NATO is planning to open a liaison office in Japan next year, the alliance’s first in Asia, Nikkei Asia first reported Wednesday.
In recent years, NATO has turned its gaze toward the Asia Pacific region and namedChina a “systemic challenge” in its 2022 Strategic Concept. As part of its strategy against China, the alliance is deepening cooperation with countries in the region.
According to Nikkei, the purpose of the liaison office in Japan is to “allow the military alliance to conduct periodic consultations with Japan and key partners in the region, such as South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as China emerges as a new challenge, alongside its traditional focus on Russia.”
The report said NATO and Japan will take more steps to increase cooperation by signing an agreement known as an Individually Tailored Partnership Programme ahead of the NATO summit that will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, in June.
Japan also plans to open an independent mission to NATO, separate from the Embassy in Belgium.
In response to the news, China warned of NATO’s plans to expand into Asia. “Asia is an anchor for peace and stability and a promising land for cooperation and development, not a wrestling ground for geopolitical competition,” said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning.
“NATO’s continued eastward foray into the Asia Pacific and interference in regional affairs will inevitably undermine regional peace and stability and stoke camp confrontation. This calls for high vigilance among regional countries,” she added.
The coronation of King Charles III this Saturday will be an exercise in pomp and extravagance. People around the world will be following the spectacle closely, but critics have also been using the occasion to point out the cost and anachronistic nature of the institution that is the British monarchy.
While opinions on whether the British crown is gobbling up or generating money differ, ending the official status of the UK’s royal line would have far-reaching consequences globally.
As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz notes, in addition to British Overseas Territories,King Charles III serves as the head of state of 14 sovereign countries other than his own – making the UK the most prolific among the world’s 17 constitutional monarchies which keep employing monarchs as representative heads of state.
However, the fabric of the British Commonwealth has lately tattered somewhat. Barbados removed the British monarch as the head of state in 2021, while Jamaica last year announced that it was also starting the process. Barbados took the step after 55 years as an independent Commonwealth member, while Jamaica celebrated its 60th year of independence in August of 2022. Barbados was the first country in almost 30 years to drop the British monarch. Mauritius, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago as well as Dominica had previously opted for a different head of state.
In addition to constitutional monarchies, there are also still a dozen countries around the world which are absolute or semi-constitutional monarchies, meaning that monarchs yield considerable powers there. These types of systems are most common today on the Arabian Peninsula, even though Morocco, Brunei, Eswatini and Liechtenstein also count among them. Semi-constitutionalism – where monarchs and elected representatives share powers – ranges from countries which let monarchs retain some powers next to an elected parliament to so-called elective monarchies, which elect leaders from a group of royals – the governing system of the United Arab Emirates. The Pope is also elected from a group of cardinals, but he is the singular ruler over the Vatican, therefore considered an absolute monarchy.
Ten countries in Europe and five in Asia as well as Tonga and Lesotho retain their own monarch in a representative function and as head of state. Traditional subnational monarchies are prolific in Indonesia and South Africa, where the king of the Zulu nation, Misuzulu Sinqobile kaZwelithini, holds considerable informal power in the Eastern region of KwaZulu-Natal.
It’s likely that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis will announce a 2024 presidential campaign. Les jeux sont fait, the bets are placed, as the French say at Monte Carlo and elsewhere—not to mention the ability the rest of us have to place them on the ever-escalating number of political betting sites.
DeSantis is forming or is said to be forming an exploratory committee this month that allows substantial contributions to his campaign.
But in truth, it’s looking at this moment like he may have made a mistake and that biding his time, remaining Florida’s governor and waiting for 2028, might be a smarter strategy. In fact, this early attempt might prove self-destructive in the long run, tarnishing his image and giving him the whiff of the loser.
It’s not too late to say no.
A new CBS–YouGov poll released May 1 shows the Florida governor trailing former President Donald Trump by a yawning gap of 36 percentage points: 58 to 22. This continues a blowout trend that has been going on for some time.
This undoubtedly discourages financial backers, several of whom DeSantis already seems to be hemorrhaging.
Making things yet more difficult for the governor is that many now believe he’s the chosen candidate of Fox News, a network that seemingly has lost its soul (and much of its audience) due to its cancellation of Tucker Carlson.
Does this mean that Trump has the Republican nomination “in the bag”? As of now, I would have to say yes, even though 27 percent of GOP voters, according to this poll, have yet to be convinced, a percentage of those deeming him “too controversial.”
