Authored by Mark Jeftovic via BombThrower.com,

Even if it was the NSA, the CCP, or the WEF…

Rumours have abounded that Bitcoin was created by the NSA (or the CIA, or the CCP or WEFsters)  going back at least as far as 2010, or so.

They resurfaced over the past week when  Dr Mercola interviewed Catherine Austin Fitts. Since then I’ve had numerous readers forward me some choice quotes of their talk  (the transcript is here), and highlighting Fitts’ suspicion that Bitcoin was created non-altruistically by the NSA.

In it, there is a reference to Nic Carter’s theory about the NSA having created Bitcoin:

“The common understanding is that Nakamoto is the ultimate altruist and abandoned his 1 million Bitcoin for the benefit of humanity. Nic Carter is a well-known figure in the cryptocurrency community, and he doesn’t buy that story and is convinced that the United States National Security Agency (NSA) is responsible for creating Bitcoin. He believes Bitcoin was written by NSA cryptographers as a monetary bioweapon.“

Mercola references this Cointelegraph article where Nic Carter clearly lays out that his NSA-origin theory for Bitcoin is “the lab leak” scenario:

“I call it the ‘Bitcoin lab leak hypothesis.’ I think it was a shuttered internal R&D project, which one researcher thought was too good to lay fallow on the shelf and chose to secretly release.”

Very much in line with the Promethean mythos behind the Satoshi Nakamoto legend that resonates so deeply throughout the community – and if true, might explain just why, the he/she/they/them that is Satoshi – left those 1 million BTC exactly where they sit today. Nobody would want to suffer the fate of Prometheus, doomed to spend eternity chained to a rock, having his liver eaten daily by an eagle.

Yet the discussion between Fitts and Mercola, as well as many others who suspect something nefarious behind Bitcoin’s mysterious creation, seem to be deriving the wrong conclusion from Carter’s theory – or dismissing it in favour of an intentional, deliberate creation, and presumably, what that would mean (as per Fitts),

“It depends on how their rollout of complete control works … As long as they have the ability to assert complete control and shut [crypto] down or marginalize it, it’s easy for [Mr. Global] to assert control. Until then, they can continue to pull money out of precious metals and real and hard assets by encouraging retail to go into crypto.”

The assumption being: whoever created Bitcoin, controls Bitcoin.

The reality is:

Bitcoin is beyond anyone’s control

And the reason, quite simply, is because Bitcoin is open source software.
What does “open source” mean and why does it matter to Bitcoin?
Contrast with something closed source and proprietary, like Microsoft Windows – or the entire Microsoft operating system stack, open source means that the instructions that comprise the computer program itself are published to the world openly in their uncompiled source code form.

Further, anybody running the software does so by downloading the open source copy of the code, compiling it locally and then running it.

What this means is that even if the NSA, or the CCP or the WEF secretly created and released Bitcoin intending it as a Trojan horse for digital slavery (like CBDCs will be), then we would all be able to literally see it in the source code, which is right here – and nobody would run it.

• There wouldn’t any Bitcoin devs maintaining the codebase (or if there was, they’d simply remove the malware)

• Nobody would be trading energy, or cash, for Bitcoin generated from compromised code, and

• Bitcoin miners would certainly not be spending hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars in order to build out massive server farms to run NSA malware.

In other words, there would be zero market momentum behind the phenomenon known as “Bitcoin” that is sweeping the world.

Some others might concede that Bitcoin is an open source movement, with no hidden trojans or malware – but that it’s really One Big Psy-Op  to acclimatize us plebs to a cashless society using digital money.

The people who believe this might even tweet about it from their smart phone while sitting in a cafe sipping a latte that they just bought via ApplePay or tapping their chipped credit card (like that Mastercard that already cuts off your spending when your carbon footprint quota is exceeded).

You don’t need Bitcoin to brainwash people to accept a cashless society or even the coming CBDCs – huge swaths of the population are going to line up for that – and in my mind it will result in a kind of Monetary Apartheid.

Bitcoin is emergence, CBDCs are totalitarian.

The people who think Bitcoin is some kind of meat tenderizer to soften the public’s mind up for CBDCs have simply not been paying enough attention to:

1. The difference between Bitcoin and CBDCs, and

2. The difference between Bitcoin and other cryptos

It all comes down to the decentralized nature of the blockchain, the miners (Proof-of-Work) and self-custody of one’s own private keys vs centralized banking, centralized cryptos, faux-decentralized shitcoins and the like.

We even see this manifesting in legal policy in the US, as Bitcoin is the only digital asset being treated as a commodity while everything else is looking at being designated a security (even Ethereum, especially since that unforced error of switching to Proof-of-Stake).

Where people mistakenly think that Bitcoin is paving the way to usher in CBDCs, Bitcoin is actually the  anti-CBDC. It is the CBDC’s Kryptonite. An emerging monetary system as a response to the over-centralization of what I liked to call Late Stage Globalism, but lately I have become enamoured with George Gilder’s term: Emergency Socialism.

I’ll re-iterate a quote from my recent review of Ferdinand Lips classic, Gold Wars, about where monetary systems actually come from:

By 1900, approximately fifty countries were on a gold standard. including all industrialized nations. The interesting fact is that the modern gold standard was not planned at an international conference, nor was it invented by some genius. It came by itself, naturally and based on experience. 

The United Kingdom went on a gold standard against the intention of its government. Only much later did laws turn an operative gold standard into an officially sanctioned gold standard.

The same thing is happening today, with Bitcoin (yes, really).

Hyper-Bitcoinization vs Notgeld

In the early days of my involvement with the space, I too, dismissed claims that the global monetary system was destined for “Hyper-Bitcoinization” – I just didn’t think it would ever happen because central bankers would simply never allow it.

