Diplomacy, Not More Arms, Is Needed to Avoid WWIII With Russia

By Matthew J.L. Ehret posted at LewRockwell.com:

[The following article was co-written with my colleague Dr. Edward Lozansky and published in today’s print and digital edition of the Washington Times in order to call attention to the anniversary of Elbe Day and the forgotten spirit of US-Russian friendship that ended the threat of a fascist New World Order in 1945′]

With each passing day, it is becoming more evident that the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and words that would have been considered the height of self-destructive folly just a few years ago, are becoming normalized in today’s political discourse.

The most radical elements, including certain members of congress, are calling for sending U.S. troops to Ukraine where they would join U.K. troops who are already on the ground “training” combatants. This of course means NATO forces are being put directly into harm’s way despite the risk of activating the “Collective Security Pact” at a moment’s notice pulling the entire 29 nation alliance into an active conflict with nuclear Russia.

Instead of using diplomacy in search of a way out, NATO and even some non-NATO countries are sending huge amounts of weapons to Ukraine which only amplifies the needless killing. Actually, the flow of Western weapons and military advisers to Ukraine started many years before the current crisis.

As each day edges us closer to the unthinkable, meaning WWIII with the use of nuclear weapons, it is important, at least for the benefit of survivors and future historians, to correctly describe why our civilization has decided to commit suicide. Perhaps this exercise may also contribute in some way to helping to avoid such a tragic fate.

If only the famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion pledged by the U.S. Secretary of State James Baker to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on Feb. 9, 1990, was honored, this entire catastrophe would have easily been avoided. Mr. Baker’s pledge was followed by an avalanche of other security assurances given by western leaders to Mr. Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification between 1990 and 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Under this paradigm, it was celebrated across Washington and Europe that “a new security architecture from Vancouver to Vladivostok” was upon us.

Sadly, that promise was short-lived, and within a short time, the process of NATO expansion was set into motion with the alliance gobbling up 13 more Eastern European states with targets on the Ukraine and Georgia. A younger and more lucid Joe Biden was then a senator who took an active part in this new conquest. He had a chance to fix this problem during the Obama years when Mr. Biden, as his VP, had a Ukrainian portfolio. Had this administration honestly proceeded with the announced reset, there is no doubt that friendship and harmony of common interests could easily have been maintained. Instead, it facilitated a Maidan coup in February 2014 when Victoria “F—- the EU” Nuland found herself working alongside VP Biden overseeing a color revolution that ousted a democratically elected Ukrainian president, putting Ukraine back onto the fast track for NATO membership. Those who followed these events remember well how Ms. Nuland was discussing the composition of the new Ukrainian cabinet with the U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt almost three weeks before the coup had actually taken place.

Another chance for peace was lost when Mr. Biden failed to pronounce the word “neutrality” on any day prior to Feb. 24 of this year. This simply meant agreeing to neutrality for Ukraine. Keeping this country sovereign and whole without joining NATO or any military block was the easiest request for the Western alliance to meet. Had this been done, there would be no Russian invasion, U.S.-Russia security talks would have proceeded with good chances for success similar to the Reagan-Gorbachev scenario that ended the first Cold War.

And, of course, who would have benefited more than Ukraine, to whom the creator gave the richest fertile land, favorable climate, no deserts, no volcanoes, access to the sea, more than sufficient drinking water supplies, over 40 million population and strong industrial base left over from the Soviet days. Having Russia as a neighbor was not a disadvantage but a huge benefit due to their deeply-rooted historical, family, religious, economic and cultural ties.

Unfortunately, there were other forces, both inside and outside Ukraine that had other plans for this country that lit the fuse of the current disaster which might spill over onto the rest of the world. The plan was to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian zone of conflict and so far, it looks like so far these forces are prevailing.

One of the few voices of sanity speaking to this growing crisis in recent days has come from the offices of former President Donald Trump, who still enjoys a large base of popular support within the American people, as well as better members of the political and business class who must play a role in putting out the fires of war before they go nuclear in the short-term.

Alex Jones Was Right About Everything 20 Years Ago

20 years ago folks,

“Open borders”

“Cashless society”

“Centralized state run healthcare”

“….release of plagues and viruses” pic.twitter.com/NT2nXxxqR7

— Tyler Dell (@YallGotPlayed) April 26, 2022

BLM Was Just Another Race Hustle

BLM was a movement based on dangerous lies and, as always, we're finding out it was just another black criminal race hustle---$60 million or so of money was showered on these freaks and fools by idiot corporations for "virtue signaling." If these woke corporations had any grounding in reality (commonly called common sense), they would know that NOTHING good EVER comes out of anything "black." Nothing.

In fact, for 50 years, race hustling is one of the most profitable and enduring characteristics of the black community "leadership." It's been profitable for black scam artists (criminals) like Jesse Jackson and the crooked Al Sharpton since the 1970s. Most recently, race hustlers at BLM have struck it rich since George Floyd’s shocking death in police custody and the protests and riots that followed.  

BLM has been a hustle right from the beginning, much like the Southern “Poverty” Law Center. Everything's a lie or a sick hustle with these people. See my post: The Very Racist, Marxist and Whacked-Out Black Lives Matter.

The saddest thing was that BLM itself and "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" are based on lies. 

Michael Brown was a horrible fat-ass thug who attacked a police officer twice and had to be put down like a wild animal. Then, subsequent demonstrators carried signs saying “Hands up don’t shoot,” which witnesses said didn't happen. Read the court transcripts for yourself. Ferguson, Missouri, was destroyed, based on lies. Systemic racism, is just other lie. BLM, which is a Marxist hate group, advocating the killing of police, while calling it civil disobedience. Over a dozen officers were killed as a result of this lie.

And we found out that Ferguson was full of criminals when  Eric Holder's DOJ went to Ferguson to investigate charges of police racism in Ferguson. What they found in Ferguson, a population of 20,000 persons — was that 16,000 people have outstanding arrest warrants. Few black persons can follow the rules, ethics or the law--including Holder, Obama and every black individual involved in the case.

Patrisse Cullors

Another prime example of an inability to behave ethically is Patrisse Cullors; another cheat, deviant and co-founder of BLM. She made headlines when it was revealed she purchased four fairly expensive properties outright, including one in an overwhelmingly white area of  Los Angeles. 

From the New York Post, one of the few functioning, investigative newspapers left in this country, has said:

As protests broke out across the country in the name of Black Lives Matter, the group’s co-founder went on a real estate buying binge, snagging four high-end homes for $3.2 million in the US alone, according to property records.