What about the supposed also-rans in this poll?
In order, they are former Vice President Mike Pence and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, tied at 5 percent, and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley at 4 percent. The rest—talk show host Larry Elder, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson—weren’t even able to register a full 1 percent.
The one who’s interesting here, obviously, is Ramaswamy. He has come literally from out of nowhere to tie for the lead in the second tier with Pence, who isn’t yet declared and—his appeal static—possibly is having second thoughts.
On May 2, Byron York, in his Washington Examiner column that’s known for a middle-of-the-road conventional Republican approach, looks askance on Haley’s contention that she should deserve the nomination because she constitutes a “new generation.”
York quotes from her February announcement speech in Charleston: “We’re ready to move past the stale ideas and faded names of the past, and we are more than ready for a new generation to lead us into the future. I come here today with a vision of that future.”
She called for “mandatory mental competency for politicians over 75 years old.” (Trump has already taken such a test and passed. Biden, as far as we know, hasn’t done so.)
The problem for the 51-year-old Haley is that her “vision of that future” isn’t especially unique, nor does it differ substantially in any serious way from her supposedly geriatric rival, the former president.
What York overlooks, at least in this column, is that Ramaswamy, at 37, isn’t only considerably younger than Haley, but also has a more original vision and takes things further by advocating for such things as the complete destruction of the FBI and our intelligence agencies as we know them, and their replacement from the ground up.
He also has far more Silicon Valley-type technical expertise as the founder and CEO of a biotech company than anybody running for president on either side. In a field dominated by the left, this makes him a tremendous, arguably crucial, asset to the right as artificial intelligence continues to take over our world.
People are beginning to realize that, and given his high level of articulateness, it makes it less surprising that Ramaswamy has risen so rapidly to the top of that second tier.
Where will he go from here? Defeating Trump is a big chew when he is still 17 points behind DeSantis, although it’s interesting he is substantially closer to the Florida governor in polling than the 36 points that DeSantis trails the 45th president.
Watch: Fist-Fight Breaks Out Between Russian & Ukrainian Diplomats At Conference
A Ukrainian diplomatic official has released video of himself punchinga Russian official on Thursday. In the rare moment, rival delegations who were attending a meeting of Black Sea nations in Turkey literally came to blows while the war in Ukraine rages.
Oleksandr Marikovski posted the video, which has since gone viral. It shows a scuffle over display of a Ukrainian flag in a hallway of the parliament building in Ankara. “A Ukrainian delegate has punched a Russian delegate in the face during a meeting of Black Sea nations after his Ukrainian flag was snatched away to stop him from photobombing a video interview,”Al Jazeera comments of the scene. Watch:
Tensions had already been high at the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) assembly, given that earlier in the day Ukrainian delegates staged a protest in an attempt to disrupt a Russian delegate’s address to fellow representatives.
Video of that prior incident showed mayhem breaking out on the assembly floor as security guards restrained the Ukrainian officials and attempted to impose order.
Watch the prior disruption on the assembly floor:
A scuffle broke out between Ukrainian and Russian delegates at a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (PABSEC) in Türkiye’s capital Ankara
Tensions boiled over after Ukrainians interrupted a Russian official’s speech👇 pic.twitter.com/AzZiQi2B6L
Host country Turkey condemned the scenes, with parliament’s head Mustafa Sentop issuing a firm rebuke. “I condemn this behavior that disrupts the peaceful environment that Turkey is trying to establish,” he said.
Given that Russia in many international venues has been isolated and essentially ‘de-platformed’ – it’s somewhat rare for Ukrainian and Russian officials to come into direct contact these days. Turkey, however, has been more willing to attempt to get the two sides together, also as it tries to salvage the UN-backed grain deal.
Randi Weingarten Goes Mega-Karen After Twitter Community Notes Expose Lockdown Lies
Revisionist lockdown authoritarian Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has doubled down in her campaign to convince everyone she was for opening schools.
To review – Weingarten testified to Congress late last month that she “spent every day from February on trying to get schools open,” adding “we knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.”
This earned Weingarten a ‘community notes’ correction on Twitter, in which users noted that she previously called attempts to reopen schools in the fall of 2020 “reckless, callous and cruel.”
