It’s only appropriate that at a time when the senile commander in chief is preparing to unleash several mushroom clouds of “world peace” – which is code for the Nobel prize committee to give the “big guy” his long overdue Peace Prize as the world teeters over the edge of one or more world wars…

Afghanistan back under Taliban control. Proxy World War 3 in E. Europe and now all gains in the Middle East made over last 5 years erased,

Yeah give him the fucking Peace Prize.

— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) October 16, 2023

…. that a congressionally appointed bipartisan panel said on Thursday that the United States must prepare for possible simultaneous wars with Russia and China by expanding its conventional forces, strengthening alliances and enhancing its nuclear weapons modernization program.

The report from the Strategic Posture Commission – which appears to be nothing more than a ghost writer for the Military Industrial Complex and its identical twin, the deep state, both of which stand to make quadrillions should the US jump right into the coming world war, comes amid tensions with China over Taiwan and other issues and worsening frictions with Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

“The United States and its allies must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously,” the Strategic Posture Commission said. “The U.S.-led international order and the values it upholds are at risk from the Chinese and Russian authoritarian regimes.”

Some more details: congress in 2022 created the panel of six Democrats and six Republicans to assess long-term threats to the United States and recommend changes in U.S. conventional and nuclear forces. The panel accepted a Pentagon forecast that China’s rapid nuclear arsenal expansion likely will give it 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035, confronting the United States with a second major nuclear-armed rival for the first time.

The Chinese and Russian threats will become acute in the 2027-2035 timeframe so “decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared,” said the 145-page report. The report also said the 30-year U.S. nuclear arms modernization program, which began in 2010 and was estimated in 2017 to cost around $400 billion by 2046, must be fully funded to upgrade all warheads, delivery systems and infrastructure on schedule.

Other recommendations included deploying more tactical nuclear weapons in Asia and Europe, developing plans to deploy some or all reserve U.S. nuclear warheads, and production of more B-21 stealth bombers and new Columbia-class nuclear submarines beyond the numbers now planned.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the report assumed that Russia and China would just sit there an quietly applaud as the US doubled its tactical nuclear weapons in Asia and Europe.

The panel also called for boosting the “size, type, and posture” of U.S. and allied conventional forces. If such measures are not taken, the United States “will likely” have to increase its reliance on nuclear weapons, the report said.

* * *

Cited by Reuters, a senior official involved in the report declined to say if the panel’s intelligence briefings showed any Chinese and Russian nuclear weapons cooperation.

“We worry … there may be ultimate coordination between them in some way, which gets us to this two-war construct,” the official said on condition of anonymity.

The findings would upend current U.S. national security strategy calling for winning one conflict while deterring another and – most importantly – require huge defense spending increases with uncertain congressional support. Which, one can argue, is precisely the impetus behind the report because at a time when the interest expense on US debt is about to surpass defense spending in the $1+ trillion spending category.

And sure enough: “We do recognize budget realities, but we also believe the nation must make these investments,” the Democratic chair, neocon Madelyn Creedon, a former deputy head of the agency that oversees U.S. nuclear weapons, and the vice chair, Jon Kyl, a retired Republican senator, said in the report’s preface.

Addressing a briefing held to release the report, Kyl said the president and Congress must “take the case to the American people” that higher defense spending is a small price to pay “to hopefully preclude” a possible nuclear war involving the United States, China and Russia.

So… the US must double its defense spending (call it $1 trillion -> $2 trillion) to deter not one but two nuclear powers, just so there is no nuclear war? 

That sounds awfully like the strategy that brought down the USSR. Which considering the level of Marxism in the US these days, may not be the worst strategy.

For now, the big guy hasn’t realized that his “10” will be much bigger if he greenlights the pursuit and prepayment of nuclear war on two fronts: the report contrasts with U.S. President Joe Biden’s position that the current U.S. nuclear arsenal is sufficient to deter the combined forces of Russia and China. But at the rate the walls are closing in on the Biden family, we expect it won’t be long before Biden realizes that to make the decisionmakers in Stockholm happy and receives the same ridiculous peace “award” that Barack also got, he will need to double down to war.

via RealClear Wire,

The following is a condensed version of “Shouting Your Pronouns in a Crowded Theater” by Dave Barfield, published at Law & Liberty.

Let’s try out a thought experiment. Imagine you’re in a crowded theater and someone yells, “Fire!” What happens? People flee the room in a panic. Rightly so. Now let me change the question slightly. When someone yells, “Fire!” what happens linguistically?

According to philosopher J. L. Austin’s speech-act theory in his influential book How to Do Things with Words, three things occur:  locution, Illocution, and perlocution.

In locution, there is information transfer: a fire is present.

In illocution, the yelling affected the yeller: perhaps he or she became a hero in his or her own mind.

In perlocution, something happened to the listeners: they fled in terror. The exclamation of “Fire!” changed the scene dramatically.

