleans ‘terrorist attack‘ on Bourbon Street early this morning, reports flooded X moments ago of a ‘boom’ and/or a ‘vehicle fire’ in Las Vegas. 

BREAKING: Witnesses heard “boom” video smoke rising near Trump Tower in Las Vegas.
pic.twitter.com/Fk3TtxnMlN

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 1, 2025

It turns out the ‘boom’ was caused by a Tesla Cybertruck ablaze in front of the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, possibly due to a lithium battery fire.

Cybertruck blew up in front of Trump hotel in Las Vegas. Those are our luggage by the door and that’s where we were when it happened. pic.twitter.com/KaVZXfGLNK

— ayackle (@kaaaassuu) January 1, 2025

Wow. 

🚨🚨 BREAKING UPDATE: Police confirm the driver was killed in a Cybertruck explosion at the Trump Hotel in Las Vegas, with 7 others injured. pic.twitter.com/kFFg1UVjQM

— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 1, 2025

What are the odds?

Authored by Nikolai Wenzel via the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER)

In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy laid out their vision for the new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) they will head within the Trump White House. They don’t yet have details (part of the plan involves identifying personnel, and then inefficiencies). But the vision has a three-part approach: ”regulatory recissions, administrative reductions, and cost savings.”

With politicians it’s often hard to know what is solid conviction and what is bluster for future bargaining. With Donald Trump, it’s always hard to know. He wants to renew the 2017 tax cuts, which lowered income and corporate taxes until 2025… but he also wants to tax imports at 10 percent to 20 percent (and 60 percent for China), which is the equivalent of a consumption tax on an American economy that is hungry for imported goods. Mr. Trump wants to cut red tape and federal spending… but he also wants to increase spending on defense and mass deportations.

Amidst all this, Messrs. Musk and Ramaswamy have bruited the lofty goal of a 30 percent cut in federal spending.

The federal budget was $6.2 trillion for FY23 (which I use here for accounting simplicity, rather than FY24). This represents almost 23 percent of GDP, to which we can add 13 percent spent by states and local governments. To this, we can also add the 10 percent of GDP in annual compliance cost with federal regulations, as estimated by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. This total means that, for every dollar of economic activity, fully 46 cents are controlled, directly or indirectly, by politicians and bureaucrats. And only 54 cents of each economic dollar are in the hands of American consumers, families, and entrepreneurs. As of November 2024, the national debt is at 120 percent+ of GDP, and interest on the debt is the fourth biggest budget item (at $659 billion/year, or about 11 percent of federal spending). Clearly, America has a fiscal problem.

Before we examine possible budget cuts, let us see where that whopping $6,200,000,000,000 is going. First, we must distinguish between mandatory spending and discretionary spending. Mandatory spending has been set in motion by Congress, without the need for annual negotiation or reauthorization. Discretionary spending must be legislated, in political jockeying between the Congress and the President.

Mandatory Spending (71.7 percent of total federal budget). AIER

Discretionary Spending (28.3 percent of total federal budget). AIER

I propose three options for budget cuts, from the bold (and probably politically impossible) to the marginal.

1. The Constitution

I hate having to repeat it, over and over again… But the American people and the political class seem to have forgotten that the U.S. Constitution is different. Most other constitutions of the world are documents of assumed powers: governments are allowed to do anything, except that which is prohibited by the constitution. The U.S. Constitution, however, is one of limited and enumerated powers: it may not do anything, except that which is authorized by the constitution. Article 1, section 8 grants a bit over a dozen legislative powers to Congress (beyond the military and international powers authorized to the President in Article 2, and the judiciary powers in Article 3).

According to Article 1, section 8, the Congress has power over the following, only:

• taxes and import duties

• borrowing

• regulation of commerce among the states and internationally

• establish uniform laws of immigration and bankruptcy

• coin money, fix standards of weights and measures, and grant patents

• punish counterfeiting and piracy

• establish post offices and postal roads

• to constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court

• declare war, and maintain and regulate armed forces

• to control the District of Columbia and other federal properties

Lest there be any doubt about enumeration and limitation, the 10th amendment reads as follows: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or the people.”

