Month: January 2024

Are Hispanics Following the Path of the Irish?


anti-irish-cartoon-1871-thomas-nast | NA
Anti-Irish Political Cartoon (1871). By Thomas Nast. (NA)

 

Hispanics are by far the largest American immigration group of the last several decades, and also the focus of the most extensive nativist concerns. Immigration restrictionists contend that Hispanic immigrants increase crime, undermine American political institutions, and cannot or will not assimilate. In a recent post prominent economic policy commentator Noah Smith compiles evidence that these complaints are largely misplaced, and that Hispanics are in fact following a trajectory similar to that of Irish-Americans in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries:

[T]he best historical analogy for Hispanic immigration to the U.S. is the great Irish immigration of the 1800s. The usual analogy we draw is to the Italians, but I think the Irish make a better model. First of all, Irish immigration, like immigration from Mexico and Central America — but unlike immigration from Italy — was very drawn-out over a long period of time….

Like Hispanics, Irish migrants were mostly working-class folks who came for mainly economic reasons — pressures from poverty back in Ireland, plus the great dream of making it in America. And like Hispanics, they provoked a sustained and ferocious pushback from nativists….

The cartoon at the top of this post is from 1871 [note: I have reproduced the same cartoon at the start of this post], and features a huge number of negative stereotypes — the Irish as terrorists, as drunkards, as criminals, as seeking to dominate American culture….

You can see these anxieties paralleled in modern conservative worries about Hispanic immigration. Conservatives worry that terrorists are coming up through the southern border, that traditional American culture will be destroyed by immigrant culture, or even that the U.S. will have a civil war along racial lines.

Economic concerns are also very similar…. Worries that poor Irish immigrants would swamp local welfare systems — similar to worries about Hispanics overloading the welfare state in the 1990s and beyond — resulted in a large number of restrictive anti-immigration measures at the state level…..

Today’s fears of supposedly violent and unassimilable Hispanics are remarkably similar to the nineteenth century stereotype of brutish, un-American Irishmen.

In the rest of the article, Smith compiles evidence that the concerns about Hispanics are largely false: they are in fact rapidly assimilating, quickly increasing their wealth and income, and have significantly lower crime rates than native-born Americans (a point that applies even to undocumented immigrants). Most of this evidence is well-known to students of immigration policy. But Smith does a valuable service in compiling it in one relatively short and easily accessible piece.

I have previously written about how once widespread hostility towards Irish-Americans gradually faded away to the point where the difference between Irish and other white Americans no longer has much political or social significance. For example, most Americans barely even notice that Joe Biden is only the second Irish Catholic president, and hardly anyone worries that he’s trying to advance Irish interests at the expense of WASPs, or that he’s following the dictates of the Vatican. As Smith explains, the distinction between whites and Hispanics may well be gradually moving in the same direction.

I would, however, note a few relevant caveats to Smith’s thesis. First, it is not entirely true that Irish and Hispanic immigrants “were mostly working-class folks who came for mainly economic reasons.” In reality, many Hispanic immigrants were and are refugees from oppressive socialist regimes in Cuba, Nicaragua, and (most recently) Venezuela. Some others have fled repression at the hands of right-wing dictatorships. For their part, the many Irish migrants were fleeing not just poverty, but also repression at the hands of the British. This experience with repression in their countries of origin likely strengthens the migrants’ attachment to American institution, which, despite various flaws, offer them greater freedom and tolerance than those they fled.

A second caveat is that Hispanic migrants are a much more diverse lot than the Irish were. They come from a variety of different nations and ethnic groups. This makes generalizations about them more difficult. Cubans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Brazilians, and others all have somewhat different backgrounds and experiences, though there are some commonalities, as well. Indeed, as my George Mason University colleague David Bernstein shows in a recent book, “Hispanic” is actually a largely artificial category created not by the migrants themselves, but by US government bureaucrats.

Finally, while Irish immigrants arrived in an era when there were few restrictions on European immigration, many Hispanic migrants are undocumented. Today, there are an estimated 7 million or more undocumented Hispanic immigrants in the US, which accounts for some one-third of all foreign-born Hispanics, and over 70% of the total undocumented immigrant population.

For obvious reasons, lack of legal status reduces migrants’ incomes and educational opportunities, and impedes assimilation. The existence of this anchor makes Hispanics’ progress look even more impressive than it would be otherwise. But, unless immigration policy changes, it is likely to continue to slow down the assimilation process highlighted by Smith.

The obvious solution to this problem is simply to grant legal status to the undocumented, or at least the vast majority of them. Previous amnesties have increased income and assimilation, and a new one would likely have similar effects (thereby also boosting the US economy in the process). But that may not be politically feasible for some time to come.

 

The post Are Hispanics Following the Path of the Irish? appeared first on Reason.com.

