Authored by Caitlin Johnstone via Medium.com,

Some empire managers are so brash about wanting to rule the world that they’ll occasionally voice their position so directly it sounds like an anti-imperialist said it…

We saw just such an instance last Wednesday during a conversation between empire propagandist Sean Hannity and warmongering senator Marco Rubio on Fox News. So frenzied was Rubio in his vitriol about the rise of China on the world stage that he accidentally wound up providing a very good argument against the hegemony of the US dollar.

Rubio began with a rant about how the US is in a “conflict” with China in response to a question from Hannity about whether Xi Jinping is preparing for war with America.

“The bottom line is we’re in a conflict, and I think we have to start talking about it that way,” Rubio said. “I was very young, obviously, at the end of the Cold War, but it’s been about 30 years since there was another superpower on the earth that was in conflict with the United States. We are back in that place. We need to stop pretending like that’s not the case now.”

Hannity repeated the soundbite he’s been pushing for the last few weeks saying that China, Russia and Iran are a “new Axis of Evil,” then Rubio made a very revealing comment about a recent deal that was struck between China and Brazil.

“Just today, Brazil, the largest country in the Western Hemisphere, cut a trade deal with China,” said Rubio.

“They’re going to, from now on, do trade in their own currencies, get right around the dollar. They’re creating a secondary economy in the world totally independent of the United States. We won’t have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there’ll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won’t have the ability to sanction them.”

Rubio is not the first US imperialist we’ve seen expressing concern about the US dollar losing its position as the dominant currency of the world, not just with regard to China and Brazil but between China and Russia, between China and Saudi Arabia, between China and India, and between India and Russia.

“The dollar is America’s superpower,” Fareed Zakaria writes for The Washington Post.

“It gives Washington unrivaled economic and political muscle. The United States can slap sanctions on countries unilaterally, freezing them out of large parts of the world economy. And when Washington spends freely, it can be certain that its debt, usually in the form of T-bills, will be bought up by the rest of the world.”

“Now an increasing number of nations are eager to find alternative financial systems to insulate themselves from Washington’s willingness to use sanctions as political leverage,” writes Jamie Seidel for the Murdoch-owned News.com.au, quoting an Australian Strategic Policy Institute think tanker as saying,

“Chinese authorities were shocked by the seizure of the Russian central bank’s foreign exchange reserves following the invasion of Ukraine. In the event of a Sino-American conflict, Chinese assets would similarly be vulnerable.”

The other day Pentagon insider and DC swamp monster Elbridge Colby spotlighted a concern on Twitter that the US might not be able to finance a war with China if the US dollar loses its status as the world’s reserve currency.

👇🚨 https://t.co/HETAVilL2V

— Elbridge Colby (@ElbridgeColby) March 27, 2023

The US has engaged in a tremendous amount of manipulation to secure the dollar’s position as the global reserve currency and all the power that comes with it, and has used it to fund a war machine of unprecedented might and to inflict starvation sanctions on disobedient nations around the world. It is a weapon, and US imperialists are bemoaning the looming loss of that weapon because they want to use it on many more people for the advancement of the interests of the empire.

Economic sanctions are somehow the only form of warfare where it’s considered acceptable to deliberately target civilian populations with deadly force, and the US empire makes liberal use of them. Starvation sanctions always hurt the weakest and most vulnerable members of a population by depriving them of access to medicine and adequate nutrition, and future generations (if there are future generations) will judge harshly those who used them.

It seems unlikely to me that the emergence of a multipolar world will in and of itself produce any kind of wonderful utopia, and as Professor Richard Wolff explains the dollar’s decline could potentially give rise to a lot of economic chaos and suffering. But at the very least the fall of US dollar hegemony would deprive one group of psychopaths a powerful weapon they should never have had, and could even end up impeding the empire’s ability to ramp up for a global conflict between major powers — a conflict which must never occur.

In any case humanity cannot continue along the trajectory it has been on, and any divergence from that trajectory opens up the possibility of real healthy change. Here’s hoping Marco Rubio is given a lot more to be upset about in the coming years.