Patrisse Khan-Cullors, 37, also eyed property in the Bahamas at an ultra-exclusive resort where Justin Timberlake and Tiger Woods both have homes, The Post has learned. Luxury apartments and townhouses at the beachfront Albany resort outside Nassau are priced between $5 million and $20 million, according to a local agent.

The self-described Marxist last month purchased a $1.4 million home on a secluded road a short drive from Malibu in Los Angeles, according to a report. The 2,370-square-foot property features “soaring ceilings, skylights and plenty of windows” with canyon views.

When called out, she told Mark Lamont Hill that any mention of this was “dangerous” as well as racist and sexist.  Uh huh. Sure, bitch.

Another sorry-ass black faker: Monica Grant, a BLM activist.  From Gateway Pundit:

BLM Leader and "Boston’s Woman of the Year" was arrested, indicted on federal charges for squandering $1 Million in donations on hotels, a new home and restaurants.

 Monica Grant, a BLM activist, has been charged over a huge fraud which is said to have included blowing a grant intended for young men at risk of violence on trips to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co., Shake Shack and a nail salon.

Monica Grant, BLM Activist

Monica Cannon-Grant, 41, is also said to have paid herself $2,700-a-week and treated herself to a $450,000 five-bed house in Taunton, Massachusetts, last year.

She is accused of using much of the $1 million raised by her nonprofit Violence in Boston Inc for herself. Her salary jumped from $25,000 in 2020 to $170,000 in 2021.

Cannon-Grant – once named a Bostonian of the Year by the prestigious Boston Globe newspaper – was arrested at her spacious home last week. She appeared in a federal court Monday alongside husband Clark Grant, 38, with the pair facing 18 separate criminal counts dating from 2017 to July 2021. She has denied all allegations made against her.

Judge Judith Dein raised eyebrows after releasing Cannon-Grant on her own recognizance and saying she could continue to work for Violence in Boston – the nonprofit she’s accused of using as a front for her crimes – but that she must not be involved in its finances.

The couple are said to have misappropriated grants intended for their charity, including a $6,000 check given to them by Suffolk District Attorney’s office in June 2019, intended to be spent on a retreat for young men feared to be at risk of falling into crime.

Instead, Cannon-Grant and Grant treated themselves to meals at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and Shake Shack, and a three night break to Maryland that included a $1,200 hotel stay, it is claimed.

The saddest aspect of all of this is that elite liberals bought into their sob stories and indiscriminately showered money on these people and their movement that literally caused $Billions of damages across the country.

Democrat "narrative-makers" called these riots"mostly peaceful protests." Portland had an estimated $23 million loss alone. When the federal government moves in to stop the destruction, liberals cry foul. It’s sickening to watch the liberals let city blocks be taken over, and destroyed by armed antifa and BLM, and do nothing (Seattle).

 

Blacks ruin and destroy everything: public housing, their families, their neighborhoods, their communities, their cities, their countries. We saw huge amounts of mindless chaos and  destruction across this country recently led by blacks and other minorities due to the BLM lies.  But none of this matters to the moneyed elites in this country.  It's all about the narrative. Property destruction, deaths of both white and black people, destruction of livelihoods DON'T MATTER to Democrats or BLM.  

 

But Democrats must indulge Blacks because 90+% of the Blacks unwaveringly vote for them---assuring that Democrats maintain their grip on power. You can correctly say that Blacks are ruining this nation because they give Democrats a significant edge in national elections and allows all this shit to happen. Black Democrats are being allowed to ruin this country and if you disagree then YOU'RE RACIST!!

Miller: Catastrophe for America and Europe This Decade ~2025?

From Dr. Donald Miller, MD. from Lew Rockwell.com:

We face turbulent times. The 2021-2030 decade is stacking up to be the most dangerous one in America’s 32-decade history.

The United States of America emerged from World War II a manufacturing colossus. During the war it built 141 aircraft carriers (all types), 203 submarines, 62,000 bombers (12,700 of them B-17s), 88,000 tanks—and 4 atom bombs. One atom bomb that used uranium was dropped on Hiroshima, August 6, 1945; a second plutonium one was dropped on Nagasaki, August 9. Two more plutonium bombs had been built but not used, when on August 15 Japan surrendered.

The U.S. dollar replaced the British pound sterling as the world’s reserve currency and became a “petrodollar” when the Saudis and other Arab oil nations agreed to accept only U.S. dollars for their oil. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the USA became the world’s sole super-power. America now, however, must share that status with China and  Russia. Over the last thirty years Russia, shorn of its Soviet Socialist Republics, and China both also have become super-powers, militarily and technologically.

China is fast becoming the world’s largest economy, reflecting its fourfold greater population—1.4 billion people—compared with a U.S. population of 335 million. Both economic and military dangers confront America, which makes the 2021-2030 decade particularly dangerous.

Economic Collapse

U.S. dollar bills once were redeemable in gold, with the avowal “IN GOLD COIN, PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND” printed this way on them. Gold was money, at $20.67 per troy ounce. People used gold coins to make purchases and pay debts, up until 1933 when a presidential Executive Order made it illegal for U.S. citizens to own gold, except for collectible numismatic gold coins and gold jewelry. Foreign countries and their central banks could still exchange U.S. dollars for gold, at $35 per ounce.

America had 21,770 tonnes of gold reserves when World War II ended. With gold priced at $35/oz., this large amount of gold backed only 17 percent of the country’s $147 billion money supply. By 1971 U.S. gold reserves had dropped to less than 10,000 tonnes. This amount backed only 1 percent of the country’s expanding money supply, rendering default inevitable.

The U.S. government completely suspended convertibility of U.S. dollars into gold on August 15, 1971, turning the U.S. dollar into a fiat currency—a government-issued currency not backed by any physical commodities, notably gold or silver.

Americans are suffering increasingly severe inflation caused by a substantial increase in the supply of money. Gold has gone from $35 per ounce in 1971 to $1,950 per ounce now. Priced in gold, the American dollar has lost 98.3% of its value—its purchasing power—over the last 50 years.

John Williams’ newsletter “Shadow Government Statistics” calculates inflation the way the Fed did in the 1980s. Williams reports that the March 2022 y/y CPI inflation rate was actually 16.8%, not the Fed’s now measured 8.5% rate. This March’s 16.8% inflation rate tops the 14.8% high set in March of 1980. It is the highest one in 75 years, close behind the 17.6% rate set in June 1947.