Now, let’s alter our thought experiment. Imagine you learned the person who yelled “Fire!” was mistaken. Would you flee in terror? Would it be right to help others flee? Of course not. There was no fire.

Why would someone yell “Fire!” when there was no fire? Perhaps the person was confused or nefariously wanted to cause a scene. In such a speech-act, multiple things occur, regardless of the accuracy of the information.

Now to the matter of pronouns. When you replace “Fire” with someone’s chosen pronouns, more than just information transfer takes place. The speaker is trying to change the hearer. Thus, the communication of one’s preferred pronouns does more than just transfer information. It is an attempt to change the listener’s beliefs, actions, feelings, etc.

The trans community has made a concerted effort at changing how non-trans people think about them by insisting that an unsung part of speech do much of the work for them. Pronouns are displayed on nametags, social media profiles, class rosters, and other platforms. Failures to comply with someone’s chosen pronouns has led to public confrontations and moral castigations. Thus, many in the non-trans community use chosen pronouns out of fear. That’s perlocution at work.

Pronoun Impotence

Others, however, refuse to comply. They believe they are being pressured into saying something untrue, because the trans community has offered no compelling logic for their claims regarding genders. They believe the trans community has only communicated their feelings. In our thought experiment, this would be someone yelling “Fire!” when someone feels like there’s a fire, even though that person might be unsure, unsettled, or even unethical. Generally speaking, this would not be a problem. A free society should not overly care about feelings. However, the trans community has pressed the issue into society-altering actions: bathroom usage, prison assignments, tax money for healthcare, etc.

Despite these efforts by the trans community, the pronoun endeavor will fail. Why? Two reasons. First, pronouns will never sufficiently perlocute one’s gender because they cannot illocute one’s gender. Even as part of a multi-pronged strategy of hormones, surgery, and the like, pronouns will fall short in affirming one’s personal choice. These only reveal personal choice—the heart of the issue. Personal choice, while a luxury, is impotent against the juggernaut of nature. Choosing to fly off a bridge does not mean gravity will comply, and choosing one’s pronouns does not mean society must comply.

Second, it won’t work for pragmatic reasons. The accepted pronoun formula (He/Him, She/Her) has already been coopted by comedians, satirists, and even the trans community itself. Billionaire Elon Musk recently joked that his pronouns were “Prosecute/Fauci,” and the trans community has placed signage in New York stating that if you don’t comply, your pronouns will be “Was/Were.” Thus, the sacred pronoun formula produces the modern profanity of laughter and fear.

New Solutions

Perlocution is built on tacit trust in a free society. I trust you to yell “Fire!” only when there is one. If you betray that trust, you maintain the freedom to yell, but I am under no obligation to believe you. This goes for pronouns, too. We trust each other to tell the objective truth, not what one’s personal imagination says.

All this means we need an absolute, which Nature and Nature’s God has given us: biological sex. This binary has functioned extraordinarily well for millennia, and human endeavors to undo it are simply causing greater harm. Ironically, many of the people who religiously follow nature in other areas (evolution, racial justice, climate change, etc.) suddenly find themselves at war with healthy human bodies.

Furthermore, this male/female binary allows for a broad spectrum of gender expression. Masculine does not necessarily mean machismo, nor does feminine necessarily mean effeminate. Any attempt to generate genders at imaginary whims is as arbitrary as the moral demands to use someone’s chosen pronouns.

And finding arbitrary solutions would require an upending of Nature that goes beyond gender. It would mean Nature is no longer reliable for anything at all. Such a course leads to nihilism, and its accompanying violence. And we/they are already there.

Dave Barfield is the Executive Director of a Protestant church in Carmel, Indiana.

Nothing screams ‘secure elections’ like high turnover of local election officials and workers in key states.

According to The Hill, that’s exactly what’s going on, after a ‘surge of local election officials’ have left their posts in recent years. This could leave polling locations with understaffed and inexperienced teams (who might not know all the nuances behind scanning machines and which tables the extra ballot suitcases are stored under?).

UCLA election law expert Richard Hasen is “quite worried” about the turnover of election officials and workers nationwide, but says it’s “not surprising” given how the 2020 election played out.

“Some of the language that’s been used against these officials has been really shocking,” he told The Hill. “And why would you stay in a job that is high-stress to begin with, when you’re not going to be all that well-paid, and then to face this kind of abuse? People have to be really committed to democracy to want to stay in these jobs. And it’s asking a lot.”

Does that mean people who weren’t committed to democracy were counting the ballots in 2020?

A Brennan Center survey of local election officials taken in March and April, around the same time many White House candidates were jumping into the race, found that 1 in 5 are expected to be serving in their first presidential election in 2024. 

The rate of turnover found in the survey is equivalent to “one to two local election officials leaving office every day since the 2020 election.” 