*  * *

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Authored by Bryan Jung via The Epoch Times,

Twitter has changed its abuse and harassment policy in a crackdown on the weaponization of the user reporting system by fake complaints.

The social media platform announced on April 7 that it had updated its abuse and harassment policy to clarify how it defined “targeted harassment.”

There have been increasing complaints from individuals about being attacked and harassed by random Twitter users for their opinions in an attempt to have them driven from the app.

Twitter has responded to complaints by updating the criteria for “targeted harassment” of individuals on its website.

“We believe in free speech and we also believe users have a right to use and enjoy our platform without being subjected to targeted and repeated harassment,” Twitter said.

“We define ‘targeted harassment’ as behavior that is repeated, unreciprocated, and intended to humiliate or degrade an individual(s). This includes targeting people based on gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation.”

After Twitter CEO Elon Musk bought the tech giant last year, there have been many changes regarding user censorship, account validation, and the restoration of previously banned accounts.

The relaxation of censorship on Twitter has led to a more relaxed and opinionated user base, but harassment and threats by extremists and left-wing social justice warriors have increased.

The rapper and podcaster, Zuby, tweeted about the various attacks and threats he receives on Twitter.

Some angry users even filed false allegations against certain individuals to Twitter monitors to get them banned or suspended.

“Fake woke idiots have tried to ‘cancel’ me many times. They’ve tried to get me banned off social media, deplatformed from speaking events, they even tried to implicate me in a murder. They failed of course. But these are not nice people. If you’ve dealt with them, you know,” said Zuby.

Fake woke idiots have tried to ‘cancel’ me many times.

They’ve tried to get me banned off social media, deplatformed from speaking events, they even tried to implicate me in a murder.

They failed of course. But these are not nice people. If you’ve dealt with them, you know.

— ZUBY: (@ZubyMusic) April 7, 2023

The artist said that many of the personal attacks are by people who have no other reason than take glee at ruining his reputation but veil their intent under the guise of virtue signaling

“A lot of people still think all these folks are ‘nice but misguided’. No. Some are. Especially the younger ones. But a lot of malicious, wicked people hide under the ‘social justice’ umbrella and take glee in hurting others. Emotionally and physically. Then they play victim,” Zuby said.

“I am blessed to have an extremely high tolerance for negative crap that comes my way. So I rarely even address it, but most people aren’t wired like that. There are people who will take glee in destroying your reputation. Most pretend to be ‘kind’ and ‘virtuous’. Beware,” he continued.

Musk responded to Zuby’s assessment of the threat with a one-word response, “True.”

“They tried to wreck your reputation last year and are still trying… They are happy to lie, libel, harass, intimidate, etc. Not good people,” Zuby said in reply.

The billionaire owner of the social media platform has himself been attacked by progressives and the media for his strong support of freedom of expression and his skepticism of the latest woke narrative.

Abuse Policy Update

In less in a day after the exchange, Twitter released an update for its abuse policy.

“We have been working hard to develop a balanced approach to free speech and keeping people safe from ongoing, repeated harassment. Over the next few weeks we will make it easier to report targeted harassment as well,” said Ella Irwin, Twitter’s VP of Product Trust and Safety, in a tweet.

When a user asked if Twitter would make it harder for a user to abuse the reporting system. Irwin tweeted back, “Doing that too. We have already suspended ~100 users in the past month who submitted over 500k bad faith reports this year and will be actively enforcing users who weaponize our reporting system going forward.”

Musk added to Irwin’s comments, tweeting, “I should emphasize that someone really has to go over-the-top by repeatedly harassing the same account with no provocation to get their post bounced. This is not a hair-trigger situation.”

Many users feel relieved by the updated standards.

“100 is better than nothing. Thanks. Would be nice to know if the 5K of us given a 12 hour time-out counts as a strike or not. Personally perturbed due to my longevity without such. And now in jeopardy of not being considered for Community Notes,” tweeted a long-time user who supported the changes.

In the latest illustration of San Francisco’s steady descent into bloody, lawless dystopia, the city’s former fire commissioner was viciously beaten with a crowbar — just one day after a well-known crypto tech executive was stabbed to death. 