Dealing with inflation in the early 1980s, Fed Chair Paul Volker reduced the money supply by drastically raising interest rates, boosting the prime lending rate to 21.5% and the 10-yearTreasury yield to 15.5%. U.S. money supply has grown from $685 billion in 1971 to $21.84 trillion now. Raising interest rates to the 15-20% level now would court economic collapse.

U.S. gold reserves are reported to be ~8,000 tonnes, but half of that amount, or more, may be leased out and not easily retrievable. It has been decades since the physical existence of American gold has been independently checked and validated. Russia and China recently announced that they collectively hold 34,000 tonnes of gold–12,000 tonnes in Russia and 22,000 tonnes in China.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is dismantling the U.S. petrodollar-dominated global financial system. With American-led economic sanctions blocking transactions in dollars, Russia now will only sell its petroleum products to “unfriendly” (European) nations in rubles or gold. Buyers in China can use their yuan and in India, their rupee to buy Russian oil. The U.S. dollar’s role as the worlds Reserve Currency and Petrodollar is now coming to an end.

In “Weaponized Dollar May Explode in America’s Face,” financial analyst Brian McGlinchey identifies the following consequences resulting from a dethroned dollar: 1) Costlier imports and rising prices; 2) Higher government borrowing costs; 3) Higher rates on mortgages, credit cards and auto loans; 4) Rising deficits; 5) Higher taxes, decreased spending, and/or runaway inflation; and 6) The end of prosperity created by the Fed’s printing press.

Swiss gold expert Egon von Greyerz predicts that the dollar will cease to exist within 5 years, and that the world will see terrifying hyperinflation followed by a deflationary depression. Noting that throughout history all currencies have become extinct, it will be the dollar’s fate next.

In their written language, the Chinese character for money and for gold is the same.

Nuclear War

The war in Ukraine carries a substantial risk of developing into a nuclear World War III. The American media uniformly demonizes President of Russia Vladimir Putin for his “unprovoked invasion of a peaceful neighboring country.” The U.S. and NATO, so far, are only sending Ukraine weapons, not troops, and they have declined to invoke a no-fly-zone.

The U.S., Russia, UK, France, and China are acknowledged “Nuclear Weapon States.” Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea also possess nuclear weapons. And five NATO countries—Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey house nuclear weapons. Ukraine also had nukes when it was part of the Soviet Union.

There are now some 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and the U.S. and Russia share equally 90 percent of them. Russia’s Air Force, for example, has 79 bombers carrying more than 800 nuclear-armed cruise missiles; and its Navy has 12 submarines carrying some 600 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. A World War III will most likely employ nukes.

A major risk factor for World War III going nuclear is that America is undergoing a Fourth Turning. The concept of generational “Turnings” posits that human history has a seasonal, cyclical nature. Each cycle is around 80 years long. This table shows the four Cycles that have occurred in American history so far:

Each Cycle has four “seasons,” called Turnings. Fourth Turnings are named Crisis, especially since they are associated with war. The American Revolution happened in the Fourth Turning of the country’s initial Revolutionary Cycle, followed by the Civil War and World War II in the Fourth Turnings of subsequent Cycles. The American Revolution had 25,000 military and civilian deaths; the Civil War, 750,000 deaths; and 85 million people died from all causes in World War II. At that rate billions of people will die in a nuclear World War III.

I was born during the last Fourth Turning, in Honolulu, Hawaii where my dad, a Navy surgeon, was stationed, 15 months before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

We must do everything possible to prevent a World War III. The demonization of Vladimir Putin must stop. Lew Rockwell writes: “Putin is not the maniac they portray hm to be but rather a cautious statesman pursuing Russia’s legitimate security interests.” Oliver Stone does a great job uncovering Vladimir Putin’s true nature in Oliver Stone’s The Putin Interviews (see also here).

The Ukraine war actually started in 2014 with the CIA/U.S. State Department-sponsored Maidan Revolution, which overthrew democratically elected (pro-Russian) Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. Since then, the Ukrainian neo-Nazi Azov Battalion has been intermittently shelling people in Donbas, the industrial Russian-speaking region in southeastern Ukraine, killing thousands. The final straw for Putin and Russia was Ukraine’s announced intention to join NATO.

Having NATO’s nukes placed in Ukraine and pointed at Moscow 450 miles away is like the Soviet Union installing nuclear-armed ICBMs in Cuba in 1962, pointed at Washington, D.C. 1140 miles away. The United States could not tolerate that, and the world came to the brink of nuclear war until the missiles were removed. Neither will Putin and Russia tolerate them being installed in hostile, neighboring Ukraine.

Americans must back away from confronting Russia in Ukraine, stop sending Ukraine weapons, and drop the economic sanctions imposed on Russia. That might also help the U.S. avoid an economic collapse. Finally, we must heed Albert Einstein: “The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking… The solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only, I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”

Black Stupidity, Racism, Criminality and Extremism

From NY Post:

Top Democrats claim that nothing in America is more dangerous than white racism.   As President Joe Biden said Oct. 21, “According to the United States intelligence community, domestic terrorism from white supremacists is the most lethal terrorist threat in the homeland.”

“In the FBI’s view,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said June 15, “the top domestic violent-extremist threat comes from . . . those who advocate for the superiority of the white race.”

House Armed Services Committee member Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) complained that the federal government insufficiently screens “servicemembers and other individuals with sensitive roles for white-supremacist and violent-extremist ties.”

So where is all the damage from this white-nationalist army? Where are the wounds of those they have maimed and the cadavers of those they have killed?

“Charlottesville!” Biden and the Democratic left shout in unison. Yes, James Alex Fields Jr. weaponized his car and murdered protester Heather Heyer during Charlottesville, Va.’s race riots in August 2017 — nearly five years ago. 

As Team Biden searches furiously for those touched by this supposedly ubiquitous white threat, black racists scream hatred and inflict dozens of casualties, some fatal.

 

 

 

A Real Domestic Terrorist Frank James Arrested in NYC

The NYPD says that Wednesday, a black man named Frank James unleashed a smoke bomb on a Brooklyn subway train. He then fired 33 rounds from a Glock pistol. James allegedly shot 10 commuters, and 13 suffered other injuries. Five were hospitalized in critical condition. Amazingly, no one was killed.

Journalist Andy Ngo perused his social-media profile. James’ profane, deeply bigoted posts foreshadow an atrocious, anti-white hate crime.