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California’s ‘Repugnant’ Restrictions on Public Gun Possession Just Took Effect


A handgun in a holster | Mrhanson/Dreamstime.com

California’s sweeping new restrictions on public possession of firearms, many of which a federal judge enjoined this month after deeming them “repugnant to the Second Amendment,” took effect today thanks to a stay that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued on Saturday. That means Californians with permits that notionally allow them to carry concealed handguns will have to think twice before using them, because the state has declared a long list of locations they routinely visit to be “sensitive places” where firearms are prohibited.

Senate Bill 2, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on September 26, makes it a crime for permit holders to carry their handguns in 26 categories of places, including parks, playgrounds, zoos, libraries, museums, banks, hospitals, places of worship, public transportation, stadiums, athletic facilities, casinos, bars, and restaurants that serve alcohol. The list also covers any “privately owned commercial establishment that is open to the public” unless the owner “clearly and conspicuously posts a sign at the entrance” saying guns are allowed.

S.B. 2 “turns nearly every public place in California into a ‘sensitive place,’ effectively abolishing the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding and exceptionally qualified citizens to be armed and to defend themselves in public,” U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney noted on December 20, when he issued a preliminary injunction that barred the state from enforcing 15 provisions of the law. “California will not allow concealed carry permitholders to effectively practice what the Second Amendment promises. SB2’s coverage is sweeping, repugnant to the Second Amendment, and openly defiant of the Supreme Court.”

Carney was referring to the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which upheld the right to carry guns in public for self-defense. Under Bruen, states may no longer demand that residents demonstrate a “special need” before they are allowed to exercise that right. Accordingly, S.B. 2 eliminates California’s “good cause” requirement for carry permits, along with a similarly amorphous “good character” criterion. By limiting the discretion of licensing authorities, the bill notes, those changes could have opened the door to “broadly allowing individuals to carry firearms in most public areas.” Deeming that outcome intolerable, legislators instead decreed that guns may not be carried in most public areas.

Several other states, including New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Hawaii, have attempted the same end run around Bruen, making carry permits easier to obtain but much harder to use. Their location-specific gun bans provoked lawsuits that resulted in adverse rulings by federal judges. But those warnings did not deter California legislators, who are hoping that the 9th Circuit, which historically has been very friendly to gun control, will bless their transparent trickery. Although the appeals court has not yet addressed the merits of the case, its stay in May v. Bonta allows enforcement of the new restrictions instead of maintaining the status quo.

The lead plaintiff, Sonoma County resident Reno May, explains what that means in a declaration he submitted as part of the lawsuit, which was filed by several carry permit holders and gun rights groups. “Prior to SB 2, I only didn’t carry my pistol when planning on going to one of the few places where carry was not permitted, such as a school or courthouse, or when I intended to have a drink with dinner,” he writes. “Because SB 2 will prohibit me from carrying in many places where I am accustomed to concealed carrying a firearm, the utility of my CCW permit, and thus my right to be armed for self-defense in public, will be outright eliminated in nearly all common contexts.”

May can no longer legally bring his gun to most of the restaurants he patronizes, because they have liquor licenses; it does not matter whether he plans to drink. His permit also is no good on BART trains, at the bank, at the gym (an “athletic facility”), at urgent care clinics, or at the Santa Rosa mall May often visits, which includes a fitness center as well as restaurants that serve alcohol. Even stopping for gas is legally fraught, since “most gas stations sell lottery tickets,” making them “sensitive” as locations “used for gambling.”

The default rule against guns in businesses open to the public poses further problems. “There are many local businesses that I frequent that will likely not post [the legally required] signs, forcing me to either not carry there or stop patronizing them,” May says. “Even the ones that are willing to post such signs may be off limits for other reasons.” His local gun dealer, for instance, “shares a parking lot with several other businesses, including an establishment that serves alcohol.” So even if the gun shop posts a sign welcoming armed permit holders, May cannot bring his gun into the store without breaking the law while crossing the parking lot.

In addition to noting the breadth of California’s gun-free zones, Carney emphasized that state-vetted carry permit holders are “overwhelmingly law-abiding and responsible.” They have to undergo training and extensive screening, and they are rarely implicated in violent crime. They “are not the gun wielders legislators should fear,” Carney wrote, since they “are not responsible for any of the mass shootings or horrific gun violence that has occurred in California.”

Under Bruen, the state has the burden of showing that its restrictions are “consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.” Again and again, Carney found that California had failed to meet that test. In some cases, its arguments were so broad that they could justify a blanket ban on public possession of guns.

Defending the ban on guns in banks, for example, the state likened them to schools. California “contends that banks are like schools because they ‘are frequented by vulnerable populations such as the elderly,'” Carney notes. “But nonvulnerable populations are just as likely to visit banks as vulnerable populations. Accepting a comparison between schools and banks in this context would condone eviscerating law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense altogether.” And that, of course, is the whole idea.