AFT President Randi Weingarten: “We spent every day from February on trying to get schools open. We knew that remote education was not a substitute for opening schools.” pic.twitter.com/1qNL05VD3u
.@ScottJenningsKY to @rweingarten: “I am stunned at what you have said this week…I think you’ll find that most parents believe you are the tip of the sphere of school closures…I hear no remorse whatsoever about the generational damage that’s been done…” pic.twitter.com/gVCDgpP3dN
Outstanding compilation of footage of teachers’ union leader Randi Weingarten calling for COVID school closures throughout 2020 and 2021, contrary to her now casting herself as a bold advocate for schools reopening.pic.twitter.com/UcWjfmqpno
Establishment ‘fact checker’ Politifact raced to the scene to perform triage for Weingarten by suggesting that she advocated for “advocated for tailored approaches that prioritized safety needs of individual districts, educators and students but stopped short of endorsing a full return to in-person learning all across the country.”
Community notes quickly sliced through that word salad of bullshit, amending Weingarten’s May 2 tweet touting the Politifact ‘correction’ to the record. Weingarten also turned off replies for anyone that doesn’t follow her. Both stunning and brave, we know.
PolitiFact | Here’s what AFT’s Randi Weingarten said about reopening schools during COVID-19 https://t.co/6WgnvSgb43
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇦🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓 (@rweingarten) May 2, 2023
Weingarten tripled down, tweeting: “What’s false is the community note, not @PolitiFact.”
Among the historic Amish settlements in southeastern Pennsylvania, faith, fidelity, and long days working in green fields are the root of traditional farming.
Together, they support and nourish a community and culture steeped in biblical teachings.
In Lancaster County, west of Philadelphia, the Amish hold fast with many of the old ways. Their primary means of getting around is still horse and buggy, and they use herbal remedies for many common ailments.
The Amish of Lancaster County are also a humble and private people (many Amish do not like having their photograph taken or name publicized). Shunning pride and vanity, they experience a particular joy and satisfaction in living close to the earth, free of the stress and pressures of outside worldly entanglements.
Many Amish still speak a German dialect called “Pennsylvania Dutch,” living and conducting themselves in an uncomplicated manner.
Traditional clothing—long dresses, aprons, and bonnets for women; trousers, shirts, jackets, and hats for men—distinguishes them from the world of “the English,” the term used to denote non-Amish.
The peaceful simplicity of Amish life has its allure and also everyday challenges and economic realities interacting with the larger society around them.
Some small multi-generational farm owners, like Jesse Lapp, try to adapt to these influences through “agri-tourism” and diversification into the trades, while still passing their wisdom and traditional farming methods down from generation to generation.
“If you don’t pass on the techniques from one generation to the next, it gets lost,” said Lapp, 44, owner of Old Windmill Farm in Ronks, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated farming community 63 miles from Philadelphia.
“Farming is not a textbook,” said the farmer, who learned how to work the land from his father, who learned it from his father and those before him.
“You learn things from your parents, from experiences, what your parents struggled with. You learn from that.”
However, strictly organic farmers in Lancaster County, like Amos Miller, are confronted with government regulations they see as hostile to Christian values and personal choices in producing food.
Today, Miller, 45, is at the center of a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) lawsuit accusing him of violating federal food safety laws.
There have been financial penalties and threats of jail time over selling non-federally inspected and “erroneously labeled” milk and meat at Miller’s Organic Farm of Bird-In-Hand, Pennsylvania.
Miller views the case as government overreaches targeting small organic farms to regulate them out of existence.
“There are many farmers that would like to continue to be farmers,” Miller told The Epoch Times.
“It’s in our culture. We love farming. But the food system is so monopolized and regulated that we can’t be true farmers. You can’t make a living on the farm.”
The Amish in the United States consists of four primary groups: Beachy Amish, Amish Mennonites, New Order, and Old Order Amish whose forebears fled religious persecution in Europe during the early 18th century. They have different views regarding the use of modern technology.
“The Amish do not consider technology evil in itself, but they believe that technology if left untamed will undermine worthy traditions and accelerate assimilation into the surrounding society,” according to the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College on its Amish Studies website.
“Mass media technology, in particular, they fear, would introduce foreign values into their culture. By bringing greater mobility, cars would pull the community apart, eroding local ties.
“Horse-and-buggy transportation keeps the community anchored in its local geographical base.”
As a population, the Amish are among the fastest-growing in America, with more than 300,000 located in 32 states. More than 60 percent of the Amish live in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana in local congregations called church districts.