How Terrorist James Really Feels

* “O black Jesus, please kill all the whiteys,” James wrote on Facebook.

* “The white motherf–kers that I want to kill, you know, I really want to kill them because they’re white,” James declared.

* “White people and black people as we call ourselves should not have any contact with each other,” James stated. “Blacks and whites so-called should not even be in the same hemisphere.”

Frank James had nine prior arrests in Gotham and three in New Jersey.

Meanwhile, police in Waukesha, Wis., report that Darrell Edward Brooks in November plowed his Ford Escape SUV into marchers and spectators at a Christmas parade. Brooks’ carnage killed six people and wounded 62 others.

Brooks also is an outspoken, white-hating bigot.

Terrorist Darrell Brooks

* He wrote, via Twitter: “the old white ppl 2, KNOKK DEM TF OUT!! PERIOD.”

* As Andy Ngo observed, Brooks posted this in 2016 on Facebook: “Run them over. Keep traffic flowing & don’t slow down for any of these idiots.”

* Brooks also posted a rant with these words beside Adolf Hitler’s photo: “HITLER KNEW WHO THE REAL JEWS WERE!”

Lifelong criminal Brooks’ rap sheet stretches some 50 pages.

The US Capitol Police recall that Noah Green drove up to a barricade on April 7, 2021, and charged two officers with a knife before a third fatally shot him.

Murderer and Terrorist Noah Green

Green belonged to the anti-white Nation of Islam, led by notorious Jew-hater Louis Farrakhan. In October 2018, via Twitter, he decried “The Satanic Jew.” Farrakhan also said that people “call me an anti-Semite. Stop it, I’m anti-termite!”

“I consider him my spiritual father,” Green said of Farrakhan.

These cases confirm that Joe Biden and the Democratic left are lost in space. While they battle imaginary white nationalists, real-life black racists usher their victims into hospitals and cemeteries.

‘Go Capture Her!’ Crazed Woke Mob Chases Buffalo U Student Who Invited Black Republican to Speak

Quote from the NY Post:

A University at Buffalo student said Monday she feared for life when she was chased by an angry [mostly black] mob last week after inviting black former Texas GOP Chair Lt. Col. Allen West to speak on campus about overcoming racism.

Therese Purcell, who is president of the Young Americans for Freedom at the university, said that she was forced to flee into a men’s bathroom after the on-campus event with West spiraled out of control.

Purcell said protestors derailed the Thursday night event — titled America Is Not Racist: Why American Values are Exceptional — during a Q&A segment with West.

She said the protesters — made up of black and white students — started screaming “no peace” and banging on the walls.

Purcell said West was escorted out by police and protesters started “hunting” her down as she tried to leave. She said that’s when she ran to the bathroom and called 911.

“I don’t think they were going to do anything remotely peaceful. They were a very angry mob, and they were clearly saying that they were trying to chase me, that they wanted to capture me,” Purcell said.

“I was really afraid for my life,” Purcell said.

Purcell said she had invited West, a former Florida congressman, to speak at the packed campus event about how he overcame racism — but she never expected it to be so controversial.

“I don’t think they liked Colonel West’s message that he did experience racism … but he overcame that, and he decided not to be a victim … and that America gave him that equality of opportunity that many other countries don’t,” she said

 

BLM protestors who didn’t make it into the event screamed from the hallway, trying to drown out @AllenWest. pic.twitter.com/oZ4gA8B0PP

— YAF (@yaf) April 8, 2022

This is what happens when you allow massive numbers of young people, who are unqualified to attend college, to take the indiscriminately-offered "free money" (govt "loans") and subsequently attend a "college". These govt loans have no real standards, stipulations or qualifications at all except a requirement to pay it back. 

What happened at University of Buffalo is happening all over the country in recent years. Thanks to indiscriminate government loans, massively ignorant students (blacks and latinos are the worst) are showing disrespect and intolerance of anyone who is even suspected of having conservative opinions or views. Most times these "mobs" pronounce a guilty verdict without knowing or listening to anything that a guest speaker might have said or written. They are just listening to rumors. Lt. Colonel Allen West is an honorable, amazing and successful (black) man, like so many, who is shut-down, cancelled, attacked based on suppostions or suspicion. 

It's hard to believe in the 21st Century that we are seeing something similar to "witch trials" as in 17th century Salem, Mass just because the victim is rumored and accused of something "heretical". No due process. No listening. No evidence permitted: just mob justice that is more reminiscent of primitive societies without rule of law -- LIKE IN AFRICA OR HAITI today.

In this case at U of Buffalo, crazed idiots were willing to use violence for basically nothing. The ignorance of these people is stunning. They might as well use Voodoo or use Tarot cards to pronounce guilt or innocence!   Primitives!  It's really the dumbass, ignorant and intellectually deficient Black kids that are the biggest problem.

It shouldn't be a surprise.  If you look at the data for black kids at the 12th grade high school level, only 10 to 15% of those kids are "proficient" or better at 12th grade studies but fully 71% of all black high-seniors are going to college! (many have already dropped-out by 12th grade)  Only ~10 to 15% of black high school graduates are qualified for college but 70% are taking the (free) money and going to school (and actually attending classes???). So, about 80% of black college kids don't belong at college at all (if you think 12th grade level proficiency is a good standard).  It's a similar situation for Latino kids, but slightly better.   See:

• College Tuition Bubble: Far Too Many Unqualified Students Attending College,    
• Vast Majority of Hispanic and Black Students Can't Perform at High School Levels, But Are Graduated Anyway,   
• Black Kids Not Performing in High School,   
  

It is these kids who are perpetrating this "woke" bullshit on campuses and even demanding a new re-segregation for the black kids from the whites, because these black kids are so alienated from mainstream US culture and also are completely unable to compete with the white kids academically. 

Colleges are now remedial high schools to accommodate the influx of kids that shouldn't even be there. The school administrators jump on the woke bandwagon to accommodate these 2nd rate 'students' in order to keep the torrent of Federal money flowing!  They're getting rich! 

Universities, public and For-Profit schools are only glad to take the Federal Loan money and expand their curricula into "Gender Studies," "African-American Studies," turning at least part of their university into a "kindergarten" or "remedial high school" for the intellectually-deficient populations. U of Buffalo has all those bullshit courses--most colleges do.