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Corruption, Chaos, & Conflict – The Fourth Turning Erupts In 2024

Corruption, Chaos, & Conflict – The Fourth Turning Erupts In 2024

Authored by Jim Quinn via The Burning Platform blog,

“Americans today are increasingly polarized, as if they constitute two separate nations.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine – The American Crisis

Thomas Paine wrote these words 247 years ago, in the most historic year in our history – 1776. That was during the first American Fourth Turning. It’s not a coincidence we are now in the midst of our fourth Crisis period in U.S. history, as they arrive like clockwork every 80 years or so, the length of a long human life. Paine’s American Crisis began in 1773, ignited by the Boston Tea Party and the British reaction to this revolutionary act of defiance. Our current Millennial Crisis was triggered by the Federal Reserve/Wall Street/Government created financial disaster in 2008 and subsequent outrageously desperate, totalitarian, un-Constitutional, extreme acts designed to keep the ruling class in power, while impoverishing and enslaving the masses in a surveillance state techno-gulag.

The polarization and fractures have become too deep to repair. The country, and the western world in general, are hurtling towards a darkening abyss of civil conflict, financial collapse, global war, societal chaos, and loss of life on a scale grander than WW2, the Civil War, and the American Revolution combined. Our technological advancements have outstripped our ability to intelligently, thoughtfully, and humanly, use this power for the benefit of future generations. The destructive deficiencies of human nature, such as: greed, desire for power, hatred, arrogance, resentment, and an unlimited supply of self-delusion, continue to plague our world, as only the most power-hungry psychopaths rise to the highest levels of government, business, religion, and finance.

The immense technological power in the hands of egocentric, megalomaniacal, sadistic, billionaires and their highly paid toadies, lackeys, and apparatchiks, inserted throughout the media, government, academia, banking, and corporations, has pushed the world to the brink of Armageddon. We are entering the sixteenth year of this Fourth Turning. Based on history, we can expect a climax of this Crisis in the 2030-to-2032-timeframe. The path to that climax is guaranteed to be violent and unforgiving.

Neil Howe, in his new book – The Fourth Turning Is Here – tries to decipher the likely path of the remainder of this Fourth Turning. Having read the original Fourth Turning, his joint project with William Strauss (who died in 2007), in 2004, I was curious to read Howe’s update on their generational theory of history. I met Howe for lunch in 2012 during the Occupy Wall Street protests and he correctly assessed that movement as a meaningless left-wing attempt to push their communist like agenda.

The first book, written in 1997, showed no favor towards the right or left. It was a no-nonsense assessment of economic facts and historical precedents. There were no political agendas, which I now attribute to Strauss’ influence, because Howe certainly lets his political views creep into his writings. This isn’t surprising, as his consulting business is dependent upon Wall Street banks and mega-corporations. He owes his living to the establishment; therefore he won’t shit where he eats.

Howe’s current left leaning political views seep into his current tome. He quotes Zelensky as some sort of patriotic leader, while portraying Putin as a thug, without giving any context regarding the 2014 CIA initiated overthrow of a democratically elected Ukraine president. He bought the covid scamdemic hook, line, and sinker, with no skepticism about the coordinated lockdowns and false narratives about masks, social distancing, and vaccines that never worked, but continue to kill. He believes the climate change bullshit narrative.

His tone regarding Trump is clearly negative and he believes the 2020 election was perfectly legitimate. He expounds about the January 6 “armed” insurrection, without one word about the FBI, Pelosi, and the Washington establishment planning, coordinating, and exacerbating the fake “insurrection”. His brain-dead accusations of violence by Trump supporters, while completely ignoring the murder and mayhem created by the BLM and ANTIFA terrorists, clearly reveals his allegiances.

Be that as it may, there is no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. His acumen regarding possible scenarios and outcomes are well thought out. Howe makes some very interesting predictions regarding the remainder of this Fourth Turning, providing some very dark possibilities, along with some more unlikely optimistic outcomes. His research reveals Americans think the American dream is no longer attainable, civil discord will destroy our democratic institutions, and our global standing is in decline. All three fears are legitimate and coming to fruition as we speak. Howe captures the current situation in this passage:

“In the middle of a Crisis era, the social mood has reached an unstable balance of hope, fear, and dizzying uncertainty. Americans are like a compressed spring at the point of maximum potential energy. Internally secure yet externally threatened, they are ready for propulsive public action.”   – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here

Events beyond their control are leading them towards their rendezvous with destiny and the speed has begun to accelerate, with 2024 slated to be a historic date in history, on par with 1776, 1861, and 1941. The exact events which will make 2024 historic are obscured by a dense fog of uncertainty, but we can make some educated guesses based upon our current economic circumstances, Biden’s open border purposeful invasion, upcoming elections wrought with fraud, ongoing treasonous governmental and judicial operations, and deepening global conflicts already underway.

Of the three possible paths laid out by Howe, the most likely appears to be the animosity between factions eventually leads to armed conflict within the country. Political dominance by one party is highly unlikely, with the country rallying around the flag against an external enemy. It is more likely our many external foes will take advantage of our internal conflict to further weaken our global hegemony. All paths lead to war at this point.