Instead, I viewed Bitcoin as a kind of “Notgeld” – a German term that emerged during the Weimar Hyper-inflation that translated to “Emergency Money”. In those days towns would print their own scrip. In later hyper-inflations, other things would emerge as “notgeld” – in Zimbabwe it was prepaid phone cards and gas coupons. Every hyperinflation had one. I thought Bitcoin was an emergent, global notgeld, but I never thought it would become anything “official”.

Then, two things happened that flipped me into the Hyper-Bitcoinization camp:

The first was when the ruling Liberal/Socialist coalition government of Canada weaponized the banking system against the #FreedomConvoy protestors, probably the one single act that orange pilled the most citizens globally since the Cyprus bail-in of 2013.

The other was when the US government seized the foreign reserves of two other governments. It doesn’t matter that those governments were Russia and The Taliban, doing so probably orange-pilled more than a few nation states.

What I also realized since then, namely watching the globalists attempt – and fail – to impose a permanent technocracy under Covid, was that what ultimately happens isn’t up to the central banks, and it’s not even up to the governments. It’s up to market forces – despite all the central planning and authoritarianism marshalled against it.

That won’t prevent them from trying, however. Which is where CBDCs come in.

Money backed by debt, becomes social credit backed by carbon quotas

In the latest issue of the premium newsletter (while analyzing an Agustín Carstens speech to the BIS working group on CBDCs)  I said:

Right now, what we call “the fiat world” uses debt for money. That’s no longer sustainable, so what we think will happen in the future is an attempt to switch what we loosely identify as “money”, from something backed by debt, to social credit scores, backed by carbon emissions.

When that comes, Bitcoin will not be some sort of gateway drug to CBDCs because there are fundamental incompatibilities, and there are other cryptos out there far more suited to the task – like Ethereum and Ripple, and who actually want to the global base layer for Central Bank Digital Currencies (after all, it’s not called WEFereum for nothing…)

So where we are headed – is a global economy where the world is either going to have to adopt a non-state, decentralized digital bearer asset or international trade flows will inexorably grind to halt as trust deteriorates right along with every fiat currency going.

And a social credit system where the majority of the population (everybody who has any reliance on The State for their economic sustenance) has their lives gamified via their smart phones and their carbon footprints rationed in the name of climate justice.

Marbled throughout this world (for as long as such a system will last, because ultimately, it can’t) there will be “network states” and enclaves of those who hold their wealth and earn their income outside the social credit/CBDC system.

In my next post, I’ll tackle the inevitable arguments that “governments will never allow people to escape the coming CBDC system” and show why, at the end of the day, they have no choice. It’s already beyond their control.

*  *  *

My forthcoming ebook The CBDC Survival Guide will give you the tools and the knowledge to navigate coming era of Monetary Apartheid. Bombthrower subscribers will get free when it drops, sign up today.

Follow me on Nostr, or Twitter.

Consider the source (and the timing)…

No lesser deep-state mouthpiece than The Washington Post just dropped a bombshell with the revelation that Ukrainian Colonel Roman Chervinsky “was integral to the brazen sabotage operation” on the Nord Stream pipeline, “according to officials in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe, as well as other people knowledgeable about the details of the covert operation.”

The bombing, dubbed a “dangerous assault on Europe’s energy infrastructure” by US and Western officials at the time, marked a critical juncture in the ongoing tensions between Russia and the West. By targeting the pipeline, the operatives (whoever they were) struck a blow to a critical artery of Russian energy exports, a sector that has been at the heart of European-Russian economic relations.

Additionally, as the Goebbels-ian narrative that ‘Russia did it’ was pushed by mainstream media (and politicians), it enabled further ‘aid’ to be sent to Ukraine, to ‘protect interests’.

The think tanks receive funding from the US government and private entities, and often don’t report it, in order to spread misinformation and discredit accurate information pic.twitter.com/BHx7d8wvmO

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) February 8, 2023

Chervinsky, a senior figure within Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces, was allegedly the “coordinator” of the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline. The operation, executed with precision and secrecy, involved deep-sea diving and explosive charges, ultimately resulting in substantial damage to the pipeline which Ukraine had long complained would allow Russia to bypass Ukrainian pipes, depriving Kyiv of huge transit revenue.

Of course, as one would expect, the Ukrainian Colonel, via his counsel, refutes any involvement in the pipeline sabotage, blaming Russia for this accusation.

“Without merit, Russian propaganda is spreading all rumors regarding my participation in the assault on Nord Stream,” Chervinsky stated in a written statement to The Washington Post and Der Spiegel, which jointly investigated his activities.

It would not have been out of character as WaPo reports that Chervinsky is a decorated officer with extensive experience in covert operations, reportedly including plans to ensnare Russian Wagner mercenaries and targeting pro-Russian separatists, highlighting a pattern of aggressive, high-stakes operations against Russian interests.

Furthermore, WaPo reports that Chervinsky did not act alone and he did not plan the operation, again “according to the people familiar with his role,” but instead took orders from more senior Ukrainian officials, who ultimately reported to Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, “according to people familiar with how the operation was carried out.”

More problematically, Chervinsky’s involvement in the Nord Stream assault is in direct opposition to Zelensky’s public denials regarding Ukraine’s involvement.

“I am president and I give orders accordingly,” Zelensky said in press interview in June, responding to a report by the Post that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency had learned of Ukraine’s plans before the attack.

“Nothing of the sort has been done by Ukraine. I would never act that way,” Zelensky said.