The loan fraud is still expanding. It's funding a bunch of kids with inadequate intellect to go to "colleges" that accommodate these incompetents with bullshit majors taught by bullshit "professors". These dummies are the same morons shutting down free speech and promoting woke stupid ideas. We're talking about underqualified Hispanic and Black students, obviously.

Most of these students taking those loans now can easily see that they will get "amnesty" or forgiveness eventually; putting a $trillion or two onto the spiraling national debt. Blacks kids are not and will not pay back anything--that's guaranteed (they already are not paying anything). It's another Federal govt failure of massive proportions; basically another type of "welfare" fraud at the end of the day.

Government is the cause of all of our big problems. Black people remain America's biggest burden. Promoting less-qualified blacks and Latinos to high positions in corporations and governments tends to turn this country into Haiti or Africa---EXACTLY WHERE WE ARE HEADED.

Ron Paul: The CIA is Using Lies to Propagandize the American People Toward War Wth Russia

From LewRockwell.com: Late last year, a Gallup poll showed that Americans’ trust in the mainstream media has fallen to its second lowest level on record. Only seven percent of Americans responded that they have a “great deal” of trust in the media.

That loss of trust has been well-earned by the mainstream media, and it explains the massive growth of independent media and alternative voices on social media. The response to the rise of independent media voices has been a rush to “cancel” any voice outside the accepted mainstream narrative.

Citizens of the Soviet Union would read manipulated media like Pravda not because the regime reported facts, but because truth was hidden between the lines of what was reported and what was not reported. That seems to be where we are in the US today.

Last week an extraordinary article appeared in, of all places, NBC News, reporting that the US intelligence community is knowingly feeding information it does not believe accurate to the US mainstream media for the American audience to consume.

In other words, the article reports that the US “deep state” admits to being actively engaged in lying to the American people in the hopes that it can manipulate public opinion

According to the NBC News article, “multiple US officials acknowledged that the US has used information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect…”

Readers will recall the shocking headlines that Russia was prepared to use chemical weapons in Ukraine, that China would be providing military equipment to Russia, that Russian President Putin was being fed misinformation by his advisors, and more.

All of these were churned out by the CIA to be repeated in the American media even though they were known to be false. It was all about, as one intelligence officer said in the article, “trying to get inside Putin’s head.”

That may have been the goal, but what the CIA actually did was get inside America’s head with false information meant to shape public perception of the conflict. They lied to propagandize us in favor of the Biden Administration’s narrative.

Those pushing the “Russiagate” hoax through the Trump years claimed that the goal of “Russian disinformation” was to undermine Americans’ trust in our government, media, and other institutions. Isn’t it ironic that the CIA itself has done more than the Russians to undermine Americans’ faith in the media by feeding false stories to establish a particular narrative among the American people?

After the Bay of Pigs disaster, President Kennedy has been quoted as wanting “to splinter the CIA in a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.” That didn’t work out too well for him. As Senate Majority Chuck Schumer famously told Rachel Maddow in 2020, responding to the-President Trump’s criticism of the CIA, “let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you.”

As more information about the activities of the US Intelligence Community in trying to bring down Trump come out, it appears that, for once, Schumer was right.

It’s time to revisit President Kennedy’s post-Bay of Pigs wish. The CIA using lies to propagandize the American people toward war with Russia is just one of thousands of reasons to scatter a million pieces of that agency to the wind.

Tucker: Democrats Have Decided to Replace Biden

Armstrong: Zelensky is the Puppet of Schwab and The West

Zelensky and Schwab Meeting at the WEF:  Tells You Everything You Need to Know

From Martin Armstrong at Armstrong Economics:

The bias of the Western Press is just unimaginable. I reported previously that our contacts in both Serbia and Hungary were reflecting overwhelming support for Putin and Russia. The press can’t report on anything honestly and calls Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor an “authoritarian” or a “nationalist” because anyone who dares to go against their agenda is evil. The BBC reported Orbán said: “We have such a victory it can be seen from the moon, but it’s sure that it can be seen from Brussels.”

It has been widely known that Serbia was very pro-Russia. I reported from our readers in Serbia that they were sick and tired of the West’s propaganda that they saw Zelensky for what he was – a puppet of the West. But the Western press will not report the truth about Zelensky and his covert connections. The press is oblivious to the truth and constantly paints Zelensky as a hero when in fact not merely did he outlaw the Russian language in a country made up of 30% Russians and over 50% also speak Russian, but he has also attacked the Russian Religion – he has been seeking to also outlaw Russian Orthodox Christianity.

These are actions that caused Putin to recognize independence for the Donbas but when VP Harris, at the Munich Security Conference on February 20th said Ukraine should join NATO, four days later Putin invaded. One must ask – was this all intentional or just stupidity?

 So while Zelensky pretends to be a soldier for the cameras simultaneously preaching World War III to everyone else, his actions show a deep-seated hatred of the Russian people even those who live in the Donbas. The West ignores Zelensky’s action outlawing the Russian language and his more recent attempt to outlaw the Russian Orthodox religion. Orbán immediately criticized Zelensky who the Press will NEVER criticize because all they ever preach is the agenda of the Neocons and their determination to manufacture World War III.

Religious liberty in Ukraine has been put at risk by Zelensky but the Press will not report that. The West will not report religious complaints about Zelensky from Putin. The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) has become a political partner in this invasion of Ukraine. Putin is defending the Russian people against this anger from the West and even their religion. Moscow Patriarch Kirill has given the full religious blessing to the regime’s foreign policy agenda. Why?

What is NOT being reported is that Zelensky has been proposing the draft Law of Ukraine No. 7204 of March 22, 2022 “On Banning the Moscow Patriarchate on the Territory of Ukraine”, published on the VR website, its author is Oksana Savchuk, a deputy who entered the Rada on the lists of the All-Ukrainian Association “Svoboda” party in district No. 83 (Ivano-Frankivsk). Zelensky is attempting to even usurp the religion and ban in Ukraine the Moscow Patriarchate – the Russian Orthodox Church and religious organizations that are part of it, “including the Ukrainian Orthodox Church”.

This is like King Henry VIII who seized the Catholic Church, stole all its wealth, and created the Church of England eliminating the Pope. Zelensky is doing the same to terminate the Moscow Patriarchate as the head of the church in Ukraine. This is the man the West is cheering and never reports on what Putin is saying about the assault on religion.

This would be like the Jews seizing control of the Temple Mount and outlawing Islam. Hillary and others only talk about Ukrainians defending their home. About 30% of Ukraine are Russian and they do not like having their language being banned, the attempt to outlaw their religion as well.