It should be obvious, then, that the vast majority of federal expenditures are not authorized by the Constitution; as such, they are prohibited and unconstitutional. Only a small percentage of actual federal spending is authorized by the Constitution: defense, operating and retirement expenses for federal employees, support to veterans, international relations and justice (for a total of $1.46 trillion). If we squint very hard at the Constitution, we could conceivably see transportation ($115 billion), health ($100 billion), and the environment ($48 billion)… if we suppose generously that such expenditures are authorized under the commerce clause, as functions that cannot be handled by the individual states. Even then, we find ourselves at $1.72 trillion, or 27.7 percent of the current budget.

This would represent savings of $4.48 trillion, or 72.3 percent of the budget that could be returned from the unconstitutional hands of politicians and bureaucrats, back to American families, consumers, and entrepreneurs. Unfortunately, the President lacks the authority to veto mandatory spending, and merely enjoys veto power over discretionary spending bills. And, for all his talk of reducing red tape, Mr. Trump has yet to show a libertarian or constitutional soul. It is thus unlikely that we will end up with a North American version of a chainsaw-wielding Javier Milei of Argentina.

2. Big-Ticket Items

A return to constitutional constraints would be lovely. But it is not in the realm of the politically possible. The second option would be to start with the low-hanging fruit of Social Security and Medicare. Social Security was born in 1935, as part of FDR’s New Deal, and Medicare came to be in 1965, as part of LBJ’s Great Society. Neither of these programs is means-tested (technically, the Social Security formula is redistributive, but participation in both programs is mandatory for all Americans).

Social Security might have been necessary in 1935 (I am skeptical, as I have read David Beito’s book, “From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890–1967.” Civil Society was doing a fine job of providing welfare, before the New Dealers decided everything had to be nationalized). But financial markets have evolved drastically since 1935. Americans now have easy, low-cost, and convenient access to mutual funds, and especially index funds that track the market without investor savvy.  The federal government could easily get rid of the low-yield, pay-as-you-go Social Security pension scheme, and replace it with a high-yield, portable, individually funded retirement plan. The Chilean plan of mandatory 10 percent contributions to a private fund would be a simple start. Likewise, insurance markets (especially if they are deregulated, unsubsidized, and fixed) can take care of the majority of American retirees.

Simply stated, most Americans don’t need Social Security and Medicare. These two big-ticket items eat about one third of the federal budget. They are unconstitutional. And they are unnecessary. Again, as a student of David Beito, Alexis de Tocqueville, Henry Hazlitt, Marvin Olasky, economics, and history, I have learned the superiority of private charity over government welfare. But, as a temporary solution, Social Security and Medicare could easily be privatized, with a portion replaced by means-test programs, with a much smaller cost. Currently, about 20 percent of Americans receive federal welfare or Medicaid. Setting aside details, we can easily imagine privatizing pensions and healthcare for the other 80 percent, with an 80 percent cut in Social Security ($1 trillion in savings) and Medicare ($671 in savings), for a total of $1.67 trillion in savings. This would still not be constitutionally authorized, but it would represent almost one third of the federal budget. As a bonus, a privately funded retirement plan would represent a surge in investment, and thus of economic activity and tax revenue; the lower expenses would mean the national debt would not increase as much, and pressure on interest payments would be relieved. The true savings would thus exceed one third.

Unfortunately, all retirees, rich and poor, have their snout in the federal trough—this was the political genius, and the fiscal disaster, of universal programs (rather than targeted means-tested programs). Social Security and Medicare costs are politically dangerous, and Mr. Trump has already promised he would not touch the two biggest federal expenditures.

3. Marginal Cuts

Without pushing constitutional respect or cutting the low-hanging fruit of big and outdated universal programs, the federal government could still save at the margin.

As mentioned above, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has calculated that 10 percent of GDP is spent each year on compliance with federal regulations. A Mercatus Center study estimates that, if regulations had stayed steady at the 1949 level, the American economy would be a whopping 3.5 times stronger (imagine, if you will, a GDP of $95 trillion instead of $27 trillion). What is more, regulation is regressive (it has a disparate impact on the poorest). Without attacking the budget directly, DOGE could take a serious ax to federal regulation, to great effect.