The former commissioner, Don Carmignani, was beaten on the streets of the Marina District, just steps from his residence. A friend says he suffered a broken jaw, fractured skull, and many lacerations of his head and face.

The incident happened around 7:30pm Wednesday. Carmignani’s father says his son had asked three homeless people who’d camped out in front of his house to move out of the area. When they re-situated themselves just down the street, Carmignani confronted them again, his father says, and the beating commenced. 

“He asked them to move and he was blindsided by a metal pipe to the head,” Carmignani friend and former candidate for district attorney Joe Alioto Veronese told Fox2. “Don’s a big guy and what it says to me is this kind of thing can happen to anybody. Nobody is safe in San Francisco right now.”

Police arrested a homeless man, 24-year-old Garret Doty, and charged him with assault with a deadly weapon and battery causing serious bodily injury. 

ABC7 interviewed one of his homeless associates, who said Carmignani had been “disrespectful” when they were loitering near his home. When reporter Lyanne Melendez asked if that justified beating someone up, the man replied, “Yeah, sometimes.” 

Neighbors are all too familiar with Doty and his pals. “They’re always on the sidewalk surrounded by a pile of trash, folded over, smoking drugs,” said Andrew Cuzzone. “It’s alarming…It makes me want to move to another city. It’s no way to live in fear all the time.”

The day before this display of barbarism, the city was shaken by the stabbing death of Cash App founder Bob Lee outside a luxury apartment building. 

@DailyMail posted the CCTV footage showing Cash App founder Bob Lee asking for help after being stabbed, the car drove off. Then walked towards the apartment building staggering, holding his midsection and collapsing. #BobLee #SanFrancisco pic.twitter.com/1t83GNNpmt

— DeL2000 (@DeL2000) April 7, 2023

Authored by Aldgra Fredly via The Epoch Times,

North Korea has claimed it tested a new type of nuclear-capable underwater drone this week to assess the weapon’s “fatal attack ability.”

State-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said on Saturday that a “Haeil-2” drone was deployed off the coast of South Hamgyong province on April 4 and reached the target in the waters off Ryongdae Port on April 7.

This photo provided by the North Korean regime, shows what it says is an underwater blast of test warhead loaded to an unmanned underwater nuclear attack craft “Haeil” during an exercise around Hongwon Bay in waters off North Korea’s eastern coast on March 23, 2023. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

KCNA said the drone cruised 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) of simulated underwater distance in the East Sea of Korea for 71 hours and six minutes before its test warhead was detonated underwater.

“The test perfectly proved the reliability of the underwater strategic weapon system and its fatal attacks ability,” KCNA claimed.

The drone test came just weeks after North Korea claimed to have tested an underwater attack drone named “Haeil” from March 21 to 23, which the regime said was capable of generating a “super-scale radioactive tsunami.”

On March 28, KCNA said that North Korea conducted another test of what it called the “Haeil-1” underwater attack drone from March 25 to 27.

North Korea said its underwater attack drone had undergone over 50 shakedowns in the past two years and is built to “stealthily infiltrate into operational waters” and make underwater explosions to destroy naval striker groups and enemy ports.

‘An Attempt At Deception’

However, analysts are skeptical of North Korea’s claims and said the regime may have “exaggerated” the drone’s capabilities. South Korea’s military said the development of the Haeil drone is still at an early stage.

“Having pieced together the South Korea-U.S. analysis of the ‘underwater nuclear attack drone’ as well as expert views on it, our military is putting weight to the possibility that the claim might have been exaggerated or fabricated,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said on March 27.

“There have been movements indicating the North has been working to develop an unmanned undersea vehicle, but our assessment is that it is still at an early [development] stage,” it added.

Ankit Panda, an analyst at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said on Twitter that the underwater drone test could be “an attempt at deception” by the North Korean regime.

“I tend to take North Korea seriously, but can’t rule out the possibility that this is an attempt at deception/psyop [psychological operation]. Would be ill-advised to allocate limited fizmat for a warhead to go in this thing, [in my opinon] vs more road-mobile ballistic missiles,” he stated.

North Korea did not provide the drone’s specifications. A recent report by the Institute for Science and International Security estimated that the drone’s diameter is within 40 to 50 centimeters, analyzing a photo published by North Korean media.