Interestingly, WaPo reports that Chervinsky is being held in a Kyiv jail on charges that he abused his power stemming from a plot to lure a Russian pilot to defect to Ukraine in July 2022. Authorities allege that Chervinsky, who was arrested in April, acted without permission and that the operation gave away the coordinates of a Ukrainian airfield, prompting a Russian rocket attack that killed a soldier and injured 17 others.

This WaPo report comes at a crucial time in the geopolitical chess-game, as the desire for more spending in what appears to be a lost cause in Ukraine is fading fast among Western populations (most notably US), and perhaps offers President Biden an ‘excuse’ to reduce aid in light of this ‘shocking development’ – which, of course, Washington has vehemently denied any involvement in (and denounced as a “reckless act”.

But the twists and turns do not stop there as the backdrop to this unfolding drama includes Seymour Hersh’s explosive allegations regarding the CIA and the US Navy’s covert activities.

Throughout “all of this scheming,” the source said, “some working guys in the CIA and the State Department were saying, ‘Don’t do this. It’s stupid and will be a political nightmare if it comes out.’”

Nevertheless, in early 2022, the CIA working group reported back to Sullivan’s interagency group: “We have a way to blow up the pipelines.”

Hersh, a renowned investigative journalist – who broke such well-known stories as the My Lai massacre and Abu Ghraib scandal and has long been known for impeccable insider sources – has previously reported on the deep entanglement of US intelligence in various global hotspots, hinting strongly at the complex interplay between Ukrainian ambitions and broader Western strategic objectives.

The broader geopolitical context cannot be ignored.

The US and NATO have been deeply involved in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression, but the extent of their involvement in covert operations remains a subject of intense debate and speculation. The Nord Stream bombing, if indeed orchestrated by a faction within the Ukrainian military, could be seen as an extension of this proxy conflict, where Ukraine serves as a frontline in a larger strategic contest between Russia and the West, with CIA pulling the strings (just as Hersh concludes).

In an interview with WaPo in June of this year, Zaluzhny said the CIA had never asked him directly about any attack on Nord Stream. He said that after the explosions, in September 2022, he received a phone call from then-U. S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Mark A. Milley.

“He asked me, ‘Did you have anything to do with it?’ I said, ‘No’. A lot of operations are planned, a lot of operations are going on, but we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all.”

Some of those who described Chervinsky’s participation in the Nord Stream attack defended the veteran intelligence officer as acting in Ukraine’s best interests.

So, why now? Suddenly various ‘sources’ come forward to offer a scapegoat for this “reckless act”?

A distraction from potential confirmation of Washington’s involvement? … A potential release valve on the ‘blame Russia’ narrative enabling ‘peace’ conversations to take place? … An opportune excuse to curb ‘aid’ (pending an investigation)given the involvement of Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military officer (and Zelensky’s denial) prompting questions of discord within the Ukrainian chain of command?

Authored by Erica Moshtahedian via RealClearPolitics.com,

For those of us who came of age in the aftermath of September 11 and the wars that followed, a new book “River City One” by first-time author John Waters provides a reprieve from glamorized, military-style leadership guides like “Extreme Ownership” or “Make Your Bed,” or adrenaline-filled memoirs like Navy SEAL Chris Kyle’s “American Sniper.”

This is a penetration into the mind of a veteran returned to the world that we share with him.

A Naval Academy graduate and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, Waters is now an attorney in Omaha, his hometown. “River City One” is a novel, not a memoir, albeit a palpably autobiographical account. (In the interest of disclosure, after leaving military service as a U.S. Marine Corps captain, Waters was co-editor of RealClearDefense; Carl Cannon, executive editor of RealClearMedia, wrote the foreword to this book).

The story’s protagonist, war hero John Walker, shares with the reader an inner dialogue influenced by his drug-like withdrawal from the adrenaline and purpose of battle into the mundaneness of everyday life. He is an imperfect protagonist. Walker shares more with the self-doubting characters found in the novels from Lost Generation authors than the depictions of modern war heroes likely to be adapted by Hollywood.

In Walker, we are introduced to a character who, like Ford Madox Ford’s character Christopher Tietjens in “Parade’s End,” is not immediately likable and somewhat aloof. Unlike Tietjens, Walker doesn’t inform us of his life philosophy. Instead, we know only of his opinions through his critique of others. Clients, colleagues, fellow veterans, and family are not spared. He regularly dismisses the accomplishments of others as having little meaning. He thinks of civilians who want to ask him questions about his service as “turned on” by war stories. He asserts that his family occupies a separate world apart from him, as if he is unimportant to their well-being. We come to understand that his opinions are partial truths, informed by shame, used to justify his avoidance of family intimacy.

Even as a civilian, Walker has remained fit enough to drop and rhythmically knock out pushups. He must be sufficiently handsome and masculine to coast at his job as a lawyer, putting less effort into his work and appearance than his colleagues. Had Walker’s physicality been defined up front and the character described as having a more amiable disposition, he would register as a heartthrob, like Milan Kundera’s Tomas in “The Unbearable Lightness of Being.” Instead, the author avoids allowing his protagonist either to be put on a pedestal or seen as a cad, ensuring that his dalliance with an aging, auburn-haired singer named Ruth is not regarded as part of a pattern. Instead, it registers as an act of despair, a final gasp for life.

We instead relate to Walker by accepting that his internal dialogue (like our own) can be wildly detached from what he says or does or how others perceive him. He is thus simultaneously unlikable and sympathetic. Who among us has only benevolent thoughts? As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Walker’s private criticism of others reflects more than passing internal commentary but rather his inability to find purpose. His inner dialogue transforms into the cause of the unfolding drama. Ultimately, his fixations lead to an existential crisis.