Finally, the Cato Institute has proposed a collection of small cuts that would amount to a serious $1 trillion to $2 trillion in savings (or 16 percent to 32 percent of the current budget).

It would be ideal, of course, to return to the constitution—for reasons of rule of law, as much as for fiscal prudence. More local responsibility, more market competition, less bureaucratic waste, more reliance on an efficient and human civil society over a wasteful and anonymous federal machine to help the poor—these would all be positive developments that would restore America’s fiscal health while actually tackling poverty. In the meantime, a 30 percent budget cut is within grasp—and it would represent a return to federal spending, not in some distant past… but as recently as 2001.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Moscow is fuming after at the start of this week several Russian state media outlets were blocked for EU-based users of the messaging app Telegram. Starting Sunday the channels of RIA Novosti, Rossiya 1, Channel One, NTV, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta were inaccessible in the European Union.

Kremlin officials slammed the “act of censorship” – with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova describing “the systematic cleansing of all undesirable sources of information from the information space” as ongoing in the West.

She further condemned the “constant campaign of repression against Russian media in nearly all European Union countries,” adding that “these attacks and similar ones against our media will not go unanswered.”

“We reserve the right to respond in the same manner,” she said, but without specifying what form the retaliation will take. The EU had already since the Ukraine war’s start cracked down on the major Russian state television international networks.

More recently the EU moved against RIA Novosti, Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta, accusing the outlets of spreading propaganda on behalf of the Kremlin.

It remains unclear the degree to which Telegram and EU authorities are acting in coordination on this:

The messaging app Telegram has blocked access to channels belonging to major Russian state-owned news outlets across much of Europe, including Poland, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, and Latvia.

When users based in the affected European countries attempt to access these channels, they see a notice saying the content is unavailable because it “violated local laws.”

Neither Telegram nor European officials have publicly acknowledged the restrictions but Russian media outlets including RIA Novosti, Izvestia, NTV, Rossiya 1, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta all confirmed they had been blocked. 

Late last summer Telegram CEO Pavel Durov was indicted in France for allegedly allowing criminal activity on the app. France’s arrest of him at a Paris airport when his private jet arrived was highly unusual, given they went straight after the CEO and founder.

He has since vowed to cooperate on cracking down on criminal activity on the app, and be more responsive in providing data to law enforcement authorities.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The U.S. Department of Defense’s appeals court has turned down the Pentagon’s attempt to rescind the plea deals for the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and several alleged accomplices, paving the way for the men to avoid the death penalty.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin did not have the authority to rescind the deals, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review said in the Dec. 30 ruling.

Even if Austin did have the authority, he waited too long to act as lawyers for the alleged attackers had already started meeting requirements in their pretrial plea agreements, the panel said.

The Pentagon had announced on July 31 that Susan Escallier, the official whom Austin appointed to lead the military court that is handling the 9/11 trials, signed off on the agreements with Khalid Shaikh (Sheikh) Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. Mohammed is accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 in the United States, with help from the two others.

“In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet,” a letter from military prosecutors to the families of victims of the attack said.

Austin said on Aug. 2 that given the case’s significance, he would be in charge of it. He withdrew Escallier’s authority and the pretrial agreements.

U.S. Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, a judge, ruled in November that Austin lacked the authority to withdraw the agreements. Even if he had the authority, it was too late to act, according to McCall.

“If an accused begins performance of the terms of a PTA [pretrial agreement], the convening authority loses the right to withdraw from the deal,” the military judge wrote at the time.

The Pentagon appealed the ruling, leading to Monday’s decision.

The panel of judges said that Austin could replace Escallier as the convening authority for the case, even without taking all of her responsibilities. However, they said that the intervention in the current case “is without precedent” and that based on a ruling in a different case, Austin cannot order the withdrawal of the deals for Mohammad, Attash, and Hawsawi.

Escallier could withdraw the agreements, but only until the men started to meet the requirements, according to the panel.

Austin can withdraw Escallier’s authority to approve future agreements in the case, the judges said, in a partial victory for the military.