“North Korea’s ability to put a nuclear warhead into an underwater drone should not be taken as given; the announced test involved conventional explosives only,” the report states.

“This diameter could conceivably hold a pure fission weapon, but it is on the small size and would likely have a yield in the range of 10 to 25 kilotons,” it added.

Anti-Submarine Drills

The United States, South Korea, and Japan conducted two-day anti-submarine exercises around the waters of South Korea’s Jeju Island on Monday to counter North Korea’s underwater threats.

South Korean Navy personnel are seen standing alongside the USS Nimitz, during its port visit to Busan on March 28, 2023. (Anthony Wallace/AFP via Getty Images)

The drills involved the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Nimitz and two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, USS Wayne E. Meyer and USS Decatur, which were deployed to South Korea’s Busan naval base last week.

“This exercise will be a good opportunity to improve the maritime operational capabilities of South Korea, the U.S. and Japan to respond to underwater threats such as North Korea’s SLBMs [submarine-launched ballistic missiles], which are advancing in sophistication,” South Korean Rear Adm. Kim In-ho said in a statement.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to make the United States and South Korea realize that they “are bound to lose more than they get and face a greater threat” over their “expansion of war drills in the region.”

The United States has persisted in engaging in “direct talks” with North Korea without preconditions in favor of a diplomatic solution, but North Korea has rebuffed these efforts.

Authored by Lipton Matthews via The Mises Institute,

Thinking that billionaires are a policy failure has become pervasive in the United States. Politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren are leading the charge in the demonization of billionaires. Left-leaning politicians and their allies think that billionaires corrode society by accumulating large fortunes, which amplify inequality. As such, many propose taxation as a tool to promote fairness by redistributing resources, yet such intentions are not always virtuous and could instead be guided by envy.

When proposals to tax billionaires are couched in compassionate terms, they are more likely to elicit sympathy. Usually, we think that suggestions to tax billionaires are motivated by notions of justice and fairness. Most people are appalled by acts of injustice and unfairness, and the thought of people earning billions when others barely struggle to survive could strike some as unfair and unjust.

However, a shocking research finding is that envy and self-interest play a pivotal part in explaining support for redistribution. According to evolutionary psychologists in a 2017 paper: “evolved motives for navigating interpersonal interactions clearly predict attitudes about redistribution, but a taste for procedural fairness or distributional fairness does not.” More recent evidence also points to the influence of malicious envy in initiating support for redistribution.

That envy motivates support for redistribution should not surprise readers because those who fail to succeed in the marketplace often develop contempt for winners. Intellectuals, for instance, find it scandalous that entertainers and influencers make more money despite the intellectuals’ greater education and expertise. By attacking wealth creators, underachievers elevate themselves at the expense of society because their proposals to penalize billionaires will make society worse off.

People become billionaires by creating value for society. If the inventions and services delivered by billionaires were useless, then billionaires would not have accumulated riches. Becoming a billionaire is a reward for generating immense value. Moreover, most benefits of technological innovations are passed on to consumers rather than appropriated by innovators. Billionaires are net value generators since their investments in society are greater than their rewards.

Microsoft made Bill Gates a billionaire, but its impact on boosting the productivity of organizations across the globe and stimulating economic activity is greater than the wealth Gates has obtained. Market-based innovations fueled by the ambition of billionaires have lowered costs for consumers and brought luxury goods to the masses. Despite the benefits of billionaires, some argue taxing them would provide the government with more resources to fund welfare for the poor.

This assumption is misguided because billionaires on average are philanthropic, and many signed a pledge declaring that most of their wealth will go to charity. Other than philanthropic involvements, billionaires are committed to using their wealth to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. Ninety-five percent of surveyed billionaires believed that they should use their wealth or resources to tackle global challenges, and over two-thirds asserted that it’s their responsibility to drive change, according to a UBS report.