I sense the delusional masses, still entranced by their electronic gadgets, unending access to debt, NFL fantasy leagues, and oblivious to the lessons of history, are frantically trying to fend off reality by shopping, eating out, partying at bars, and pretending all is well. Critically assessing their true situation is too painful for these snowflakes and gender bending enthusiasts. Their virtue signaling wokeness is about to meet the brutal reality of a violent Fourth Turning climax.

“And however much these paths may seem to differ from one another, they all move toward the same destination. They all push the nation toward a violent struggle requiring maximum mobilization. They all culminate in the Ekpyrosis, which will bring the era into a decisive consolidation, climax, and resolution.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here

The drivers of this Fourth Turning, as documented in 1997, continue to be debt, civic decay, and global disorder. They have propelled this Crisis since the outset in 2008 and are accelerating towards an explosive collision in 2024. The national debt at the outset of this Fourth Turning was $10 trillion. It had taken 219 years to accumulate $10 trillion of debt, with the majority amassed during this century. It has taken just fifteen years to pile an additional $24 trillion of debt on the backs of Americans and future generations, if there are future generations.

This doesn’t even take into account the $200 trillion of unfunded welfare and pension obligations tallied up by your government leaders. At the same time, the Federal Reserve increased their balance sheet from $900 billion to $9 trillion. With the rapid rise of interest rates in the last year, if banks were required to mark their assets to market, as they did prior to 2009, the entire banking industry, including the Too Big To Fail Wall Street behemoths, would be insolvent, along with the Federal Reserve. Does this seem sustainable to you?

Luckily for our teetering empire of debt, delusions, and deceptions, they can change the rules whenever it suits their purposes to extend and pretend until it all “suddenly” collapses, like a vaxxed soccer player on the pitch. Of course, the U.S. is not alone in being burdened with unpayable debt and an unsustainable financial system. China and the EU countries are also insolvent and issuing debt to service their existing debt.

The only major global power without a large debt problem is Russia, with a debt to GDP ratio below 30%, while the U.S.- 120%, EU – 90%, Japan – 220%, and China – 80% have accumulated perilous levels of debt and still growing. These debt levels and the domestic implications of unsustainable economies will lead shamelessly corrupt politicians and even dictators like Xi to provoke foreign conflict in order to distract their populations from their dire economic circumstances. A wag the dog type false flag is just around the corner.

An man-made banker created economic disaster ignited this powder keg of debt in 2008, and the “solutions” rolled out by the ruling elites since have been designed to extend, pretend, and bend the minds of the masses, while fostering the perpetual pillaging campaign by the billionaire oligarchs who really run this world. The plebs have been destroyed by the relentless inflation purposefully created by Powell and his fellow central banker puppets of the Deep State, while the lords of finance have reaped billions in ill-gotten riches.

The “Haves”, who control the financial markets, media, and politicians, are ecstatic with the current paradigm, as the stock market hits new highs every day, while average Americans go deeper into debt to keep up with the Joneses, pay the rent, and put some food on the table. The U.S. is nothing more than a sophisticated technological looting operation at this point, as we await the Great Taking to be initiated by the oligarchs as their final solution.

The Great Taking is David Rogers Webb’s warning to those not on the inside about the coming seizure of all your assets (stocks, bonds, savings) by your own government in the name of some new contrived national emergency. You will sacrifice your life savings for the good of the country (aka Deep State). At this point it’s just a matter of which comes first, The Taking, Global war, or Civil chaos caused by the ongoing election fraud. They are all coming and will merge into a category 5 hurricane of hell for the nation and the world.

The Deep State continues its complete control over who gets “elected”/selected in this country, as they use the captured judicial system as a cudgel to crush the rule of law and our Constitutional rights. The Soros selected District Attorneys, Mayors, Governors, Judges, Secretaries of States, and various other low-level captured bureaucrats, are doing what they were selected to do – destroy the country’s social fabric and create a chaotic disintegration of our community norms.

A populace propagandized into a woke communist ideology and prodded into a buy now, pay later mentality, is unwilling or unable to accept that LATER has arrived. They will pay, one way or another. Multiple bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are all poised to pop, with the slightest provocation from a global and/or domestic blunder. We have now positioned our naval forces in the highly dangerous waters in the Middle East. Militarily supporting Israel and Ukraine has done wonders for our GDP, but it seems we are running out of ammo to defend our own country, as the invasion of our southern border accelerates. We are currently provoking armed conflict in Yemen, Syria, Gaza, Iraq, Ukraine, and Russia.

All it will take is one lucky missile or unexpected hyper-sonic missile and our vaunted navy will see a vessel or two go to the bottom of the Red Sea. Then all hell will break loose. The rhetoric, threats and accusations of atrocities are ramping up, along with armed conflict across the Middle East. With the raging religious hatreds and centuries old struggles for land and power coming to a head, it will just take one of these psychopaths to ignite a global conflict. Meanwhile, China is biding its time for when they make their ultimate move on Taiwan. That would really roll a grenade into the party.