Orbán proclaimed Zelensky is evil and he stands with the EU and George Soros. He said: “This is a victory over the left at home, the international left, the bureaucrats in Brussels, the money of the Soros empire, the international media, and even the Ukrainian president.” Orbán and Serbia along with many in the Middle East, Asia, and even India, are starting to see this man calling for World War III as the greatest single threat to world peace. But the Western press will not report the full scope of his actions that show it is not democracy he seeks, but tyranny.

Orbán has so far refused to allow the supply of weapons to Ukraine or even permit military aid to pass through Hungarian territory. He gas angered NATO allies and Zelensky, who has called the Hungarian prime minister “[Vladimir] Putin’s only European supporter”. But it is Zelensky who could have simply let the Donbas go but prefers to put Ukraine through a living hell many are starting to see that he is just a puppet of the Neocons.

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It is also interesting to see Hillary Clinton coming out all the time filling the airwaves with hatred of Russia. Hillary has always been one of the Neocons who started the hatred of Putin by creating the fake Steele Dossier to claim Putin interfered in the 2016 election. She has now been fined by the Federal Election Commission but the press ignores all that and how much it cost the country is fake investigations. She accomplished her goal – 70% of Democrats believed Russia was the evil empire.

All my sources clearly say that Zelensky is a FRAUD. To the Italian Parliament, he claimed Russians were kidnapping children and torturing them with no proof. Then he claims that when the Russian left a town there were bodies everywhere when in fact that was another false flag and Russia has called for a UN security council meeting to look into this bullshit. Then he tells the Netherlands they will be next so start World War III now!

The US merely takes whatever Zelensky says and files charges against Russia like war crimes. It is actions like this that ensure we will NEVER return to world peace when all that is hurled at Russia is pure hatred. Never before the Biden Administration did we EVER witness any American President despise the head of Russia or China deliberately refusing to act civil. Even Kennedy sought peace through negotiation as did Nixon, Carter, and Reagan. We have no peacemakers today – only warmongers.

Then Zelensky appeared on the Grammys to sell the idea of war to the American people. Would they ever put Putin on to listen to his side of the story? Of course not!  I really wish everyone who cheers Zelensky should just go to Ukraine and go try and kill as many Russians as they want since they have been filled with such hate thanks to all the brainwashing. 

Zelensky could settle this and simply comply with: 

(1) the 1991 Belgrade Agreement and Ukraine staying NEUTRAL, and 

(2) the Minsk Agreement and let the Russian section decide their own fate after he reversed the law and demanded that ONLY Ukrainian is the official language.

Polish Army forces have been put on alert near the border with Ukraine for Zelensky’s refusal to negotiate in good faith has created a change in plans. The Belarusian Armed Forces are preparing to enter the war and will attack Zelensky in Kyiv for they too have a national security risk as Zelensky keeps trying to drum up World War III and keeps pushing for NATO to enter. Belarus will take western Ukraine up to the border with Poland and Russia will take the East. We may see this launch by next week and this will mean that Zelensky has put Ukraine at risk for his refusal to negotiate in good faith honoring the Belgrade and Minsk Agreements.

Zelensky has supported the Ukrainian Nazis who have even bragged that they feed the bones of Russian-speaking children to their pet wolves. He could have easily resolved this entire crisis by releasing the very people Zelensky hates so much. He knows what he is doing by constantly trying to get NATO to enter Ukraine which will be World War III that he said has already started. He will go down in history as someone up there with Adolf Hitler when the dust settles. He wants all our children to die for his personal hatred. Pushing Russia against the wall will only lead to Nuclear War. He has divided the entire world and it seems he is following orders. He cannot be this reckless. [Doug here: I detect a Klaus Schwab trouble-maker behind this.  After all, you have to destroy everything and depopulate the West in order to "build back better?"  No?]

Will Viktor Orban Bring Down the House That Davos Built?

From the great Tom Luongo at Gold, Goats 'n Guns:

Today Hungarians go to the polls to decide their future. What they may not realize is that they also are deciding on the future of most of the European continent in the process.

Sitting Prime Minister Viktor Orban is vying for his fourth term in office, having been in power for 12 years and he is under intense opposition from within and without. It’s an open secret that Orban is reviled in Brussels.

And because of his basic sense of common decency and nationalism that means he must be removed from office in order to ensure the full consolidation of power with the European Commission and European Council.

That only happens with his removal and a Brussels-centric puppet controlled by George Soros and the Davos Crowd put in his place. There is a real sense of desperation surrounding this bid to remove Orban.

The formation of a ridiculous Not-Orban coalition of no less than six parties, none of whom would piss in each other’s mouths if their throats were on fire, is pure desperation. It is the apotheosis of the Davos strategy to put in power weak coalitions that can be torn apart at the seams but whose members are also so enamored with being in power they won’t collapse the government as popular opinion turns against them.

This is how Davos engineered Mario Draghi’s takeover in Italy. Five Star Movement cut a deal with the Democrats to oust Lega despite the polls being completely against the idea of such a government after Matteo Salvini pulled out of his coalition with Five Star back in 2019.

Germany’s ‘Traffic Light’ coalition members have almost nothing in common but in no way will you see the FDP, for example, pull out of it with their sinking poll numbers, now just 8%, even though they could. Instead, we see Finance Minister and FDP leader Christian Lindner doing exactly what he was put in power to do, gum up the financial works and prep the stage for the transference of Germany’s power within the EU to the EU.

But all of that unravels if Orban is free for another four years to veto every stupid and belligerent idea that comes out of the European Council. Hungary is already under financing sanctions from the EU over their anti-LGBT laws, threatening to block distributions from the EU budget.

The EU have already gotten the Poles to knuckle under because the Poles are dependent on Germany for gas flows thanks to their own intransigence in cutting deals with Russia for energy.

Hungary, on the other hand, has energy independence from Brussels by having contracted directly with Gazprom for natural gas via Turkstream’s train that goes into Serbia and Hungary. This should give you some context as to why the EU is trying to sanction Serbia and cut off the flows of that pipeline where it crosses EU territory in Bulgaria.

With a fiscally, monetarily (they are not on the euro) and energy independent Hungary there is little argument for them staying in the EU if Brussels is going to treat them as second class members. Orban and his government have been resolute in their refusal to get involved in the Russia/Ukraine conflict even though there has been serious pressure applied by NATO.