Unlike “Parade’s End,” Waters’s novel features no evil force or character challenging the protagonist. Walker’s wife epitomizes the modern supportive partner, even as Walker goads her by sharing his interest in meeting Ruth, the exotic and alluring opera singer, who is introduced halfway through the novel. Moreover, despite his lack of ambition in his peacetime profession, his colleagues and superiors do their best to include, mentor, and elevate him.

Walker does not want for opportunity. The schism between his self-image and how others perceive him is internal. Ironically, Ruth doesn’t suffer this same internal conflict. She is an archetype of a sophisticated and attractive woman who, in the abstract, could “understand” him. At any moment, Walker could choose to make his life about the future and move on from the past. He could decide to reconnect with his wife and son.

“River City One” is a stimulating read because it addresses how such a fractured sense of self can lead to all-consuming nihilistic thoughts.

Walker may be handsome, educated, employed, and loved – but he is unable to reciprocate in relationships or to recognize PTSD in himself and the deep shame he feels from the loss of a friend during the war.

Does his predicament represent the quiet despair and numbness that thousands of our veterans feel when they return to their own River Cities?

Waters illustrates that a downward spiral can occur inside a man’s head, even if life appears to move forward.

Walker supplies a subtle reminder – especially to those of us with friends, family, or peers who are combat veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq – that one never knows what is going on in someone else’s head. Neither talent nor opportunity spares veterans from the loss of purpose they may experience when returning home from war.

Many American families wish that they knew how to get someone in this position to snap out of it. “River City One” does not offer a remedy but simply a glimpse inside the mind of someone whose life and self-image were shattered by war. The novel’s lesson broadly applies to veterans and civilians alike: our lives are the sum of our choices. At every stage, we can choose to embrace family and make better decisions for ourselves and the people who care for us. The author leaves open the possibility of redemption for his protagonist. There is always hope. Perhaps Waters is a “Make Your Bed” guy, after all.

In his characteristic blunt and provocative style, Bill Maher recently tackled the apparently contentious topic of Western civilization and its role in shaping modern values, during a segment on his HBO show “Real Time.”

He passive aggressively challenges the increasingly negative narrative surrounding Western culture, particularly among progressives and academics, arguing that Western civilization has been instrumental in developing liberal values:

“Western civilization is what gave the world pretty much every goddamn liberal precept that liberals are supposed to adore.”

His position – as he has repeatedly done over the past few years – is a stark contrast to the current trend, from so-called progressives, of demonizing Western history and achievements including “Individual liberty, scientific inquiry, rule of law, religious freedom, women’s rights, human rights, democracy, trial by jury, freedom of speech.”

Focusing on Israel, Maher highlighted it as an exemplar of Western values in the Middle East, suggesting that the world could benefit from more nations embracing the Western ideals that Israel represents. Sure to stir the blood of every pandering political activist, Maher calmly stated that:

“…since one can find all these concepts in today’s Israel and virtually nowhere else in the Middle East, if anything, the world would be a better place if it had more Israels.”

Maher swiftly moves on to destroy the current socio-political movements that often view Western civilization solely through the lens of oppression and colonialism, lamenting that the oversimplified categorization of nations and cultures as either “victims or victimizers”, arguing that this viewpoint ignores the positive impact of Western ideals, “so Israel is lumped in as the toxic fruit of the victimizing West.”

Challenging this binary and idiot-level reductivist narrative prevalent in today’s mainstream media and ‘protests’, Maher exclaims:

“The irony being that all marginalized people live better today because of Western ideals, not in spite of them.”

Going further back in time, Maher points out that Western Enlightenment ideals have profoundly influenced global human rights and governance, mentioning figures like Thoreau, Rousseau, and Locke, and challenges the notion that Western history is predominantly negative with a controversial example:

“The cop who murdered George Floyd got 21 years for violating his Fourth Amendment rights, an idea we got directly from John Locke, who no one in college would ever study anymore because he’s so old, and so White, and so dead.“

Finally, given the increasing refusal to recognize Western historical figures and their contributions, Maher calls for a more balanced view of Western civilization, criticizing the tendency to overlook its contributions while magnifying its flaws. He questioned the double standards in historical assessments, asking, “Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it’s ever done?”

We suspect his calls for a more nuanced understanding of Western history, that acknowledges both its achievements and failures, will fall on deaf ears. And as he concludes, it appears he thinks so too…

“America only ever overcorrects, and so we’re at this place now where the words ‘Western Civ’ became kind of a shorthand for ‘White people ruined everything’…”

But, he pauses amid the crowd’s cheers and applause, “they didn’t ruin everything…”

“Why is it that every other culture gets a pass, but the West is exclusively the sum of the worst things it’s ever done? You think only White people colonized?”

Watch the full monologue below on X (since we would not be surprised if such blasphemy has been removed from other ‘less free’ social media platforms):

The world would be a much better place if it had more “outposts” like Israel. pic.twitter.com/w6QlVSTaVe

— Bill Maher (@billmaher) November 4, 2023

Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A $2 bill you have lying around could be worth hundreds—or even thousands—of times more than its face value.

The U.S. Currency Auctions’ Pricing guide shows that a $2 bill, which features the third U.S. president, Thomas Jefferson, could be worth up to $4,500, depending on certain factors. Compared with other bills, the $2 currency is considered more rare, although they’re still being produced.

“Americans don’t spend $2 bills, because they think they are markedly scarce. However, the numbers tell us a different story,” Dustin Johnston, vice president of Heritage Auctions, told MarketWatch on Wednesday, noting that some bills could be worth up to $20,000 at auction.