In Lancaster County, the Amish population is approximately 45,000 adults and children.
Old Windmill is a fourth-generation family farm on 65 acres, raising about a dozen head of cattle, pigs, goats, chickens, and horses and mules. The owner said he decided to expand into agri-tourism to supplement cash flow.
“Bigger farms is the way to make a living,” the owner told The Epoch Times. “Everything is mass produced. When my grandfather was farming, they had a chicken house. They had some eggs to sell. They had a tobacco barn right here.”
He said Old Windmill Farm left dairy farming as it became more labor intense and costly. His crops include rye, corn, alfalfa, and soybeans, rotating with the seasons. He uses an old hay baler drawn by four mules, a hay rake, and other gasoline-driven engines.
“We don’t have modern machines; we have machines manufactured maybe in the 50s. Some are antique machines as well,” he said.
A local metal fabricator makes parts to repair the machines when they break down.
“There are diversified farms” using more modern tools, the owner said. “We’re sort of die-hard” using older technology.
A typical day at Old Windmill Farm begins at dawn when the lights go on, and the roosters start crowing.
“If you’re a farmer in the Amish community, you get up around 4:30 or quarter of five,” he said.
AOC And Matt Gaetz Team Up To Ban Lawmakers From Trading Stocks
Days before PacWest Bancorp tanked from the mid-20s to the mid $2 range in 48 hours, Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) – the Levi Strauss heir / Trump impeachment lead counsel-turned-lawmaker, sold his shares in the beleaguered bank.
You just can’t make this up
Rep. Dan Goldman (D) timed selling $PACW perfectly
He sold on 3/6, avoiding the not only the initial drop in $PACW but also the 50% drop after hours today
— Nancy Pelosi Stock Tracker ♟ (@PelosiTracker_) May 3, 2023
And while there’s no evidence that Goldman was trading on insider information, Goldman’s win is emblematic of so many others by lawmakers which seem to work out in their favor.
To that end – Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL) have teamed up to co-sponsor a bill which bans members of Congress from trading stocks.
The Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act would ban members of Congress and their spouses and dependents from making financial investments. Also co-sponsoring the bill are Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL).
“The ability to individually trade stock erodes the public’s trust in government,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “When members have access to classified information, we should not be trading in the stock market on it. It’s really that simple.”
Meanwhile, Gaetz told Fox News that “AOC is wrong a lot, she’d probably say the same thing about me, but she’s not corrupt and I will work with anyone and everyone to ensure that Congress is not so compromised.”
A 63% majority of registered voters said they support a ban on stock trading for members of Congress, according to 2022 Morning Consult poll. That includes 69% of Democrats, 64% of independents and 58% of Republicans.
At least 113 members of Congress or members of their families disclosed stock transactions in 2021 totaling $355 million, according to a report from Capitol Trades, which tracks trading on Capitol Hill, and some but not all could be potential conflicts of interest based on lawmakers’ committee assignments. The New York Times found 18% of Congress sat on committees that “potentially gave them insight into the companies whose shares they reported buying or selling.” –Deseret.com
There was significant bipartisan support for the issue last year, but bills to ban or limit the issue were never brought to the floor for a vote in either chamber.
Back in January, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) reintroduced his bill – dubbed the Pelosi Act.
After having consistently opposed such a measure, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signaled she’d relent.
Last July, former Dallas fed president Richard Fisher slammed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her husband Paul over allegations of insider trading.
“Clearly people have taken advantage of inside information forever,” Fisher told CNBC, responding to a report from Punchbowl News. “I’m sorry to see that Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi and others appear to have taken advantage of inside information.”
“Clearly people have taken advantage of inside information forever,” says Richard Fischer. “I’m sorry to see that Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi and others appear to have taken advantage of inside information.” pic.twitter.com/v9PmHvCoM3
The Pelosis have repeatedly come under fire for the trades which appeared to be based on nonpublic information.
Recall, the last we wrote about Pelosi’s suspiciously good timing with her stock trades, we noted she had punted on several names heading into 2023. Prior to her trades being carefully scrutinized, Pelosi had a knack for minting cash from her stock trades, which we detailed here.
In March of 2021, the Pelosis scored $1.95 million on Microsoft call options less than two weeks before the tech giant secured a $22 billion contract to supply US Army combat troops with augmented reality headsets, while in January of the same year, Paul Pelosi bought up to $1 million of Tesla calls before the Biden administration announced plans to push electric vehicles.