Why the Medical Establishment Sold Their Integrity and Souls During Covid

Government Assistance to Hospitals per Covid Case (origin unknown)

I don't know if the above amounts of money paid per patient are valid or why it varies so much.  But it's a fact that there were/are substantial government payments to hospitals for each Covid case and even more money if a ventilator was used(!).  See here, here and here.  The incentive to use ventilators turned-out to be extremely deadly.

Money is why hospitals and doctors rigidly toed the government "line" (and lies) for their limited, rigid and often-failing treatments for Covid. 

Remdesivir was adopted by Phony Fauci early on based on the most modest of evidence of effectiveness---it was barely better than placebos. Not only was it barely effective but it had some serious and severe side-effects. The cost of Resdesivir was ENORMOUS at $3100 per course of treatment.  (All of the NIH and government elites like Fauci had large stakes in Gilead stock---the maker of Remdesivir.   Where's the requirement for disclosure of this information???)  

Other alternatives like Ivermectin and HCQ++ were also not allowed either despite continually expanding evidence of clinical benefit.  (N.B.: The hydroxychloroquin trials generally did not examine HCQ used with Vitamins C&D, Zinc and Azithromycin, See here and here)  No one in government would entertain any alternative. It is as if the government bureaucrats are braindead and/or corrupt.  It's clear that they are! 

No enlightened thinking is allowed in Federal government work. The only choice for medical institutions and practicioners was to follow old-fart, brain-dead corruptocrats like Fauci and Biden in their corrupt and rigid "prescriptions"and edicts IN ORDER TO RECEIVE THE MONEY. 

The government, as corrupt and stupid that it is, should never have taken charge of the medical response to Covid. It should have all been left to the real incubators of innovation:  The States or THE PEOPLE and their DOCTORS.  Most importantly, the patient's relationship to the DOCTOR should be sacred!

It's no sin to be wrong, but it's a sin to REMAIN wrong. No mid-course corrections were allowed in the rigid Communist-style politiburo who put themselves "in charge".  If Fauci and Biden don't remind you of Breshnev and Andropov, you're not paying attention.

Disgusting.

Deathvax: Now Fifteen Tennis Stars Stricken at Tournament

From Steve Kirsch

The DEATHVAX™ slow kill bioweapons continue to be unrelentingly effective and hazardously unsafe. Perfectly jiving with the 300% mortality surge for Fifa soccer players since the “vax” rollout, we now have FIFTEEN elite tennis athletes unable to complete a single tournament.

MIAMI The tennis world reacted with shock after favorites Paula Badosa and Jannik Sinner had to retire during the quarterfinals of the Miami Open. Badosa, soon to be the number three in the world, became unwell during her match against Jessica Pegula and left the court in tears.

Badosa, who was comforted by her American opponent, decided to stop after consultation with her physiotherapist. Pegula reached the semifinals of the Miami tennis tournament for the first time in her career after Badosa’s resignation, reported Yahoo Sports.

In the men’s tournament, the Italian phenomenon Jannik Sinner was forced to withdraw. He gave up after 22 minutes in the game against Francisco Cerundolo, the number 103 in the world ranking. “When I served at 3-1 and 30-0, I saw him bend over. It was very strange,” Cerundolo said during an interview. “I hope he’s okay, he’s a great player.”

The 23-year-old Argentinian surprisingly reached the semifinals with his first participation in the master tournament in Miami.

It was the second game in a row that ended prematurely for the tennis fans. Fans reacted with shock to the bizarre tennis day. “What is going on?” someone asked.

What could possibly be going on? By Janus! What kind of mysteriously mystifying “coincidences” could be transpiring at a single event?

Fifteen “coincidences” no less.

ALL players by mandate had to have been “fully vaccinated” to participate.

Of course, if they were not DEATHVAXXED™ they would have all dropped of the tournament much sooner than they did, because PSYOP-19.

Do NOT comply.

The Left's Hatred of America and Americans

From Michael Smith from Unlicensed Punditry

From top to bottom, the defining traits of the Biden administration (and the Democrat Party from whence it came) is the appeasement of Americas enemies and the bullying of America's citizens.

Jean Kirkpatrick coined the term “Hate America First” in her famous speech at the 1984 GOP national convention, she noted:

“The American people know that it’s dangerous to blame ourselves for terrible problems that we did not cause. They understand just as the distinguished French writer, Jean Francois Revel, understands the dangers of endless self- criticism and self-denigration. He wrote: ‘Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.’”

Kirkpatrick was speaking of a pathological problem with Democrats, the tendency to blame America before considering any other possibility. In the past 37 years, the only thing that has changed is that Kirkpatrick’s “Blame America First” has become “Blame AMERICANS First”, devolving from civilizational blame to the blame of individuals. America is evil because you are evil is the new hotness.

Those dangers are well established now as core principles of the Democrat Party – but more than just a political trait, generations of Americans have been reared, inculcated and indoctrinated in such a constant barrage of self-hate, it is now internalized in many as a foundational truth.

For Democrats, 'Hate America First' permeates their every waking hour, defines their beliefs, informs their personalities and controls their thoughts. Born of communist agitation, it spread to academic institutions of higher learning in the 1960’s, and as those graduates chose public service as professors and teachers, the intellectual and emotional blight that began in the leaves of the tree, spread to the limbs, then to the trunk, and now with the active corruption of children down to the kindergarten levels, it is now attacking the roots.

The ideas of social justice, Critical Race Theory, gender fluidity are just a few of the “gifts” the faculty lounges blessed us with.  Not content with infecting just academia, the graduates of those institutions carried the virus into the worlds of politics, government and the business, giving us identity politics, diversity, inclusion and equity efforts and environmental, social and government (ESG) social credit score systems (just like China).

The problem with Democrats goes deeper than politics, in truth, politics is the symptom, the outward expression of something akin to a mental illness. It is not classical narcissism – because it is not really rooted in love of self. Narcissists see others as inferior because they BELIEVE they are superior and simply cannot be wrong. This is almost a negative narcissism because the greatest fear of those affected is that they are inferior, that they are wrong. They carry a deeply rooted sense of frustration brought about by a crippling fear their inferiority will be discovered – and that fear results in striking out at others through blame-shifting.

Democrats are blamers.

We have all known at least one “blamer”. These are people who never take ownership of their own behavior, who, no matter what difficulty they experience, there is always someone or something else to blame for it, but never them. Have you ever heard a Democrat elected official accept responsibility for anything without claiming it was the fault of someone else?