Financial markets have ignored the worsening global conflict thus far, but what happens when Americans start dying in large numbers? If the markets are at all time highs based upon expectations of a strong thriving economy in 2024, why is the Fed signaling multiple interest rate cuts in 2024, regional banks are desperately clinging to the Fed’s emergency bailout fund, commercial real estate is collapsing, housing has peaked, gold is hitting all-time highs, credit card debt is at all-time highs, layoffs are increasing, and the number of working age citizens is in free fall due to vaxx deaths and disabilities?

But buy stocks because the Wall Street shysters and their media mouthpieces tell you it’s the best time to buy. The only question at this point is what additional grain of sand will cause the sand pile to collapse. Will it be a foreign war, or will it be a civil war within our borders or something no one has even considered? I know most people dismiss the possibility of civil war, believing there aren’t enough people willing to risk their lives for a just cause. Neil Howe seems to think it is probable.

“Roughly half of all Americans think a civil war is likely. And a growing number of social scientists agree that the United States now fits the checklist profile of a country at risk. Trust in the national government is in steep decline. Check. Respect for democratic institutions is weakening. Check. A heavily armed population has polarized into two evenly divided partisan factions. Check. Each faction embodies a distinctive ethnic, cultural, and urban-versus-rural identity. Each wants its country to become something the other detests. And each fears the prospect of the other taking power. Check, check, and check.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here

Virtually no one believes civil war is possible, just as no one expected a civil war in 1860, as the presidential election approached. Truthfully, the civil war has already begun, but only those on the left, in conjunction with the FBI, CIA, Big Media, and other governmental agencies, are aggressively fighting. They are vigorously at war against the American people by rigging elections, arresting opposition leaders, and discarding the U.S. Constitution.

The good guys have thus far been too civil. But the simmering anger of heavily armed rural, red state Americans is close to boiling over. All the signs are there, awaiting a triggering event for this undeclared war to engulf the nation. At this point a number of possible triggering events are possible.

If David Webb is correct and those in power initiate the Great Taking, the level of violence in reaction would be unprecedented in U.S. history. Maybe that is their plan. Biden and his handlers could use this event to declare a national emergency, suspending the presidential election because they were going to lose, and instituting martial law. Their attempt to lockdown the country and use the military against civilians would surely result in massive bloodshed, as local animosities would result in assassinations, wholesale slaughter of those considered disloyal to whichever side controls the high ground in that community. Previously petty disputes would suddenly become lethal disputes.

Even if the presidential election is held in November, I don’t believe either side will accept the outcome. We know the Democrats and their Deep State co-conspirators will cheat, rig and once again try to steal the election. If they fail, they will unleash their BLM, ANTIFA terrorist arm into the streets to create chaos as an excuse to not hand over power to Trump.

With multiple states now attempting to unlawfully keep Trump off the ballot in their states, the animosity between the right and left grows ever deeper. The imprisonment of Trump or more radical attempts to steal the 2024 election will be met with violence from the here-to-for persevering right. Mixing this toxic domestic atmosphere with a deepening global chasm is a recipe for global disaster.

As we have seen throughout history, the egos of psychopaths at the helm of nations often lead them to act irrationally and/or emotionally when it comes to committing their people to war. While the U.S. has further weakened its global hegemony with its disastrous forays into Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Ukraine; Russia and China have gotten stronger and more mutually committed to creating their own new world order. The USD as the dominant global currency is reaching its endpoint, marking the end of empire. Now Israel will further deplete U.S. resources and global stature with their war to wipe out Palestine. Once the dominoes begin to fall in a game of global warfare, all bets are off regarding possible outcomes. Neil Howe’s worst-case scenario is certainly not out of the question.

“At worst, should at least one desperate country resort to WMDs, the outcome of a great-power war could prove to be even more devastating than that of a civil war. The toll could be almost unimaginable – with multiple cities destroyed, many millions killed, and many tens of millions displaced – all perhaps triggered by some ill-fated combination of the wrong leader making the wrong choice at the wrong time.” – Neil Howe – The Fourth Turning Is Here             

All scenarios for 2024 seem depressing and dark, but the odds still favor just continuing to muddle through as we have done through the first fifteen years of this Fourth Turning. I gave up trying to make specific predictions within a specific time frame years ago. It’s a fool’s errand as there are too many variables in the world to correctly predict which ones will drive the course of events within a one year time frame.

What I do know is that pessimism about the future continues to deepen, paranoia strengthens, trust declines, anger grows, and the arrogance of those running the show has reached epic levels. We’ve been subjected to three years of propaganda about how the Great Reset will fundamentally transform our world, where we will own nothing and be happy. It seems this fits perfectly with David Webb’s Great Taking theory of how we will ultimately own nothing.