The auction official issued a caveat: “Just in the last five years, they’ve printed 100 million $2 bills. The fact that they don’t circulate and are kept as mementos is a little bit odd. Very few of them have numismatic or collector value.”

And Art Pinto, the manager of Legacy Coins and Curiosities in Florida, told Fox 13 that there are several contributing factors that help determine the potential value of a $2 bill. He noted that newer bills have a green seal on them and are likely just worth their face value, but if the bill includes a red seal, it likely is worth more.

“If you’re looking for a high dollar $2 bill, it would be pre-1900, and it would have to be in a very high-graded condition,” said Mr. Pinto.

Mr. Johnston told MarketWatch that other than the date, people look for serial numbers and the condition of the bill.

“What we look at is fancy serial numbers,” he said. “A serial number ‘1’ for a 1976 $2 bill would be worth $20,000 or more. But a majority of those people holding 1976 $2 bills, they are only worth face value. There are very few that actually exceed face value.”

He added that “beyond the fancy serial numbers, most of the value is going to be in the large size notes [from] 1918 and prior,” adding that 1918 bills “are very common.”

“They typically start at $80 to $100 and go up from there,” Mr. Johnston added. “The more recent ones, the 1920s and beyond, well over 99 percent are going to be worth marginally over face value.”

According to Heritage Auctions, a $2 currency note that was minted in 2003 sold online for $2,400 in July 2022. The same bill sold for $4,000 at a separate auction later that year.

A $2 bill known as a “Rainbow Note,” dating back to 1869, is expected to sell for at least $12,000, says a listing on the auction company’s website. One of those same notes is also currently listed on eBay for $7,990.

The $2 bill has been in U.S. circulation since 1862, and six different types have been created since then, according to the Department of Treasury’s website. But the currency been mostly unpopular over its history.

“For most of their history, $2 notes have been unpopular, being viewed as unlucky or simply awkward to use in cash exchanges,” the Bureau of Engraving and Printing says, which added that President Jefferson did not start appearing on the bill’s face until 1869. Before that, first U.S. Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton appeared on the currency.

As of 2017, there were about 1.2 billion $2 bills in circulation, according to the U.S. Currency Education Program.

However, Mr. Johnston said that holding onto most recently made $2 bills likely won’t pan out. “Holding onto the common ones for another 30 years, they are common now, they are going to probably stay common,” he told MarketWatch. “You’re almost better off spending them now, or depositing them in the bank vs. holding onto them.”

Several years ago, a extremely rare $1,000 bill sold for $1.2 million at an auction. The 1891 bill features the face of William L. Marcy, who served as the governor of New York and was a secretary under President James K. Polk in the mid-nineteenth century.

The most expensive U.S. coin that was ever auctioned is the 1933 Double Eagle gold coin, which was sold for $18 million in 2021.

As the MSM turns on President Joe Biden heading into the 2024 election, the Washington Post had an interesting piece on Thursday exploring a little-known connection between the Bidens and the du Pont family, which revolves around a 2001 case in which then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) was voted in as a prominent new member of a prestigious Golf Club, in Wilmington, Delaware, founded by a du Pont heiress.

That year, Biden, known for his “Middle-Class Joe” image and modest financial status, joined the exclusive Fieldstone Golf Club, a symbol of prestige and power. This move painted a contrasting picture: a politician aligned with working-class values, yet rubbing shoulders with the state’s most affluent family, renowned for their chemical company empire.

At the time, Biden walked a delicate line. On one hand, he campaigned as an Amtrak-riding “Middle-Class Joe” striving to make ends meet, and accurately described himself as “one of the poorest members of Congress” — reporting $221,000 in combined income with his wife that year and $360 in charitable contributions. -WaPo

Biden’s connection to the du Ponts extended beyond social interactions. His staffing choices, political allies, and personal real estate investments all reflected a deep integration with this influential family. His acquisition of a mansion built by a du Pont member further underscores this relationship.

Yet, Biden’s entry into the Fieldstone Golf Club raised eyebrows and led to a brief FBI investigation in 2007. The inquiry centered on how Biden obtained his club membership, especially as it involved an “unused” ticket from a company owned by the club’s founder, potentially bypassing a substantial partnership fee. The FBI’s probe, which included photographing Biden’s personal locker at the club, eventually closed without any allegations of wrongdoing. It’s unknown whether Biden was ever informed about the FBI investigation.

In response to an inquiry, the White House told the Post: “These bizarre suggestions from more than 20 years ago are confusing given the fact that the Post is reporting that President Biden was fully responsible for membership dues at the golf club and all out-of-pocket costs associated with it. Frankly, the Post’s own reporting suggests this supposed matter was closed 15 years ago with no finding of wrongdoing. If you want to dig deep on who’s funding a president’s golf habits, we might have some suggestions.”

Yet, this story reveals the delicate balance Biden navigated between his public identity as a relatable politician and his private interactions with Delaware’s elite. While maintaining his image as a defender of middle-class interests, Biden also sought inclusion in the state’s upper echelons, epitomized by his association with the du Ponts and his membership at Fieldstone.

For someone raised in Delaware with Biden’s blue-collar background, “it would be quite an accomplishment” to rise into the same social circles as the du Ponts, said Joseph Hurley, a Wilmington attorney who grew up with Biden and represented Moseley.

“It’s like, ‘I’ve really arrived,’ because the du Ponts were the family, the king’s-family type thing,” he said. -WaPo

Biden often cited the long role of the du Pont family in Delaware in his family story – writing in his memoir that his father moved the family from Scranton, PA to a suburb of Wilmington, which was made more economically stable thanks to so many well-paid DuPont employees.

“DuPont meant security for today and better times for the future,” Biden wrote.