Nearly a third said they’d personally been “abused, harassed, or threatened” because of their jobs, and nearly three-quarters said they felt threats have gone up in recent years. Nearly a quarter said they personally know at least one election official or worker who’s left the job due to threats, harassment or fear for their safety.  –The Hill

“Your dedication to public service … can only take you so far, when day after day you have people showing up in your office, or you have phone calls or emails accusing you of not doing everything you can to provide the best election experience, but also secure elections,” said Lisa Bryant, chairwoman of the department of political science at California State University, Fresno, and an expert with MIT’s Election Lab. 

Perhaps not covering windows in cardboard, blocking election observers, faking burst pipes to delay voting for two hours, and a national judiciary that dismissed the vast majority of election fraud cases over ‘lack of standing’ (i.e. no personal harm was suffered, therefore no jury gets to see your evidence), would go a long way to instilling voter confidence.

We digress.

In 2021, the Biden DOJ formed an Election Threats Task Force, citing a “significant increase in the threat of violence” against the ‘election community’ during and after the 2020 election.

While research hasn’t concluded that threats are driving workers out of the field, the turnover appears to be driven by various sources of burnout, such as interfacing with voters, responding to public records requests, fielding media inquiries and dealing with the public scrutiny.

“The job of an election official has gotten increasingly difficult over the last few years, and it has not been matched by how they’re being compensated or whether they have the resources to do all of the additional things on their plate,” said Rachel Orey, senior associate director of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Elections Project.

Maybe if America had a national voter ID, perhaps election workers might feel more comfortable in their jobs?

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

The Justice Department this week hit Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) with a superseding indictment including a new but all-too-familiar charge: being an unregistered foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

I cannot recall another sitting member of Congress being criminally charged as a foreign agent.

Yet even if this is the first such case, the charge has been freely used by the Justice Department in all but one case: Hunter Biden.

The indictment accuses Menendez of being a foreign agent on behalf of Egypt.

Also charged under the law is Menendez’s wife, Nadine, and Egyptian American businessman Wael Hana.

After they discussed various foreign policy priorities at one dinner, Nadine is quoted as asking her Egyptian counterparts, “What else can the love of my life do for you?”

The government alleges that the couple agreed to have Menendez “use his power and authority to facilitate such sales and financing to Egypt.” In addition to other benefits, the government alleges that Hana promised to put Nadine on the payroll of his company in a “low-or-no-show job.”

The indictment further alleges that the senator disclosed “nonpublic information about the United States’s provision of military aid to Egypt” during a dinner with Hana in 2018.

It also claims that the senator “secretly edited and ghost-wrote” a letter “on behalf of Egypt” trying to convince other senators to release a hold on $300 million in aid to the country.

The inclusion of the FARA charge against Menendez, his wife and his associate only highlights the absence of any such charge against President Biden’s son Hunter.

For years, some of us have raised the glaring contradiction in how the Justice Department has approached the Hunter Biden case with its treatment of past defendants like Donald Trump associate Paul Manafort.

The Justice Department has been quick to indictment Manafort and others on FARA charges, but continues to prevaricate over such a charge for the president’s son.

Indeed, when Menendez was charged, I wrote about the striking similarities in the cases, including the gifts and benefits showered on both men.

They remain similar in every way except the charges.

FARA covers anyone acting as “agent of a foreign principal,” including but not limited to (1) attempting to influence federal officials or the public on domestic or foreign policy or the political or public interests in favor of a foreign country; (2) collecting or disbursing money and or other things of value within the United States; or (3) representing the interests of the foreign principal before U.S. Government officials or agencies.

It is sweeping.

So is the definition of what a “foreign principal” encompasses, including “a foreign government, a foreign political party, any person outside the United States (except U.S. citizens who are domiciled within the United States), and any entity organized under the laws of a foreign country or having its principal place of business in a foreign country.”

It is easy to see why FARA charges have been quickly brought in cases ranging from Manafort to Menendez. It is less clear why such charges remains strikingly absent from the Hunter case.

In Hunter’s case, he was selling what associate Devon Archer called the “Biden brand” and asking, to paraphrase Nadine Menendez,  “What else can [my dad] do for you?”

The House committees have confirmed not only millions transferred to Hunter and other Biden family members, but direct contacts made by Hunter with federal officials and agencies in relation to his foreign clients.

Archer described how Burisma executives told Hunter that they were worried about the anti-corruption investigation of Ukrainian Prosecutor-General Viktor Shokin.

Archer testified that Hunter immediately “called D.C.” in response to the plea.

Shokin was later fired at Vice President Joe Biden’s demand.

In shaking down a Chinese source for more money, Hunter reportedly sent a WhatsApp message that reminded him that “The Bidens are the best at doing exactly what Chairman wants.”

The message was to Gongwen (“Kevin”) Dong, a CEFC China Energy executive with close ties to the Chinese government, and included a threat that “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled … I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

Throughout his open influence-peddling, emails show Hunter was fully aware of the risk of being charged under FARA.

The problem with FARA is that it would require the Bidens to publicly acknowledge their work as foreign agents and, by extension, their massive influence-peddling operation.