Billionaires have a greater reach than national governments and are positioned to maximize the welfare of people across the globe. Furthermore, when governments fund welfare, they are using tax dollars, but billionaires are using their own funds. Ideally, if government policies encourage more billionaires, then private philanthropy can become a greater source of funding for welfare. With less government reliance on tax dollars, taxpayers will have more funds that can be diverted to saving and investing, thereby increasing the stock of capital assets to spur future innovations.

A society with fewer billionaires is less dynamic and efficient; countries that cultivate hostile climates for entrepreneurship by imposing taxes and costly regulations struggle in the long-term. Sweden’s leftward lurch during the late 1970s and 1980s stymied entrepreneurship to such an extent that among the top one hundred firms in that country with the greatest revenues in 2004, only two were entrepreneurial firms established after 1970, compared with twenty-one founded before 1913.

Clearly, the assault on entrepreneurship during this period deprived Sweden of potential innovations that would have made the society more dynamic and prosperous. Ordinary people were also prevented from netting profitable investments in stocks that they would have gained if government policy had enabled the success of entrepreneurial firms.

Working people derive substantial benefits from the value-generating activities of billionaires, as philosophers Jessica Flanigan and Christopher Freiman expounded in an article defending billionaires:

To the extent that billionaires make their money through investments in productive companies, they have powerful incentives to produce goods, services, and useful public infrastructure, which benefits everyone, including the poor. . . . Overwhelmingly, large retail companies benefit low-income consumers through economies of scale, even if they also produce billionaires.

Planting seeds of contempt for billionaires will lead to dangerous consequences. Billionaires are a sign of progress and prosperity. Therefore, attempts to thwart the emergence of new billionaires will diminish living standards and hurt the prospects of the people left-wing politicians claim to defend.

A jury in Travis County, Texas found Army Sgt. Daniel Perry, 33, guilty of murder on Friday, nearly three years after he shot a BLM protester who had a history of threatening people with rifles, after a Soros-funded DA withheld nearly 100 pages of exculpatory evidence from the grand jury according to the lead investigator in the case.

While driving for Uber, Perry shot protester Garrett Foster during a July 2020 protest in downtown Austin, after Foster and other protesters surrounded his car. After Foster raised his rifle at Perry, the Army Sergeant shot and killed Foster, then called the police to report what happened.

Daniel Perry was working as an Uber driver in Austin, TX when he found himself in the middle of a BLM mob.

A guy came up to his car and pointed an AK-47 at him and he fired back in self defense.

He was indicted for murder by a Soros-funded DA and was just found guilty. pic.twitter.com/bx5kLXzqva

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 7, 2023

Perry told police he shot in self-defense, which both the Austin police department and the lead detective in the case agreed with – concluding it was justifiable homicide.

Literally pointed at him pic.twitter.com/S1Zvhr0ahc

— Ben Stanton 🇺🇸 (@BenStanton77) April 8, 2023

Then, Soros DA Jose Garza stepped in and instructed lead detective David Fugitt “to remove exculpatory information that I had intended to present to the grand jury during my testimony.”

Daniel Perry case — read the affidavit from the lead detective, claiming that the Soros DA directed him “to remove exculpatory information that I had intended to present to the grand jury during my testimony.”

This detective believes the Soros DA acted criminally. pic.twitter.com/3iDhWUZLkh

— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) April 8, 2023

“I firmly believe the District Attorney’s Office, acting under the authority of Jose P. Garza, tampered with me as a witness.” pic.twitter.com/FBctPyPx6V

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) April 8, 2023

Meanwhile, 24 sets of fingerprints were found on Perry’s car.

Here is the video from the night Daniel Perry, an active duty Army Sergeant, lawfully defended himself against a BLM rioter with an AK-47 before having his right of self defense made illegal by a Soros-funded DA.

Pardon Daniel Kelly @GregAbbott_TX pic.twitter.com/wVje5AGQag

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 7, 2023

The case has sparked a debate over Texas’ “stand your ground” law, which allows the use of deadly force against someone if they feel that their life is in danger. According to the prosecution, witnesses (so, BLM / Antifa) said that Perry ‘seemed to drive threateningly into the crowd’ before shots were fired, and that his actions seemed intentional.

Now, people are calling on Texas Governor Greg Abbott to pardon Perry.