Pelosi being asked if her husband ever insider traded today was literally the same thing as this classic Chappelle sketch… 😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/MBYTA0gXsH
My wife and I moved from Philadelphia to the western suburbs of Chester County for many reasons. The move offered us the best of all worlds. We would be living close enough to Philadelphia, but in even less time, we could be in rural Chester County, with its mushroom farms, farmer’s markets, and homemade foods and products. We could go back to South Philly to eat dinner on Passyunk Avenue, or choose to eat at a quiet country inn on a back road with no traffic lights – or even streetlights.
Our neighbors were a mix: some had lived here for decades, some had moved here from more rural communities, and some had come here, like us, from Philadelphia. For us, the suburbs were a bridge to different parts of Pennsylvania and the nation. The suburbs were both the melting pot and the patchwork quilt that is America. Our neighbors had gun racks and Volvos. We all seemed to enjoy our community and appreciate that we were made up of differing backgrounds. In a sense, it was the suburbs that were connecting all of us – and holding America together.
But something changed. I didn’t notice it until it had already happened – because it happened slowly.
I should’ve noticed it in the signs that started popping up in coffee shops. The occasional “speeches” being made by actors at community theaters before or after a show. The new magnets on cars. The impromptu conversations after Mass. The community blogs that were supposed to be about garage sales and advice on finding a plumber but that started sounding like a Sunday morning talk show – the kind where nobody really talks, they just yell and interrupt. We were coming apart.
Finally, I noticed it in our politics. Not just the changing election results but in what the campaigns were focused on, as reflected in candidate speeches, in palm cards, and on webpages.
Somewhere, over the last generation, the suburbs had become ground zero for every societal, cultural – and, ultimately, every political – problem in Pennsylvania and in our nation.
Think of the battles of just the last few years.
The biggest fights over Covid mandates took place in the suburbs – not in rural Pennsylvania, where most people went about their business. Not in Philadelphia, where many could walk to stores or order takeout or delivery, as they did frequently even before the lockdowns. In other words, not where culture is more unified.
The battles were among store-owners of pizza shops, diners, and barbershops and their neighbors, from Langhorne to West Chester. And in 2021 and 2022, the biggest battles came when worlds clashed. When people from more rural areas and those who had moved on from masking ventured into Wayne, Media, or Narberth to buy coffee and were greeted by baristas in masks, who gave them that look: “Why don’t you have a mask?”
And this was nothing compared to the battles over children and schools – not only concerning masks, but also “critical race theory,” sex education, curriculum, books in school libraries, and student bathrooms.
Not a week goes by without the media focusing on a suburban school district – Central Bucks, Perkiomen Valley, Tredyffrin/Easttown, West Chester, Southeast Delco, Great Valley, and Hatboro-Horsham. (And, in Virginia, most of America knows about the battles in Loudon County – the Chester County of the Washington, D.C. area.)
School board races now cost thousands of dollars to run and generate more interest and higher voter turnout than full-time, paying elected offices. (School board members are not paid in Pennsylvania.) School board meetings have become must-see TV – or must-avoid TV, depending on one’s tastes.
The suburbs, then, are no longer a cultural bridge. No longer a melting pot. No longer a patchwork of people and cultures, with mutual appreciation – or at least respect. They are now the flashpoint. It’s no wonder that politics has become so heated here. The political clashes are being driven by cultural clashes on deeply personal issues.
When it comes to elections, this is a problem for Republicans since they are currently the opposition party. The trouble is that many people have picked their party – their team – and are unlikely to switch easily. And in this polarized environment, they follow the lead of their party on most issues. And those still undecided politically may not take a favorable view of Republicans, seeing them as merely adversarial to the status quo.
For a long time, the suburbs helped keep America together. Now, it’s the suburbs that are pulling us apart – at rapid speed and high temperature.
As Pennsylvania – and America – becomes more suburban, it’s imperative that we find a way to lower that temperature. This is bigger than politics or elections. It’s about staying together as a nation.
Billionaire Buys Jeffery Epstein’s Islands, Paving Way For “Five-Star Resort”
Billionaire investor Stephen Deckoff purchased two Caribbean islands previously owned by Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier accused of sex trafficking. Deckoff has plans to transform one of the islands, known by some as “Pedophile Island,” into a world-class resort.