In one message, Hunter addressed his work for the Chinese CEFC energy company and warned:

“No matter what it will need to be a US company at some level in order for us to make bids on federal and state funded projects. Also We [sic] don’t want to have to register as foreign agents under the FCPA which is much more expansive than people who should know choose not to know. James has very particular opinions about this so I would ask him about the foreign entity.”

“James” is his uncle Jim Biden, who has also been regularly accused of corrupt influence-peddling tied to Joe Biden.

In the message, Hunter gets it.

The law is indeed “expansive.”

His uncle clearly gets it.

The question is why the Justice Department gets it in every case except those with targets named Biden.

For many, the question is not whether Hunter has acted as an agent of foreign principals but whether the Justice Department is acting as an agent of the principal Biden.

As the death toll soars on both sides of the Israel-Palestine chaos, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul told ZeroHedge that he’s not too keen on involving the U.S. in the Middle Eastern conflict.

“I’m not really for funding either side,” the senator said.

“Israel is a rich country. I think they can afford to do most things.”

If the Speaker situation in the House is resolved next week, Paul is concerned Congress will exploit the nascent war to goad lawmakers into funding Washington’s other proxies.

“The rumor is they’re going to put Ukraine aid with Israel aid with Taiwan aid, and so God knows how big this thing will be,” he said.

“It’s like a $50 billion-dollar bill, all outside the spending caps they passed two months ago and makes a mockery that we really have any rules or fiscal restraint over here.”

“I will oppose it,” Paul said but added that he could support some foreign aid as long as it is paid for through other funding cuts.

The hands-off approach to foreign policy – one that allows other nations to work out disputes for themselves – is reminiscent of the senator’s father, former Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tex.), who in 2009 said Gaza resembled a “concentration camp” and that U.S. policy exacerbated tensions by establishing a power imbalance in favor of Israel, which removes their incentive to “work out problems”:

“Israel knows… that we [United States] will do whatever is necessary to bail out Israel.”

“I think there is an argument for when you have unlimited support for one side,” Rand Paul said, responding to his father’s 2009 interview.

“It does give people a disincentive to negotiate.”

Drawing parallels to the war in Ukraine, Sen. Paul highlighted that U.S. support for the country, which is purported to help the Ukrainian people, actually achieves the opposite.

“Particularly with Ukraine, I think it goes on forever if we keep supplying it,” Paul said.

“Ultimately if you cared anything about the Ukrainian economy, the people, and the industry over there, you shouldn’t want a war that goes on forever.”

“That just becomes Afghanistan, so I have advocated for negotiation over there.”

However, back in Israel, the Senator cast doubt on the likelihood of diplomacy prevailing in this environment.

“There are times in which it’s easier to talk about negotiation and times in which it’s harder,” he said.

“Frankly, right now if you talk about negotiating with Hamas, it’s surreal in a sense because they just mowed down 260 people at a music concert.”

Paul said Hamas is too radical to trust as a good-faith negotiator, pointing to the competing Gazan faction, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), as the “more reasonable voice” because it recognizes Israel’s right to statehood.

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

We can anticipate a sharp reduction in conventional financial security in the next decade as the waste is growth / Landfill Economy runs out of cheap materials to throw away.

There are many pathways to life on the margins of the economy and society. Let’s consider three:

1. Our character and upbringing leave us unable to fill the work slots valued by employers. Constitutionally incapable of fitting into the conventional slots, we find our way to (or end up in) the margins. (I raise my hand here.)

2. Opportunities to lock in the security of steady work that can support a family are scarce in one’s locale, class, caste, etc. Most people are thus relegated to life on the margins.

3. Circumstances change, and the foundations of our security melt into air. The conventional socio-economic slots that provide security become scarce and we slip-slide from predictable security to the insecurity of the margins. This is downward mobility, a slide accelerated by high-cost lifestyles that require reliably high incomes.

Those who find themselves incapable of fitting into the conventional slots still have to support themselves (unless they chose their parents wisely and are trust-funders living off family wealth). Despite their unconventionality, the unconventional still dream of conventional success (recognition, admiration, earning lots of money, etc.) arising from their creative endeavors.

A relative handful of creators manage to mint millions, as many sectors of conventional economy need “something new” to sell to meet the ceaseless demand for novelty to separate the avant garde and the wealthy from the merely aspirational bourgeois. (The acquisition of status is a struggle through shifting sands that is highly profitable to those selling the latest must-have signifier.)

Creative success follows a brutal power-law long tail distribution. The few at the top reap the vast majority of the royalties, recognition, etc., a small percentage earn a conventional middle-class income and the vast majority earn too little to support themselves.

To sustain their creative endeavors, they must find some other source of income, preferably part-time (so they have time to create) and doing work that doesn’t demand adherence to (what seem like nonsensical) standards. These more informal sources of paid work include much of the restaurant-food-service industry, light construction, non-profit organizations in the arts and social services, delivery and other 1099 gigs, etc.