Some common shibboleths from Democrat media outlets are:

• Everything is caused by racism, but of course, I am not a racist – you are.
• Our policies failed because you did not adequately support them.
• Republicans are evil because they oppose our policies.
• The policy of sending Covid positive patients back to nursing homes did not cause the increase in death rates, it was the staff that infected those people.

Opposition to our pork-filled “relief” bill means you want to starve kids.

The result of the 'Hate America First' epidemic are generations of people who are totally incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions. These people are true artists at twisting their reality into a justification of what they tell themselves: that they are simply not responsible for any consequence that results from their own actions (or inactions).

So comfortable they are in their self-deception, their delusion becomes as autonomic as breathing.

Individually, these 'Hate America First' suffering “blamers” are insufferable, but when aggregated into a group, the real trouble starts. These people are not anti-social, far from it – they tend to seek out others like them – other blamers who are willing to engage in perpetual “woe is me” pity parties. Blamers aggregate because there is safety in numbers, the association serves to assuage the fears and feelings of inferiority. The other blamers mutually sooth their insecurities by agreeing that nothing is really their fault, and all their issues arise from external sources.  The old saying that “Misery loves company” is especially applicable to Democrats.

'Hate America First' blamers see the other people as separate from them. They see others as slaves who must satisfy their tyrannical wants, needs and desires. Their perspective is “We command, and you obey”, and if you do not obey, they will make people feel that any misfortune is your responsibility and your fault – and they almost always find ways to make you pay for their mistakes.

And no matter what happens, no matter how many trillions are spent and wasted, no matter how much liberty is ceded to their agenda, they are never happy – and this unhappiness becomes their motivator.

Refusing to admit the unhappiness is due to the failure of their agenda, rather than accept that and change direction, not having a clue what to do, they blame you, double down in a death spiral of self-hate, appeasement and wasteful spending.

This, more than any faddish, flavor of the month philosophy is the leaf, branch, trunk and root of the Democrat Party and those who support and enable them.

The entire poisonous tree must be ripped out of the ground.

Corruption Free-for-all: Hunter Biden's Foreign Bribes

 Hunter's bribery scheme's, that he shared with his father Joe, is relatively small change compared to Hillary Clinton. She cashed-in on her husband's fame and collected $10's of millions in "donations" for her "foundation"political slushfund and kept all that money when she lost the 2016 election. 

From Martin Armstrong:

"A Congressman cannot be on the board of a private company, so their spouse or children do that like Hunter Biden. They create their Foundations like the Clintons and John McCain and tell people to pour millions into there, and then they live off of the perks. 

They also get to keep all money donated to them for elections that they did not spend – tax-free. I have been to political “dinners” where everything is there but as long as we stand, it is not a “dinner” for it is illegal to buy a politician dinner. It is always a dog & pony show."

NYT Painted Matt Gaetz as a Child Sex Trafficker. One Year Later, He Has Not Been Charged.

By Glenn Greenwald GlennGreenwald.com  April 1, 2021

On March 30 of last year, The New York Times published an article that was treated as a bombshell by the political class. Citing exclusively anonymous sources — “three people briefed on the matter” — the Paper of Record announced that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) “is being investigated by the Justice Department over whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old and paid for her to travel with him.”

The headline chosen by Times editors was as inflammatory and provocative as possible: “Matt Gaetz Is Said to Face Justice Dept. Inquiry Over Sex With an Underage Girl.” The paper, high up in the article, emphasized what grave crimes these were: “The Justice Department regularly prosecutes such cases, and offenders often receive severe sentences.” The article was extremely light on any actual evidence regarding Gaetz, instead devoting paragraph after paragraph to guilt-by-association tactics regarding “a political ally of his, a local official in Florida named Joel Greenberg, who was indicted last summer on an array of charges, including sex trafficking of a child and financially supporting people in exchange for sex, at least one of whom was an underage girl.” 

Only in the seventh paragraph — well below the headline casting him as a pedophile and sex trafficker — did the Times bother to note: “No charges have been brought against Mr. Gaetz, and the extent of his criminal exposure is unclear.” Exactly one year after publication of that reputation-destroying article, this remains true: while the DOJ may one day formally accuse him, Gaetz has not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a single crime which The New York Times stapled onto his forehead.

From the start, the GOP Congressman vehemently denied these accusations. And he went further than mere denials: he claimed that these allegations arose as part of a blackmail and extortion scheme to extract $25 million from his family in exchange for not publicizing these accusations, which his father promptly reported to the FBI. While many scoffed at Gaetz’s story as fantastical and bizarre, that part of his story was vindicated last August when a Florida developer and convicted felon “was arrested on a charge that he tried to extort $25 million from the father of Rep. Matt Gaetz in exchange for a presidential pardon that would shut down a high-profile, criminal sex-trafficking investigation into the Republican congressman.” In November, that developer, Stephen Alford, pled guilty to trying to extort $25 million from Rep. Gaetz and his family.

In other words, the only component of this story that has thus far been confirmed — a full year after the NYT first trumpeted it — is the part of Gaetz’s denial where he insisted that all this arose from an extortion attempt. Yet none of that mattered, and it still does not matter. As I wrote in the aftermath of the Times story, designed to warn of the perils of assuming someone’s guilt without any due process: “That Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) is a pedophile, a sex trafficker, and an abuser of women who forces them to prostitute themselves and use drugs with him is a widespread assumption in many media and political circles.” CNN celebrated the fact that one of Gaetz’s arch political enemies — the liberal icon Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) — said that “as the mother of daughters, the charges certainly are sickening.”

In sum, Matt Gaetz has now spent a full year with millions of people believing he is guilty of pedophilia and sex trafficking even though he has never had the opportunity to confront witnesses, evaluate evidence or contest his guilt in a court of law because he has never been charged. Instead, he has been found guilty by media-led mob justice, all from unethical and possibly illegal leaks by “people briefed on the matter.” As a result, not only did Gaetz become radioactive due to crimes that have never been proven, but so too did anyone who argued that he is entitled to due process before being assumed guilty. For writing that April article and producing an accompanying video advocating the need for due process before assuming someone’s guilt, I spent two days trending on Twitter due to widespread accusations that, like Gaetz, I too must be a pedophile who was only defending him because I am guilty of the same crimes. That is the core evil of mob justice: it triggers the worst instincts in mob participants, who become drunk with righteous rage and bereft of reason.