On Wednesday, Deckoff, under his firm SD Investments, announced the acquisition of the Great St. James and Little St. James islands for $60 million, or less than half of their initial asking price.
Court filings have revealed Epstein used one of the islands to sexually abuse young girls for years. The billionaire wants to purge the island of evil for a new “state-of-the-art, five-star, world-class luxury 25-room resort.”
“Mr. Deckoff plans to develop a state-of-the-art, five-star, world-class luxury 25-room resort that will help bolster tourism, create jobs, and spur economic development in the region, while respecting and preserving the important environment of the islands,” a press release from the investment firm read.
AP News reported funds from the island sale would go towards the $105 million sex trafficking lawsuit against Epstein’s estate, which the US Virgin Islands government settled. SD Investments didn’t reveal how much it would invest in the new resort.
Whether or not high net-worth folks will visit the island is a big gamble for Deckoff…
If the new resort ever gets built, some of Epstein’s guests who visited the island over the years, such as Prince Andrew, Bill Clinton, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, probably won’t return.
There’s no word if Deckoff will keep Epstein’s mysterious temple structure.
The purchase was reported on the same day that CNBC revealed JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon would be deposed in late May over civil lawsuits accusing the megabank of benefiting from Epstein’s sex trafficking operations.
Why do our politicians insist on showering other countries with money when our own communities are degenerating into rotting, decaying hellholes right in front of our eyes?
We just learned that the Biden administration has decided to give Ukraine another 300 million dollar aid package. That is on top of the several dozen other aid packages that have already been announced. Of course the Ukrainians are not the only ones that are receiving our hard-earned tax dollars. In 2020, the U.S. gave “foreign aid” to 157 different countries. That is madness!
We are 31 trillion dollars in debt and our cities are rapidly decaying but we are handing our prizes to almost everyone else in the world as if we were Willy Wonka.
First time I flew back from an international flight (1999) was good to be back. In 2015, saw what a dump the US was becoming. It’s hard to travel now as once you return, it’s bleak and dystopian here. We live in security state with crumbling infrastructure. Worst of all worlds.
Not even an hour’s drive southeast from the center of Chicago sits Gary, Indiana, a semi-apocalyptic shell of its former self. Originally founded in 1906, Gary, Indiana wasn’t always the way it is now. During the middle of the 20th century, Gary was a booming steel town and a hub for the United States Steel Corporation. Domestic steel workers and newly-arrived immigrants flocked to the city for its economic opportunity, and during the 50’s and 60’s, Gary was thriving enough to rival other major industrial hubs like Chicago and Detroit. So how did this once-thriving center of industry collapse into the semi-abandoned “Murder Capital of America?”
Why can’t something be done to revitalize Gary?
Of course there are hundreds of other cities all over the nation that are falling apart, and that includes our capital city.
Several decades ago, Washington D.C. was a really nice place. But now the infrastructure is falling to pieces, there are homeless encampments all over the place, and crime is out of control.
In fact, it is being reported that carjackings in the city have been skyrocketing over the past five years…
Carjackings in Washington D.C. continue to skyrocket in line with a five-year trend that has the local police chief Robert Contee lamenting that crimes are happing “at a pace that I have not seen in my 30-plus year career here with the Metropolitan Police Department.”
Needless to say, crime has been rising all over the U.S., and many of those crimes never get solved.
The true toll of crime in Chicago has been revealed, after figures showed just one third of murders are solved in the Windy City.
That statistic, shared by NPR, showed that the vast majority of homicides in the Illinois city did not get cleared between 2016 and 2020.
It sits below the national average for murders cleared – 50 percent. That statistic in itself is cause for embarrassment, with the United States’ having the lowest murder clearance rate of any industrialized country.
That is just pathetic.
Much of the crime that we are experiencing is being fueled by the greatest drug crisis in the entire history of our country.
Thanks to all of the fentanyl that is coming over our wide open borders, hordes of addicts endlessly wander our city streets like zombies…
In Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and other big cities, the sight of homeless people collapsed on sidewalks, puffing fentanyl smoke and lurching from moments of slumber to bouts of violent shivering have become all too common.
And just when you think that it can’t get any worse, somehow this crisis goes to an entirely new level.
For example, the number of drug-related deaths in San Francisco actually increased by 41 percent during the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year…
San Francisco saw a staggering 41 percent surge in the number of drug-related deaths in the first quarter of 2023 compared to the same time last year, as fentanyl ravaged the city’s homeless population.