These more fluid sectors offer more opportunities to take control of one’s work and life even as they offer minimal security and pay. There are always tradeoffs, and taking control of one’s work and life is never free.

The money is rarely enough to live large, and so the creatives live on the margins in seedy housing, scrounging cheap food, riding a bicycle or scooter when weather allows, etc.

A few manage to acquire a specialized skill that enables them to earn a good living working part-time. These tend to be professional or trade skills that command high hourly wages.

Others endure work they loathe until it breaks them. After they burn out and accept they’re not cut out for the conventional slots, they drift to the margins. The security offered by conventional slots came at too high a price.

Those in the second category–the economy has too few opportunities for conventional security and status–must scrape by on the margins, or they must move to a place with more opportunities. This is rarely easy, and despite their best efforts, they may end up on the margins in the new locale.

But life on the margins can be much better in places with more nooks and crannies in the economy and more affordable shelter and services–more niche enterprises, quirky corners, etc., better public transport that offers affordable mobility, and a wider diversity of like-minded people to connect with. Networks in the margins offer the same advantages of networks in the conventional economy: more connections means more opportunities to find work and collaborate, share one’s creative endeavors, etc.

We can anticipate a sharp reduction in conventional financial security in the next decade as the waste is growth / Landfill Economy runs out of cheap materials to throw away and the credit needed to buy replacements for what broke/became obsolete and was tossed out. Financialization and globalization have both hit intrinsic barriers to further expansion and so they’re stagnating and reversing.

Global asset bubbles inflated by financialization and globalization are bursting and cannot be reinflated a fourth time.

How many jobs can actually be replaced by commoditized (i.e. nearly free) AI is unknown, but even if it’s only 10% of the number projected by AI boosters, it may contribute to a systemic decline in the white-collar slots that were considered “safe and secure.”

When credit-fueled expansion reverses and asset bubble burst, this will trigger the breakdown of all the systems that only function if there is an endless expansion of credit, consumption and asset valuations. This includes many if not most systems considered integral to the status quo foundations of conventional security.

As a result, a great many people will experience downward mobility as the foundations of their financial security evaporate or crumble. Those who need less and control more of their life (the essence of self-reliance) will manage life on the margins much better than those who need high incomes to survive and who control very little of their lives.

Those with robust personal networks, few wants/needs and a wide spectrum of skills will find the margins are sufficient, or they may even thrive in the less structured churn of life on the margins.

*  *  *

My new book is now available at a 10% discount ($8.95 ebook, $18 print): Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. Read the first chapter for free (PDF)

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Via OpenTheBooks.com,

Democrats take every opportunity to spend your tax dollars. The GOP was supposed to know better…

Unfortunately, the first thing the GOP did after they took control of the U.S. House – before the new Congress was even sworn in – they held a secret vote on earmarks. Last December, 158 GOP members of Congress voted to include earmarks in the year-end omnibus spending bill.

House Republicans “opened the bar” for the spendaholics.

Those 158 secret-voting members caused $16,012,272,565 of your tax dollars to be spent on 7,509 earmarks.

Not only did those 158 members adopt earmarks, the Republicans spent more of your tax dollars than their Democratic earmarking colleagues.

In the fiscal year 2024 spending bills being debated this fall, the top 63 earmarkers in the U.S. House are Republicans. Eight of the top ten earmarkers in the U.S. Senate are Republicans.

The U.S. House has a bartender at the spendaholics earmark bar – Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas). She chairs the Appropriations Committee that approves every one of those earmarks. When she was elected to Congress in 1997, the federal debt was $5.4 trillion.

Here are a few examples of what these big spending members of Congress – in both parties – think is more important than the exploding federal debt.

Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) earmarked $302 million last December and $556 million stuffed inside the 2024 bills.

Maine’s population is only about 1.3 million and Collins earmarked $2,640 per family of four. When Collins was first elected in 1997, the federal debt was $5.4 trillion.

If every member of Congress earmarked the same for each citizen in their state as Sen. Collins did, the total amount of earmarks would be $220 billion!

Last December, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) earmarked $30 million to the University of Vermont Honors College. In May, the trustees renamed the college after Leahy. Leahy earmarked $34 million into the international airport at Burlington. In April, the city council renamed the airport after Leahy. Senator Leahy got his name on buildings after earmarking your tax dollars and every dime of it was borrowed against our national debt.

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHETHER YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS TOOK EARMARKS, GO TO OUR WEBSITE. WWW.OPENTHEBOOKS.COM

When President George W. Bush took office, the federal debt was less than $6 trillion—this after 225 years of wars, Depressions, etc. In the last 20 years, the federal debt exploded, up nearly six times to $33 trillion—with no end in sight. In fact, the exploding debt is accelerating.

THE REBIRTH OF EARMARKS IS A STATEMENT FAR MORE DEVASTATING THAN THE NUMBERS:

• It is a statement of the culture within Congress.

• A culture that shows no respect for your tax dollars.

• No respect for the lurking danger the exploding federal debt poses for our country.