Tucker covers Daniel Perry guilty verdict: “Tonight we extended an invitation to Governor Greg Abbott to ask if he was considering a pardon. For some reason, his office told us he just can’t make it. So that is Greg Abbott’s position. There’s no right of self-defense in Texas.” pic.twitter.com/4Bx7SpXOkV

— American Firebrand (@AmFirebrand) April 8, 2023

Except, he wouldn’t appear on national television to discuss the case.

Sounds messed up

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 7, 2023

I urge everyone to call the Texas board of pardons and paroles and put pressure on them to do the right thing and set Sgt. Perry free. 512-406-5452 pic.twitter.com/k7ME5J8ErX

— Kyle Rittenhouse (@ThisIsKyleR) April 8, 2023

How a Soros-funded District Attorney overrode law enforcement to prosecute an innocent man.https://t.co/A7DLRcH37Q

— Cernovich (@Cernovich) April 8, 2023

Authored by Savannah Hulsey Pointer via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

China retaliated against Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s meeting with Taiwan’s president this week by announcing sanctions against the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and other organizations, heightening tensions over the self-governed island that Beijing claims as part of its territory.

Amid Chinese threats, McCarthy met with President Tsai Ing-wen on April 5 at the Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.

McCarthy welcomed Tsai as a “great friend of America” during a high-level meeting on U.S. soil, risking China’s ire in a demonstration of U.S. support.

During her visit, Tsai accepted a leadership award from the Hudson Institute and spoke about Taiwan’s regional security challenges.

McCarthy joined an increasing number of foreign legislators who have met with Tsai to demonstrate their support for Taiwan in the face of Chinese intimidation.

“We will take resolute measures to punish the ‘Taiwan independence’ separatist forces and their actions, and resolutely safeguard our country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Chinese Cabinet’s Taiwan Affairs Office said in a statement on April 6, according to an English translation.

U.S.-Chinese relations have reached their lowest point in decades due to disagreements over the status of Taiwan, which separated from China in 1949 following a civil war, as well as security, technology, and Beijing’s treatment of Hong Kong and Muslim ethnic minorities.

The Chinese regime claims the democratic island as its own territory and has vowed to seize Taiwan, by force if necessary.

China’s Response

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on April 7 that the Reagan Library and the Hudson Institute, a think tank in Washington, were sanctioned for “providing a platform and facilitation to Taiwan separatist activities.” It stated that Chinese institutions were prohibited from cooperating with or contacting them.

Amid escalating tensions between Taiwan’s self-governing democracy and China’s communist dictatorship, McCarthy urged Congress to expedite the delivery of military armaments to Taiwan.

During the Taiwanese official’s trip, McCarthy encouraged the United States and its allies to take a stand against China’s aggression with a clear and consistent unified message that promotes peace and protects democracy.

The House leader said it is crucial that congressional leaders speak with “one voice” so that China’s leaders understand “where we stand.”

“Don’t send a balloon over our air space. Don’t use authoritarian bully tactics,” McCarthy said. “It won’t go far.”

McCarthy was accompanied by a bipartisan delegation that uniformly emphasized Congress’ commitment to supporting Taiwan.

Alluding to Chinese threats, Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), chair of the House China Select Committee, said the bipartisan delegation intended to “send a simple message—and that is, we are not afraid.”

“We support our friends in Taiwan,” he said. “We’re going to keep saying that whenever we have the opportunity, and we’re going to turn those words into action … because Taiwan is a small, very bright candle burning at the edge of a vast authoritarian darkness.”

Brad Jones and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Walmart announced plans to build out a nationwide electric vehicle fast-charging network. This initiative will support the Biden administration’s ‘clean energy’ efforts to expand EV charging coverage. 

“By 2030, we intend to build our own EV fast-charging network at thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations coast-to-coast. This would be in addition to the almost 1,300 EV fast-charging stations we already have available at more than 280 U.S. facilities,” a Walmart press release said. 

Although Walmart did not specify the exact number of charging stations it plans to construct, the retailer has roughly 4,700 US stores and 600 Sam’s Club locations.