San Francisco is one of our wealthiest and most prosperous cities.
But now the drug crisis in the city is so bad that retailers are pulling out at a frightening pace. Nordstrom just became the latest major chain to announce that they are leaving…
Nordstrom is planning to close both of its Downtown San Francisco stores, choosing not to renew its lease obligations at its location in the Westfield Mall. It will also close a second nearby Downtown Nordstrom Rack.
The retailer confirmed the closures on Tuesday. In an email to employees, the company’s chief stores officer wrote that “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”
I can definitely understand why retailers are pulling out of cities such as San Francisco, Portland and Chicago.
But as the fentanyl crisis spreads, it won’t be too long before similar conditions are present in virtually all of our major cities.
According to Millennium Health, there was a “ninefold rise in fentanyl use in the western US between 2019 and 2022″…
Millennium Health, which processes drug tests nationwide, recently told DailyMail.com that it’s researchers had detected a ninefold rise in fentanyl use in the western US between 2019 and 2022.
A lot of people think that I am exaggerating when I say that we are in the midst of the worst drug crisis in U.S. history.
But I am not exaggerating one bit.
So why are we sending so much money overseas when it is desperately needed here at home?
Enough is enough.
Just a few hours ago, Marjorie Taylor Greene posted the best message that I have seen from a politician in a very long time. I have reproduced the entire message below, because it is certainly worth reading the entire thing…
Every American should understand our situation as it stands right now.
You’ve all been trained to be loyal to political party’s just like you are loyal to a sports team, but for our country’s very own survival, you must put down your mascot and see things clearly.
We are in $31 Trillion dollars in debt bc of the politicians from both parties, who have held power for decades, and hold power right now, and these same politicians want a clean debt ceiling increase with no strings attached so they can just keep insanely spending your hard earned tax dollars until we fully collapse.
We are on the brink of nuclear world war from our involvement in the Ukraine/Russia war because of the politicians from both parties, who have held power for decades, and hold power right now, and the top guy in the “free press” got fired for talking about it because the owners of the media company support defending Ukraine’s border and talked to Ukraine’s president about it.
Our border is out of our control and invaded daily by thousands of people and deadly drugs because of the politicians from both parties, who have held power for decades, and hold power right now, but your being told by everyone that Ukraine’s border is the only border we must defend.
Big corporate banks backed by the Treasury are swallowing smaller banks in terrifying speed while these same politicians aligned with others, who have financial interests, are moving America along with the world to digital currency.
At the same time America is being converted to electric vehicles by the same politicians and their financially invested friends, not because of consumer demand or bc electric vehicle batteries are American made and good for the environment bc they’re not.
When everything is digital and electric will Americans still blindly trust those same old politicians who wave their beloved political mascot as they hold the full power to turn off your bank account and power to drive and re-charge and censor your ability to even speak about it, if you go against the current thing?
Corporate Communism is a very real threat to individual freedoms and independence and America is nearly fully controlled by it because of the same old politicians from both parties, who have held power for decades, and hold power right now.
So while they are failing America by putting you $31 Trillion in debt and now arrogantly demanding another debt ceiling increase while pretending to care about our border security while our BPA are overwhelmed with over 22,000 border apprehensions and countless gotaways in the past 3 days, and Title 42 will be lifted May 11th which will open our floodgates, they are drooling with bloodlust for their precious war against nuclear Russia in Ukraine “defending democracy” instead of responsibly brokering a peace deal between the two countries and using our military to defend our own border that is heavily controlled by the cartels.
And the President of the United States family has been involved in money laundering in exchange for influence at the highest level of our government with his son at the head of the criminal enterprise running the show while also involved in human sex trafficking, and literally everyone in Washington has known for years, but now some of us hold the proof in our hands, but the power to prosecute lies with the complicit DOJ whose alliance lies with the same old politicians from both parties, who have held power for decades, and hold power right now.
I won’t participate or go along to get along. Washington has nothing to offer me, and clearly Washington has nothing to offer the American people either.
She is right.
We are on a road that leads to national suicide, but most Americans keep voting for the same corrupt politicians from both parties over and over again.
As you watch what is going on in Washington, it should sicken you.
They don’t care about us, and they certainly don’t care about our future.
And if we stay on the path that we are currently on, America isn’t going to have one.
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Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