IF OUR GREAT COUNTRY IS TO SURVIVE, THE CULTURE WILL HAVE TO CHANGE.

Voters need to hold their elected officials accountable for tax and spend decisions. OpenTheBooks.com gives them the tools to do just that.

Once the voters understand how much of their tax dollars are being wasted. Once elected officials know that, unlike the past, there is no place to hide financial irresponsibility, the culture within government will begin to change.

Doing so will not only work to diminish the federal debt, but it will also make our government more effective, more efficient.

Transparency can transform how we govern ourselves.

We greatly appreciate all of your help. Transparency has never been more important to the survival of our country as our founders envisioned it, as we have lived it.

THOMAS W. SMITH

Chairman

OpenTheBooks.com

ADAM ANDRZEJEWSKI

CEO & Founder

OpenTheBooks.com

Authored by William Stebbins Jr. via Bitcoin Magazine,

Tension is building in the mines.

As the 4th Halving nears and the block reward trims to 3.125 bitcoin per block, miners must not only adapt to a significantly diminished reward, but contend with an increasingly profit-hostile future which might have surprised even the prescient Nakamoto. Indeed, despite widespread hope that fiat states will come to accept peaceful coexistence with bitcoin—I, too, would prefer this outcome—and despite some modest grounds for optimism, history would remind us that kings and emperors do not willingly relinquish power. This is no less true of modern fiat empires, as Lyn Alden’s survey of U.S. fiat interventionism explains.1 History, coupled with ongoing observation of federal actions—foreign and domestic—will be sufficient to calibrate our expectations and help guard us against understandable, yet self-deceptive naivete.

Accordingly, of all the imminent mining challenges, the most formidable might well be increasing state opposition. If accurate, then conditions may rapidly deteriorate such that off-planet mining might merit serious consideration.

THE MINERS’ EARTHLY DILEMMA

As the Halvings inexorably march on, the mining equation keeps changing. For example, in 14 short years mining has evolved from enthusiasts on personal computers to mammoth structures housing thousands of water-cooled Antminer S19s with 5nm chips pulling over 750 MW of electricity.

Each stage of mining evolution has faced unique challenges. Those anticipated with the 4th Halving this April will include, among others: assured access to cheaper energy, acquisition of more efficient ASIC chips despite a global shortage and shipment delays (exacerbated by U.S.-China-Taiwan animus), the possibility of 3nm chip miners, hashrate increase, hashprice decline, the impact of AI, environmental propaganda attacks, and maddeningly-inscrutable bitcoin value projections made no less easier by the advent of large investment firms in the bitcoin ecosystem—all within the context of a frangible, debt-bloated, de-dollarizing economy.

Were these the only issues to resolve they’d be sufficiently daunting. However, a more problematic attack vector, as I’ve presented previously,2 is the possibility of the fiat-empowered superpower and its retinue of dollar-subservient vassals hindering free market bitcoin activities.

Logically, the character and magnitude of state friction would be correlated and proportionate to bitcoin popularity over fiat’s existing sphere of influence and control. If the U.S. monetary system, reaping the ill effects of decades of manipulation and recent global de-dollarization, begins imploding while bitcoin strengthens, federal response will be strong. It will be unlikely to accept contraction of its fiat power and be open to a bitcoin standard. Rather, it will cling to the legacy system from which it so easily accumulated its power and attack the emergence. In so doing, upon realizing that it can’t kill bitcoin, it will first seek to isolate it from its owners in cyberspace.3 A complementary line of attack would then be to neutralize mining. With bitcoin isolated and mining disrupted, in their view, public trust in bitcoin would dissolve; the threat would be neutralized.

Elements of a mining attack might include two elements: First, a propaganda operation: facts notwithstanding, miners would be slandered as shadowy crypto profiteers irresponsibly increasing CO2 emissions and consuming vast stores of finite energy while driving prices up and diverting energy from socially-beneficial uses. Second, a bureaucratic operation: miners would face a torrent of regulation, from licensing and zoning requirements, environmental restrictions, energy and CO2 quotas, to unreasonable reporting requirements replete with unprecedented KYC intrusions, and punitive taxation. In short, the combined economic, regulatory, and propaganda challenges of such an attack would be near insurmountable.

In recent years, when a jurisdiction became inhospitable—one is reminded of China’s mining ban still in effect since mid 20214—the conventional playbook offered but two options: attempt to go underground (risky), or relocate to a bitcoin-hospitable jurisdiction (disruptive and costly).

THE SEARCH FOR NEW SANCTUARY

Analyzing this potential quandary militarily, we might turn to a concept from the field of counterinsurgent warfare: sanctuary. U.S. Army doctrine recognizes the historic principle that insurgents require areas of sanctuary within which to rest, reconsolidate, and sustain operations:

Access to external . . . sanctuaries [have] always influenced the effectiveness of insurgencies . . . provid[ing] insurgents places to rebuild and reorganize without fear of counterinsurgent interference. . . Sanctuaries traditionally were physical safe havens, such as base areas, and this form of safe haven still exists . . . [But,] modern target acquisition and intelligence-gathering technology make insurgents in isolation, even in neighboring states, more vulnerable.5

How might this apply to bitcoin mining? If we posit the State inevitably regarding bitcoin as a monetary insurgent against which it must act to preserve its fiat power, miners will scramble to find inviolable sanctuaries in order to continue operations.