Vishal Kapadia, Walmart’s senior vice president of energy transformation, noted all store or club locations are within ten miles of approximately 90% of Americans. The idea is to “meet the needs of customers and members where they live and open the road to those driving across the country,” he said. 

Walmart’s nationwide EV charging network appears to align with the Biden administration’s goal of establishing affordable, reliable, and accessible EV charging for everyone. 

Kapadia didn’t mention if Walmart would receive EV grants from federal, state, or local governments for the project. Luckily, Walmart doesn’t have to worry about space because its large parking lots are ideal for charging stations.

Last month, the Biden administration established a multi-billion dollar grant program to place EV chargers every 50 miles along interstate highways and in places where Americans live and work. We wonder who gave Walmart the nudge to use its parking lots for EV chargers… 

Authored by ‘Mr. E’ via BombThrower.com,

Fictional villains often give us some of the deepest insights into the human condition. Writers are freed to venture outside the bounds of what they think is civil society and explore new modes of thinking that may or may not, in fact, be malevolent. In doing so they sometimes, purposefully or inadvertently, stumble across uncomfortable truths that the layperson would recoil from in horror.

Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

One of the greatest metaphors for our current way of life came in the creation of Bane’s monologue to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight Rises, after Bane captures and imprisons him in a place known only as ‘The Pit’.

There’s a reason why this prison is the worst hell on earth… Hope. Every man who has rotted here over the centuries has looked up to the light and imagined climbing to freedom. So easy… So simple… And like shipwrecked men turning to sea water from uncontrollable thirst, many have died trying. I learned here that there can be no true despair without hope. So, as I terrorize Gotham, I will feed its people hope to poison their souls. I will let them believe they can survive so that you can watch them clambering over each other to stay in the sun. You can watch me torture an entire city, and when you have truly understood the depth of your failure, we will fulfill Ra’s al Ghul’s destiny. We will destroy Gotham, and then, when it is done, and Gotham is…ashes… then you have my permission to die.

This one speech reveals the face of true evil, a thing that delights in the suffering and absolute demoralization of its victims. Here Bane is a representation of the Deep State, the true ruling force of our world, existing beyond all bounds of morality, law, and order. Batman is the free-thinking rebel, enjoying the same philosophical freedom as Bane but committed to a life of principles and justice. The people of Gotham represent the citizenry of Planet Earth over whom absolute dominion is being sought – the power of life and death itself.

After eight years of George W. Bush, it was easy for the Deep State to poison the souls of the American people, who deluded themselves into thinking an established political party would ever let an outsider rise to leadership.

Bane makes it clear that, before he will grant Bruce death, he intends on tormenting the people of Gotham with a lie – the hope that they can avoid the fate he has planned for them if they commit themselves to the twisted game he has laid before them.

The Only Way to Win Is Not to Play

In the real world, this game is playing out in the halls of every government in existence. It is a sick game, one that teases people with the promise of a utopian future, if only they would unconditionally surrender to the State’s present demands. In truth, like Bane, the State’s only goal is death.

It has never been any other way.

Anarchists did not try to carry out genocide against the Armenians in Turkey; they did not deliberately starve to death millions of Ukrainians; they did not create a system of death camps to kill millions of Jews, gypsies, and Slavs in Europe; they did not fire-bomb scores of large German and Japanese cities and drop nuclear bombs on two of them; they did not carry out a ‘Great Leap Forward’ that killed scores of millions of Chinese people; they did not kill more than 500,000 members of the Indonesian Communist party, alleged party sympathizers, and others; they did not attempt to kill everybody with any appreciable education in Cambodia, murdering one fourth of the country’s population; they did not kill as many as 200,000 Mayan peasants and others in Guatemala; they did not kill more than 500,000 Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus in Rwanda; they did not implement US and Allied trade sanctions that killed perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children; they did not launch one aggressive US war after another. In debates between anarchists and statists, the burden of proof clearly should rest on those who place their trust in the state. Anarchy’s mayhem is wholly conjectural; the state’s mayhem is undeniably, factually horrendous. – Robert Higgs

Those who would try to convince you of a need, utilitarian or otherwise, of a State don’t have a moral leg to stand on, nor a fiber of integrity in their body. With every breath they hubristically declare their own virtue and silence their critics by force and graft. If you are ever to enjoy any measure of true liberty you must reject, wholesale, the notion that any person or group can dare make, let alone enforce, so-called law.