Years later, Biden recalled that his mother urged him to value his heritage with as much pride as the state’s best-known family. “Like I’m a du Pont or something,” Biden recalled. “You’re a Biden. Nobody is better than you, and everybody’s equal to you,” his mother told him.

Still, he envied the position and power of those who founded the DuPont company.

Elected to the Senate in 1972, he served in Congress alongside Rep. Pierre “Pete” du Pont IV, who later became Delaware’s governor and ran for president. Biden’s close adviser and Senate chief of staff, Ted Kaufman, had worked for DuPont as a plastics engineer.

In 1974, Biden spent $185,000 to buy what he called a “gorgeous … enormous” mansion built six decades earlier by a du Pont family member in Greenville, Del. The home, which he named “the Station,” served as a base for Biden’s unsuccessful 1988 presidential campaign; he sold it for $1.2 million in 1996 and then bought a four-acre lakefront property in Greenville. -WaPo

The Biden-du Pont connection, reinforced by this membership, raises questions about potential influences and reciprocal favors within these elite circles.

In particular, it seems appropriate to revisit a controversial 2009 plea deal offered by then-Attorney General Beau Biden to a du Pont heir accused of raping his own daughter when she was a toddler. Richards was originally charged with two counts of second-degree rape, which carried a minimum of 20 years behind bars. Instead, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to fourth-degree rape, which carries no minimum prison time.

The deal was offered to du Pont heir Robert H. Richards IV, who had confessed to the fourth-degree rape of his 3-year-old daughter. He was spared prison time, a decision that sparked public outrage and scrutiny. Beau Biden defended the decision in 2014, citing the case’s weaknesses and potential for loss at trial, but these justifications were met with skepticism, given the family’s history with the du Ponts.

The plea bargain’s leniency towards a figure from a wealthy and powerful family contrasts sharply with the typically harsher sentences meted out to less privileged offenders. This disparity points to a potential bias within the judicial system, influenced by socio-economic status and connections.

The link between the Bidens and the du Ponts, established years earlier through Joe Biden’s golf club membership, suggests a narrative of mutual benefits and unwritten understandings among Delaware’s elite. While there’s no evidence of a link, the timing and context of these relationships paint a picture of intersecting interests and shared spaces between powerful families.

Authored by Techno Fog via The Reactionary,

Ever since explosive whistleblower testimony detailing DOJ efforts to sabotage the Hunter Biden investigation was released this summer, the US Attorney (and now Special Counsel) in charge of that investigation – David Weiss – has been under siege.

Beset with allegations of misconduct by those who had been part of his investigative team, and self-inflicted mistakes such as allowing the statute of limitations on tax crimes to pass, Weiss (who was appointed Special Counsel in August) provided closed-door testimony this week before the House Committee on the Judiciary, led by Jim Jordan.

It was a rare opportunity to obtain testimony from a Special Counsel – they typically only testify after their reports have been completed. And while he refused to answer specifics concerning Hunter’s plea deal, the status of his investigation, and why he allowed the statute of limitations to pass on some of Hunter’s tax crimes, Weiss’s testimony does provide important context regarding what has transpired since his investigation began.

For background, Weiss has investigated Hunter Biden for approximately five years. According to the testimony of whistleblower Gary Shapley, a highly-credentialed IRS Criminal Supervisory Special Agent, this investigation “has been handled differently than any investigation I’ve ever been a part of for the past 14 years of my IRS service.” Agent Shapley explained:

“Some of the decisions seem to be influenced by politics. But whatever the motivations, at every stage decisions were made that had the effect of benefiting the subject of the investigation. These decisions included slow-walking investigative steps, not allowing enforcement actions to be executed, limiting investigators’ line of questioning for witnesses, misleading investigators on charging authority, delaying any and all actions months before elections to ensure the investigation did not go overt well before policy memorandum mandated the pause. These are just only a few examples.”

As we noted back in June, the preferential treatment included: denials of normal investigative steps like looking into Hunter Biden’s communications; tipping off the Biden Transition Team that Hunter Biden would be interviewed; and refusing search warrants of Joe Biden’s home, though the Assistant US Attorney (Lesley Wolf) helping with the case admitted it was “likely” there would be evidence.

One of the biggest revelations from the whistleblowers was that Weiss, who was the Delaware US Attorney at the time, was denied authority to file charges against Hunter Biden in DC or California.

During his testimony, Weiss was able to provide some context on how that transpired.

In February of 2022, Weiss reached out to Associate Deputy Attorney General Bradley Weinsheimer “because we were looking to bring certain portions of our investigation to either D.C. or L.A.” In that call, Weiss raised the idea of being granted “Special Attorney” authority, which would have allowed him to bring the charges in those venues.

This requested wasn’t granted by Main Justice. Instead, Weinsheimer told Weiss to reach out to DC (and California) to see if they “would be interested in joining or otherwise participating in the investigation.”

Weiss then reached out to the US Attorneys for DC and the Central District of California (LA) regarding the potential to prosecute Hunter Biden for 2014-2015 tax crimes. These are the years where, according to the testimony of IRS whistleblower Shapley, Hunter Biden undertook a scheme to not report his foreign income from Burisma and “to evade his taxes through a partnership with a convicted felon.”

The US Attorney for DC denied his request: “I received word from my staff that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia had decided not to join the case as a partner or co-counsel moving forward.” (A remarkable declination from DC, considering their zealous prosecutions of January 6 protesters.)

The Central District of California also declined to help pursue the charges.

These denials are important because they were made by political appointees of President Biden. Main Justice, by ordering Weiss to go through this process, put Weiss in a position that he probably didn’t like – that he would have to pursue charges that were denied by other US Attorneys. (Weiss probably imagined the condemnations from the media.)