Currently, miners possess adequate jurisdictions within which to mine. In fact, hope yet flickers as we see a few bitcoin-friendly jurisdictions emerging, such as Oman,6—usually within what the West calls the “third world,” but which might be accurately labelled the neo-colonial, fiat-wrecked world. Additionally, even despite the 2021 mining ban the hashrate in China quickly recovered and exceeded its previous rate.7 This situation, however, can change with astonishing speed. Accommodating jurisdictions today can quickly turn inhospitable tomorrow.

Viewed differently: Bitcoin already has existential sanctuary— anchored securely in the blockchain, it is existentially permissionless and will continue existing untouchable in cyberspace. Its existence may be said to be inviolate. However, it currently lacks reproductive sanctuary. Mining occurs not in cyberspace, but in geographic space, within nations where market hospitality, regulation, and energy access is unpredictable. Further, mining now largely occurs within extensive, immobile structures which cannot easily “go underground” or quickly relocate.

But even the above simplification is inaccurate in that bitcoin’s existence is not fully secure in cyberspace without mining. As Andreas Antonopoulos explains,

Mining secures the bitcoin system and enables the emergence of network-wide consensus without a central authority. . . The purpose of mining is not the creation of new bitcoin. That’s the incentive system. Mining is the mechanism by which bitcoin’s security is decentralized.8

Thus, mining is necessary to secure the bitcoin ecosystem as well as to forge new coin. As such, if earthly mining sanctuaries start dwindling under persecution of an ailing fiat geriatric, in light of recent commercial space success, miners might do well to look starward, to the ungoverned frontier of space. Space offers the ultimate physical sanctuary, freed from the hostile overreaches of earthbound authorities. It might provide the physical sanctuary elegantly complementing bitcoin’s cyber sanctuary.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL DREAMS

Inspired by Elon Musk’s Space-X and Starlink ventures which provide conceptual proof-of-principle for considering the feasibility of off-planet solar mining, what form might such an endeavor take?

One could visualize mining rigs nestled in modular, expandable mining satellites, minesats, outfitted with wings of ultra-light solar cells and inflatable mirrors placed into high, sun-synchronous orbits (SSO) (~ 600-1000 km above the Earth) perpetually facing the sun for uninterrupted energy harvesting. Incidentally, a number of nations including the U.S, China, Japan, and the UK, also see incredible potential in off-planet solar energy and are already pursuing Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) for use on Earth.9

Ever the earthbound miner’s challenge, heat dissipation remains a problem even in frigid space as it cannot be dissipated through conduction or convection. Instead, satellites and other structures usually rely on radiation to offload heat. For example, the International Space Station (ISS) employs a system called the External Active Thermal Control System (EATCS) employing heat radiators positioned in the shade side.10 Minesats would likely use a similar system for cooling.

Again, borrowing from Musk’s Starlink example, these higher orbit, SSO minesats would either network to a constellation of lower orbit smallsats (small satellites) which provide broadband internet connectivity to the planet, or connect directly to the bitcoin nodal network themselves.

Operating from the frontier of space, ungoverned by nation states, mining would be freed of licensing and zoning requirements, as well as CO2 and energy propaganda smear campaigns.

To take our thought experiment further, one could imagine this fleet of solar-powered minesats transported to their orbits from launchpads in forward-thinking, bitcoin-embracing nations, such as El Salvador, and potentially Argentina (should the pro-bitcoin presidential candidate Javier Milei win his upcoming election). In the case of El Salvador, it could provide not only physical sanctuary for politically-attacked firms like Space-X11 but, located over a thousand miles nearer the equator than any U.S. launch location, would provide a geographically superior planetary location enabling spacecraft to achieve escape velocity more efficiently. One could even postulate the migration of bitcoin-specific mining chip research and manufacturing to such a visionary nation, symbiotically co-locating the essential elements and activities of bitcoin.

Not long ago the idea of a private company outperforming NASA by employing reusable, upright-landing spacecraft and deploying a constellation of satellites providing global internet access would have been considered quixotic and naïve. Equally outlandish: that a nation would declare bitcoin legal tender. Perhaps the idea of extraterrestrial, satellite-based bitcoin mining facilitated by a visionary company that is repeatedly taking NASA to school, and partnering with a bitcoin-embracing nation of the Global South is not such a long shot. Indeed, it might well be the bright orange path.

No wonder Chicago’s financial titans are pissed over an $800 million tax proposal aimed at plugging a $538 million deficit projected for 2024…

According to Fox32, Chicago is providing up to $9,000 in rental assistance over a six-month period, which includes assistance with moving in, as well as a ‘starter kit’ to furnish their new digs.