In China, Mao was elevated to the level of Godhead, portrayed as the rising sun and savior of the Chinese people.

No amount of ceremony or paperwork can sanctify the edicts, pronouncements or ‘laws’ of any State.

No amount of people who agree with its forceful actions against non-violent people can ever overturn universal morality and natural law. And, if either of those two concepts are unfamiliar to you, you just may be one of those demoralized people being manipulated like Gothamites.

The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideas and policies, one perhaps of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority, or method. – Carrol Quigley

You should not take Quigley’s words lightly. He was the chief historian of a secret society founded over a century ago by British diamond magnate Cecil Rhodes, and mentor to former US President and suspected pedophile Bill Clinton. Quigley makes the distinction between ‘America’ (i.e., the State) and the ‘American people.’ They are not the same, and ‘America’ is putting on an elaborate hoax to entrap the ‘American people.’

No matter what happened with Bane’s game; Gotham is destroyed. Similarly, whichever political party takes power, you remain under the boot of those who would see you dead in the pursuit of their agendas.

Resolve to Serve No More

The only recourse is rebellion. I speak not of revolution, which only seeks to violently replace the State with another of a different character. A rebel has no need for a master, and triumphs when he realizes just how dependent the State is on his ongoing subservience.

I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break in pieces. – Étienne de La Boétie

The State’s parasitic dependence on its host citizenry is its Achilles’ heel. Citizens are the geese laying golden eggs, and the State is careful not to destroy them all. Just enough to keep those that remain living in silent, obedient awe and terror. Control over the issuance of currency, and taxes, are its lifeblood. Fortunately for you, their greatest power is also yours. You need only to understand how to use it. In doing so you can topple empires without firing a single bullet.

Without tax revenues the State is forced to resort to inflation – the printing of currency – to fund its bloated bureaucracies and military. Then, in very short order, the value of treasuries and the currency itself will collapse. Without any means of paying for the obedience of its underlings and enforcers, you will see just how powerful they truly were. With politicians and bureaucrats exposed as nothing more than screeching harpies, the mobs of disaffected true believers will take care of the rest.

The State’s allies in the financial system are already powerless to seize your money, if that money is stored in incorruptible, private cryptographic ledgers like Monero (XMR), Pirate Chain (ARRR), or Dero (DERO). If you aren’t already using them, start. This is your first step towards a brighter future.

The Time is Now

Nothing I write here is new, nor should any of it shock anyone properly educated in human history. We are living through yet another mass murder and economic genocide, with all States now marching in lockstep toward the complete annihilation of civil society. Those who point this out are deplatformed, have their livelihoods taken away, and shut out of society. The perpetrators take no pause, nor show any signs of remorse for their destructive acts.

Gentlemen, the time is coming when there will be two great classes, Socialists, and Anarchists. The Anarchists want the government to be nothing, and the Socialists want the government to be everything. There can be no greater contrast. Well, the time will come when there will be only these two great parties, the Anarchists representing the laissez faire doctrine and the Socialists representing the extreme view on the other side, and when that time comes, I am an Anarchist. – William Graham Sumner

There never was any chance of bending this system of domination towards virtuous ends. The State has always been the incarnation of pure violence, indeed many philosophers and legal scholars define it as such. You must resolve to not feed this monster with the fruits of your labor, and evade every attempt it makes to seize your money and property by force. The Bundy family demonstrated just how possible this is.

But this does not go far enough.

The Bundy’s still gave credence to the State’s legal system, its courts, and prosecutors. They are part of this hoax as well, for the same law societies are playing all sides of any courtroom farce, and they do it for the exact same reason – to extract as much of your property as they can for themselves. There is no independent judiciary, and both prosecutor and defense are playing for the same team.

The State isn’t broken, it’s doing exactly what it’s designed to do. And for that reason, it must be left behind to die. Stop letting yourself be tortured by sociopaths. Withdraw your support now, your life depends on it, and there is no Batman coming to save you.

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