There does seem to be a common thread running through everything happening in the last three years and appears to be on deck for 2024 and beyond. It all revolves around this broad Great Reset concept pushed by Schwab, Gates, Soros, and the rest of the Davos elite. The entire Covid plandemic was engineered to introduce authoritarian measures and instruct the masses to obey their masters.

The vaccine is now clearly revealed to be a depopulation weapon, killing off some suddenly; others through myocarditis, turbo cancers, and strokes; babies through miscarriages; and future generations through reduced fertility. And most still believe our overlords rolled these jabs out to save them. Trump is still crowing about his big, beautiful vaccines. He’s either a fool or a charlatan.

The climate change scam is hastening, as the war on farmers, meat, and fossil fuels is waged relentlessly by unelected bureaucrats and captured media mouthpieces. The EV scam is collapsing rapidly, as people with common sense see through it all. The Great Replacement of white people with third world savages is unabetted, with the Biden Administration ushering them across the southern border, giving them phones and money, flying them to cities across the country, and paying for them to stay at upscale hotels.

This is not incompetence, but treason. They have already used their predictive programming/brainwashing to prepare the masses for civil war and a massive cyber-attack. Your government will protect you, as long as you sacrifice your remaining liberties and rights. All that is left is the initiation of the Great Taking. The “emergency” will occur on a weekend and by Monday morning your assets will be gone.

This is their master plan, but we will have a say on whether it is ever successfully implemented. I wonder if these Davos psychopaths absconded with The Great Reset moniker from Strauss & Howe, as they used it to describe Fourth Turnings back in 1997.

“A Fourth Turning is a great reset.” – Strauss & Howe – The Fourth Turning

A Fourth Turning great reset may be a surprise to Schwab and his totalitarian acolytes inserted in governments across the world. They are in control. They are running this shitshow. They are the establishment. They are reaping the benefits. They are suppressing dissent and the truth. They are the existing social order that traditionally gets swept away during a Fourth Turning. 2024 may mark the beginning of the end for the Davos crowd and their iron grip on our spiraling society of chaos.

The future course of history could be radically altered by actions taken by supposedly influential characters in this movie, but also by courageous deeds performed by average Americans who will sacrifice themselves to ensure future generations have a chance to live in a nation devoid of a psychopathic elitist ruling class.

It seems like a long shot at this point, but giving up is not an option for those of us who still love this country. The four possible outcomes for this Crisis, laid out by Strauss & Howe in 1997, are as valid today as ever, and disturbingly close at hand. We will all have to do our part if we are to have any chance of producing a positive outcome to this Crisis. Happy New Year.

  1. This Fourth Turning could mark the end of man. It could be an omnicidal Armageddon, destroying everything, leaving nothing. If mankind ever extinguishes itself, this will probably happen when its dominant civilization triggers a Fourth Turning that ends horribly. For this Fourth Turning to put an end to all this would require an extremely unlikely blend of social disaster, human malevolence, technological perfection and bad luck.

  2. The Fourth Turning could mark the end of modernity. The Western saecular rhythm – which began in the mid-fifteenth century with the Renaissance – could come to an abrupt terminus. The seventh modern saeculum would be the last. This too could come from total war, terrible but not final. There could be a complete collapse of science, culture, politics, and society. Such a dire result would probably happen only when a dominant nation (like today’s America) lets a Fourth Turning ekpyrosis engulf the planet. But this outcome is well within the reach of foreseeable technology and malevolence.

  3. The Fourth Turning could spare modernity but mark the end of our nation. It could close the book on the political constitution, popular culture, and moral standing that the word America has come to signify. The nation has endured for three saecula; Rome lasted twelve, the Soviet Union only one. Fourth Turnings are critical thresholds for national survival. Each of the last three American Crises produced moments of extreme danger: In the Revolution, the very birth of the republic hung by a thread in more than one battle. In the Civil War, the union barely survived a four-year slaughter that in its own time was regarded as the most lethal war in history. In World War II, the nation destroyed an enemy of democracy that for a time was winning; had the enemy won, America might have itself been destroyed. In all likelihood, the next Crisis will present the nation with a threat and a consequence on a similar scale.

  4. Or the Fourth Turning could simply mark the end of the Millennial Saeculum. Mankind, modernity, and America would all persevere. Afterward, there would be a new mood, a new High, and a new saeculum. America would be reborn. But, reborn, it would not be the same.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 15:10

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Israel Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Limiting Their Power

Israel Supreme Court Strikes Down Law Limiting Their Power

The Supreme Court of Israel has struck down a controversial judicial overhaul law enacted last year by the Netanyahu administration which would limit the high court’s power.

The judicial overhaul, passed last July and resembling a constitutional amendment, sought to restrict the Supreme Court’s authority to nullify government decisions deemed “unreasonable in the extreme.” However, the court – unsurprisingly, has ruled against the law, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The ruling could revive the deep political and social strife generated by the judicial reform last year, just as the country reels from the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants on southern Israel and is embroiled in a devastating war in Gaza.