“That rent lasts for six months and ideally people would have started their legal process, secured legal work authorization and be able to sustain that apartment. And so the cost, or I guess the payment toward the landlord is based on market rate, it’s based on the configuration of the parament – how many rooms, where it’s located – all those things. And so it varies from place to place,” said Cristina Pacione-Zayas, the city’s first deputy chief of staff.

This week, 41 buses have arrived in Chicago, bringing the total number of migrants in shelters to 11,000, with 4,000 still sleeping on police station floors and staying at airports.

Notably, 30% of migrants in Chicago are children, with the majority of them attending Chicago Public Schools. -Fox32

According to the report, Chicago has allocated $4 million to assist migrants with obtaining temporary housing, while the state of Illinois has contributed an additional $38 million.

In September, the city moved asylum seekers from police stations to “winterized base camps” (tents) that could potentially house up to 1,000 people.

There are currently 30-40 case management workers from Catholic Charities actively working to secure temporary housing for migrants, with plans to hire more.

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

A federal judge in Georgia has declined to block several provisions of a sweeping election law while multiple legal challenges play out.

Several left-wing advocacy and civil rights groups, as well as the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ, sued in 2021 after Republican state lawmakers passed the measure amid claims about election fraud in the state in 2020. Those lawsuits claim that black voters are now denied equal access to voting, which violates the Voting Rights Act.

“Plaintiffs have not shown, at least at this stage of the proceedings, that any of the provisions have a disparate impact on black voters,” U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee wrote in an order issued Wednesday. The jurist also wrote that the court “cannot find that Plaintiffs have presented enough evidence to show that the Legislature foresaw or knew that S.B. 202 would have a disparate impact on minority voters.”

The Biden administration and the Democrat-affiliated groups also “failed to show a substantial likelihood of success on the merits as to their claims that the provisions” of the election law “intentionally discriminate against black voters in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, Fifteenth Amendment and Section 2 of the [Voting Rights Act],” the judge ruled.

The plaintiffs, in their lawsuit, sought to prevent the law’s enforcement pertaining to drop boxes as well as the distribution of food, water, and other gifts to voters who are waiting at polling locations. The law also set a deadline to submit applications for absentee ballots, among other measures.

Another section of the law says that provisional ballots cast at the wrong precinct cannot be counted if they are case prior to 5 p.m. on Election Day. The final provision requires that a voter provide their driver’s license or state identification card number when requesting an absentee ballot.

In response, the plaintiffs said they were disappointed in Judge Boulee’s decision, with reports suggesting that the challenged provisions will remain intact during the 2024 election cycle. Georgia was a key battleground state during the 2020 election and during the January 2021 runoff election for two U.S. Senate seats.

“The fight for voting rights in the South has never been easy, especially for Black voters. We will never stop advocating on behalf of our clients and voters across the state. We look forward to presenting our case at trial,” Rahul Garabadu, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia, said in a statement.

And Alaizah Koorji, assistant counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs, claimed that the law will continue to present barriers to black voters, alleging they are “designed to dilute Black political power.”

The judge, however, said that the differences that were shown by the civil rights groups’ lawyers in the election case were not “statistically significant enough to demonstrate that black voters wait in longer lines at a meaningfully higher rate than white voters.”

In rejecting the claims that absentee ballots violate the Voting Rights Act, the judge wrote, “Without more, generalized evidence regarding the use of absentee voting is not sufficient to show that this particular provision, pertaining to one aspect of absentee voting, is discriminatory.”

He added that the plaintiffs also didn’t provide evidence suggesting that registered black voters could not obtain a state-issued identification card or driver’s license at a higher rate than white voters.

Some Democratic lawmakers, the judge wrote, were also in favor of several of the law’s provisions that required more election workers and equipment to be made available if a line occurs at a polling location on Election day. During the 2020 election, there were reports of lengthy lines at a number of precincts across Georgia, pushing the time back beyond the closing time to vote in-person.

On Thursday, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger hailed the judge’s ruling in a news release, saying that “the court confirmed what we’ve been saying all along.” The release added that the law “strengthens election integrity while increasing the opportunity for Georgia voters to cast a ballot.”

The Republican-controlled Legislature in Georgia passed the law in March 2021 before it was signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, weeks later.

The bill and law drew a wave of corporate backlash, which included Georgia-based firms like Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines. For example, Delta’s CEO, Ed Bastian, claimed at the time that the law is “unacceptable” and “based on a lie,” drawing backlash from Mr. Kemp and other Republicans.

“Mr. Bastian should compare voting laws in Georgia—which include no-excuse absentee balloting, online voter registration, 17 days of early voting with an additional two optional Sundays, and automatic voter registration when obtaining a driver’s license—with other states Delta Airlines operates in,” Mr. Kemp told CNBC more than two years ago.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.