This left Weiss with a decision: whether to file the DC and California tax charges against Hunter Biden on his own. Weiss would testify that after the DC denial, Main Justice informed him that he had the authority under the “Special Attorney” regulations “to bring whatever charges you deem appropriate.”

Weiss, however, let the statute of limitations expire on Hunter Biden’s 2014 and 2015 tax crimes. Why Weiss decided not to go forward with these charges remains a mystery, especially considering that the DOJ Tax Division (and AUSA Wolf) recommended Biden be prosecuted for these years (see below for reference). Weiss declined to explain his non-prosecution decision, stating he could address this in his report.

Read the rest here – including:

• Weiss’s response as to whether it was “fair” that Hunter could avoid paying taxes on his Burisma income
• Weiss’s defense of AUSA Lesley Wolf, who was accused of covering for the Bidens
• Weiss’ thoughts on the future of his investigation as Special Counsel

A man with no criminal history who saved a woman from being attacked by a homeless man has been arrested and charged by the Manhattan DA with criminal possession of a firearm and reckless endangerment because he fired a warning shot, stopping the assault.

According to eyewitness accounts and security footage, John Rote, 43, drew a pistol and began firing shots after witnessing a man trying to steal a woman’s purse.

The suspect in the attempted robbery, Matthew Roesch, 49, was also arrested. Roesch was running scheme by which he would hold an emergency gate open to let riders avoid paying fees, and asked for money in return. Around 9 p.m. Tuesday, Roesch tried to grab a 40-year-old woman’s purse who refused to pay him, before Rote scared him off with his gun.

This incident raises questions about the adequacy of law enforcement in New York’s transit system. With crime rates on the rise and insufficient policing across major cities in America, ordinary citizens like Rote feel compelled to take matters into their own hands.

This is John Rote

Yesterday, he was in a New York Subway station when a homeless man tried to violently mug a woman.

John pulled out his gun, yelled “leave her alone”, and fired 2 warning shots.

The NYPD arrested him. pic.twitter.com/cooKtb7D1c

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) November 9, 2023

Officials, who aren’t protecting vulnerable citizens, are pissed.

“I’ve looked at the video,” said New York City Transit President Richard Davey at a news conference Wednesday. “It’s, I would say unusual. He sort of looks very calm, pulls out a gun, fires two shots, calmly puts the gun back in the bag and walks away.”

“The point is, that’s not what we need from anybody in this system,” Davey continued.

Mr. Rote is originally from West Virginia and has ties out of state, but no criminal history, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. His attorney did not respond to a request for comment.

“Thank goodness nobody was hurt here—but what happened was outrageous, reckless, and unacceptable,” Mr. Davey said in a statement released after Rote was arrested. -AP

John Rote stepping up to protect someone only to be charged is absurd. A good Samaritan faces punishment while criminals roam free? That’s twisted justice. The DA’s priorities seem misplaced. Self-defense isn’t a crime; it’s a right.

— Swan (@BigPoppaSwan) November 9, 2023

The incident comes months after a Marine Corps veteran was arrested for putting a deranged homeless man in a chokehold on a New York City subway, which led to the man’s death.

Daniel Penny, the marine, says he didn’t intend to take Jordan Neely’s life, but he had to protect the frightened passengers after Neely threatened to kill people on the train.

“The man stumbled on, he appeared to be on drugs, the doors closed, and he ripped his jacket off and threw it down at the people sitting next to me at my left,” Penny said in the video.

“I was listening to music at the time, and I took my headphones out to hear what he was yelling,” he continued.

“The three main threats that he repeated over and over was ‘I’m going to kill you,’ ‘I’m prepared to go to jail for life,’ and ‘I’m willing to die.’”

Penny, who stands at 6 feet 2 inches tall, said he was intimidated by Neely, who was bigger than him and was shouting in the subway riders’ faces.

“There’s a common misconception that Marines don’t get scared. We’re actually taught, one of our core values is courage, and courage is not the absence of fear but how you handle fear,” he said.

“I was scared for myself, but I looked around, I saw women and children. He was yelling in their faces saying these threats. I just couldn’t sit still.”

*  *  *

“For evil to succeed, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.” -Edmund Burke

Authored by Tom Ozimek via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The Internal Revenue Service has announced its annual tax inflation adjustments for 2024, including new income limits for seven tax brackets.

Standard Deductions

The standard deduction, which is typically used by people who don’t itemize their taxes, raises the amount of income people can earn before they have to hand some of it over to the government through taxes.

Under the IRS’s newly announced annual inflation adjustments, the standard deduction for married couples filing jointly in 2024 is $29,200, up $1,500, or 5.4 percent from the prior year. This year’s increase is smaller than last year’s (which was $1,800, or 7 percent greater) because the pace of inflation has slowed somewhat from last year’s eye-watering levels.

For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $14,600 for 2024, up $750. For heads of households, the standard deduction will be $21,900 for the tax year 2024, up $1,100 from 2023, marking a 5.4 percent increase (less than last year’s 7.4 percent bump).

Tax Bracket Changes

While the tax rates in percentage terms remain unchanged for the tax year 2024, the income limits at which they kick in have been changed.

The top marginal rate, or the highest tax rate based on income, remains at 37 percent for individual single taxpayers with incomes greater than $609,350, or $731,200 for married couples filing jointly.

The lowest rate is 10 percent, and applies to single individuals with incomes of $11,600 or less and married couples earning $23,200 or less.