Before the Oct. 7 attack, hundreds of thousands of Israelis came out weekly to protest against Netanyahu’s push to limit the powers of the court and give more control to the elected government.

Eight justices ruled in favor of striking down the law, with seven against.

According to the report, analysts say the decision could have substantial consequences for postwar politics when Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas militants in the Gaza strip eventually comes to a close – including any inquiry into intelligence failures leading up to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, which left 1,200 people dead (and which has drawn a disproportionately deadly response).

The law, passed last summer by the Knesset, was a component of a broad package aimed at limiting the court’s power and giving lawmakers more control. According to Netanyahu, activist, liberal judges control the court – and the legislation seeks to restore the proper balance of power (so, what Democrats want to do to the US Supreme Court). Opponents have argued that the legislation would undermine the court’s power as a check on executive and legislative power, and would erode the country’s liberal democracy.

Israel’s Supreme Court has struck down a law passed in July that would have taken away the court’s powers to abrogate government decisions it deems to be ‘unreasonable in the extreme.’ Photo: POOL/via REUTERS

“This is really an unprecedented decision because it is the first time in the history of the state where the court strikes down a basic law,” said Yaniv Roznai, a law professor at Reichman University in central Israel, who likened the law to a constitutional amendment.

The court also ruled 12-3 that it has the right to strike down a basic law in “unusual and extreme cases” when it runs counter to the core principles of Israel (in their opinions, of course).

Netanyahu’s Likud party slammed the ruling, saying “it is unfortunate that the Supreme Court chose to issue a decision at the heart of Israel’s social divisions, precisely when [Israeli] soldiers” are “fighting and risking their lives.”

Justice Minister Yariv Levin, considered the judicial overhaul’s chief architect, said the court’s ruling “takes away from millions of citizens their vote and the basic right to be equal partners in decision-making.” Levin has long argued that elected leaders should have more influence over the courts and their authority.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid praised the decision as protecting Israeli democracy. “If the Israeli government again starts the fight over the Supreme Court,” Lapid said, then “they learned nothing on Oct. 7.” -WSJ

Now, Netanyahu’s options are limited – but could include passing a more nuanced version of the amendment, or passing basic legislation that would limit the court’s ability to strike down basic laws.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 14:35

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The Wuhan Cover-Up: RFK Jr. Has The Receipts

The Wuhan Cover-Up: RFK Jr. Has The Receipts

Authored by Meryl Nass via The Brownstone Institute,

When Bobby Kennedy talked about writing this book a couple of years ago, I asked him, why?

Mindful of how the truth about everything Covid (and much else) was being memory-holed, he said he wanted to create an accurate historical record of what happened, for the future. 

I thought that was a good answer.

We desperately need a clear, accurate understanding about many things that have been taking place over the past few years, or should I say decades, and we all need to be saving hard copies or pdfs on hard drives of the important bits of history that we dig up.

Bobby did the difficult part and collected those scraps, and he knitted them together into a narrative that very few people know about.

In a nutshell: there is a cabal that took the concept of biological warfare 30 years ago and ran with it – in order to create new industries, massive profits, and to control the world using fear of death by contagion.

He created a history that is also a page-turner, enabling us to understand in a much deeper way what we have just lived through. 

No kidding, he has the receipts.

Tony Fauci is only one pawn on the chessboard in this book. There are many others, and I will mention just a few. Robert Kadlec is one. Sir Dr. Jeremy Farrar is a real knight, despite or because of having played a pivotal role in the overdosing of over 2,500 patients with hydroxychloroquine in the UK/Oxford and WHO clinical trials that he oversaw and funded. 

There are the funders; the scientists who will do anything for another grant; the massive network controlled by a syndicate: the money men and women from NIH’s many institutes, especially its best-funded NIAID; the NSF, whose former director was on the board of EcoHealth Alliance; the Wellcome Trust, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation; and other charities deeply entangled with the ones I just mentioned. There are think tanks that help guide the direction the funding takes. A US DoD that contributes billions to whitewash and hide its biowarfare research. And a massive bureaucracy and media that protects all these people from exposure and punishment.

Nobody really wants to think about bioweapons. They are unpleasant in the extreme to contemplate. They should not exist. They challenge our entire concept of medicine being sacrosanct, the knowledge of medicine never to be used for harm. This is in the Hippocratic Oath. 

Unfortunately, we cannot bury our heads in the sand over this issue. Our lack of knowledge about it, our revulsion toward it, and our deep-seated fears about it have enabled the spectre of biological warfare to lead us on a long and winding road to hell.

The 2001 anthrax letters, sent at the right time to the right Senators, led to the Patriot Act, a massively profitable biodefense industry, and the rise of the Surveillance State. 