The other rates are:

• 35 percent for incomes over $243,725 (or $487,450 for married couples filing jointly),
• 32 percent for incomes over $191,950 (or $383,900 for married couples filing jointly),
• 24 percent for incomes over $100,525 (or $201,050 for married couples filing jointly),
• 22 percent for incomes over $47,150 (or $94,300 for married couples filing jointly),
• 12 percent for incomes over $11,600 ($23,200 for married couples filing jointly).

Overall, the income limits for the seven tax brackets have been raised by 5.4 percent for the 2024 tax year compared to last year.

Alternative Minimum Tax

For single filers, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) exemption amount has been raised to $85,700 for the 2024 tax year, up from $81,300 for the prior year.

This is the threshold level at which taxpayers become subject to the AMT, a separate tax scheme with its own set of rules and rates meant to ensure that higher-income individuals and corporations pay a minimum amount of tax regardless of deductions or credits.

For married couples filing jointly, the AMT exemption amount has been raised to $133,300 for the 2024 tax year.

The AMT exemption amount for tax year 2024 starts to phase out at $609,350 for single filers and at $1,218,700 for married couples filing jointly.

Earned Income Tax Credit

The IRS has raised the maximum amount for households who claim the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to $7,830 for the tax year 2024 for individuals who have at least three qualifying children. In the tax year 2023, or the current tax year, this was $7,430.

Last year, the average claimed EITC amount was more than $2,000, but around 20 percent of those entitled to the credit didn’t claim it, according to the IRS.

People particularly prone to overlooking the tax credit include those living in nontraditional homes (such as a grandparent raising a grandchild), those whose earnings declined or whose marital or parental status changed, people living in rural areas, veterans, the self-employed, and those with earnings below the tax return filing requirement.

Since navigating EITC eligibility can be tricky due to its complexity, the IRS has a tool called the EITC Assistant that people can use to check if they qualify and how much they can expect to get.

Flexible Spending Arrangements

For the 2024 tax year, the dollar limitation for employee salary reductions for flexible spending arrangement contributions increases to $3,200, up from the current tax year’s threshold of $3,050.

The flexible spending account, also known as a flexible spending arrangement, allows workers to contribute a portion of their regular earnings, up to a limit set by the IRS, into an account that can be used to pay for certain health care costs.

The funds taken from the account are not subject to income and payroll taxes, and so they offer certain tax advantages.

Other Notable Adjustments

In tax year 2024, other notable changes include higher Medical Savings Account (MSA) deductibles and out-of-pocket expense limits.

For self-only coverage, the deductible range is $2,800 to $4,150, and the maximum out-of-pocket expense is $5,550. Family coverage deductibles range from $5,550 to $8,350, with an out-of-pocket limit of $10,200.

The foreign earned income exclusion increases to $126,500, and estates of decedents in 2024 have a basic exclusion amount of $13,610,000. The annual gift exclusion rises to $18,000, and the maximum adoption credit is $16,810.

Certain provisions remain unchanged: the personal exemption stays at zero, there’s no itemized deduction limitation, and the Lifetime Learning Credit phases out for incomes over $80,000 ($160,000 for joint returns) for all tax years starting from Dec. 31, 2020.

Progressive city leadership in crime-ridden San Francisco has undertaken a massive effort to improve the city’s image, which has been tarnished with shit-covered streets, homelessness, and open-air drug markets. These measures have been implemented as a temporary solution ahead of the global trade summit that will flood the city with world leaders and corporate executives beginning today. 

The annual Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit is San Francisco’s largest international event since world leaders gathered in the town in 1945 to sign the charter creating the United Nations. A lot has changed in the metro area in 78 years, including radical leftists in City Hall that have pushed failed ‘defund the police’ policies that have transformed parts of the region into an out-of-control, crime-infested hellhole. 

The New York Post confirmed the wonderful folks in City Hall began pushing “drug addicts, dealers, and homeless” from the downtown area to other parts of the city, an effort that some believe is to conceal their failed policies from the international community during APEC. 

REPORT: The San Francisco homeless population has “miraculously” gone missing as President Biden & Chinese President Xi Jinping are set to meet in the liberal city.

Remarkable!

The typical drug addicts & homeless who wander the city like zombies have disappeared as 20,000… pic.twitter.com/2iDpl4FHCG

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) November 11, 2023

Residents and business owners told The Post that Mayor London Breed’s attempts to “herd” the homeless and drug addicts to an opposite side of the city during the summit are only a “Band-Aid” amid the worst crime crisis the city has ever seen.  

Sources said the cleanup of homeless people and drug addicts is concentrated across seven intersections in the Tenderloin and South of Market, or SoMa, neighborhoods. These areas have been known to be covered in shit and fentanyl and heroin needles, as well as various tent cities housing the homeless. 

China level propaganda and control. Clearing out homeless in San Fran for a world leadership summit, only to unleash them back into the streets days later. https://t.co/Xfvn3qLb1D

— Red Bear (@RedBear04749384) November 11, 2023

“They started clearing the tents earlier this week and there is definitely a lot more police presence,” SoMa resident and community activist Ricci Lee Wynne said. 

“They’ve cleared out the tents that were near the Moscone Center on Howard Street, which tells me the city had the capability to do this all along — instead they just do the bare minimum,” Wynne said. 

He added, “Once APEC is gone, police presence will start to simmer down again, the tents will return. And it will slowly flare up again. What we need is a permanent solution.”

The summit, which runs through next Friday, will feature a highly anticipated meeting between President Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday. 

So, all along, radical Democrats in City Hall had the capability to enforce law and order but chose not to only until world leaders and corporate execs showed up to a summit. This is the biggest red flag yet for residents that leftists do not have the best interest of the majority of voters and are likely serving a fringe minority of elites.