By 2005 we had the PREP Act, ostensibly to allow the DoD to continue using anthrax vaccines despite the revocation of the vaccine license in 2004. Did anyone know back then that the PREP Act would be used to greenlight contaminated gene therapy injections for billions around the world? Why didn’t the scientists designing these injections predict some, if not all of their harms, having spent hundreds of millions to study beta coronaviruses over 2 decades? Or did they?

Without the PREP Act removing liability from the Covid vaccine manufacturers, the injectors, and the government planners who both designed the program, and gave away billions of taxpayer dollars in bonuses for each shot administered, such untested, unlicensed, and deadly shots would never have been administered.

These Patriot and PREP Acts were passed because Congress and the American public were played like a fiddle, induced to be terrified. Congress attempted to immunize itself from criticism by throwing money at the problem, much of it going to Fauci, while through ignorance Congress made the problem of biological warfare far worse. 

Many Americans took the Covid experimental shots willingly, out of terror and ignorance. The half that held back were mostly beaten, shamed, or cajoled into compliance through the most incredible, federally-funded fifth general mind control assault the world has ever experienced.

We have just lived through 3 bioweapon events, at least: the original Wuhan coronavirus, the Omicron variant, and monkeypox, all of which assuredly came from labs.

It is obvious that many more nasty viruses and other microorganisms are still sitting in labs, many sponsored by military and intelligence agencies using our tax dollars. It is absolutely critical that the public act a lot smarter than it did last time, if there is a next time. It is critical to know what it is we are dealing with. And critical to understand that there ARE ways we can save ourselves that lie outside the government’s prescribed Overton window. 

The Wuhan Cover-Up gives you the facts, the history, and the understanding you need to grasp what is actually happening, right now. If enough of us read it, we will gain the knowledge and strength in numbers to stop and defund the biowarfare industry, revoke these terrible laws, and lay down our deep, unconscious fears regarding contagion.

[Full disclosure: I helped edit this book. I was the first person in the world to study an epidemic (epizootic) and prove it was due to biological warfare.] 

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 14:00

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Israel To Withdraw Some Troops From Gaza, But Signals Plan To Fight Through All 2024

Israel To Withdraw Some Troops From Gaza, But Signals Plan To Fight Through All 2024

Israel’s military announced Monday it is about to initiate its first major drawdown of troops from Gaza since the ground offensive began. This is to involved pulling back multiple thousands of reserve soldiers to begin with, at least temporarily.

“This move is expected to significantly alleviate economic burdens and enable them to gather strength for upcoming activities in the next year,” the Israel Defense Forces statement said. Reservists from two brigades are expected home this week, while three more brigades will return to Israel for training.

This appears to be in response to recent White House pressure to dial down the intensity of the fighting amid the soaring Palestinian civilian death toll, but also as the Netanyahu governing coalition faces growing anger domestically over how it has handled the war and hostage situation especially. An estimated over 350,000 IDF troops had been mobilized for the war effort.

Via Reuters

Additionally, as The New York Times explains, “The call-up added to the economic burden faced by hundreds of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes on Israel’s borders following the attacks.” This as “The Israeli economy is expected to shrink by 2 percent this quarter, the Taub Center for Social Policy Studies, a nonpartisan think tank in Israel, said in late December, as many left the labor force for reserve duty or abandoned businesses in their hometowns.”

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari described that the IDF is “adjusting” its “fighting methods to each area in Gaza” to prepare for a long war. “Tonight, 2024 will begin. The goals of the war require lengthy fighting, and we are prepared accordingly,” he said Sunday.

A White House official has been quoted in the NY Times as saying that recent war planning discussions between Israeli and US top officials has focused on a strategy that seeks to “maximize focus on high-value Hamas targets.”

Again, between the lines here is likely the strain the Biden administration is feeling from other countries and allies over the 21,000+ Palestinian deaths, among them possibly over 8,000 children, according to Gaza Health Ministry statements. Over 50,000 people have been wounded.

And as the conflict continues grinding, disease and hunger will persist and become bigger factors in terms of more casualties and the dire humanitarian crisis unfolding.

On the military front, however, Hamas appears fully intact, still having lost likely several thousand, but is waging a guerrilla campaign using small teams which effectively utilize the tunnel system. Very likely, it’s part of Hamas’ war aims to lead Israel into a “trap” and endless quagmire in Gaza, which appears to already be happening.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 13:25

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Bedlam In Berlin As Immigrants Bring In The New Year

Bedlam In Berlin As Immigrants Bring In The New Year

Authored by Paul Joseph Watson via Modernity.news,

Migrants in Berlin performed their annual act of New Year’s Eve cultural enrichment by setting fire to cars and attacking police and firefighters with projectiles, leading to 15 officers being injured.

Major cities in Germany routinely welcome in the new year by witnessing the assembly of thousands of migrants, most of them from the Middle East and North Africa, who cause absolute bedlam on the streets.

This year was no different.

Over 300 people were detained in the German capital after around 15 officers were injured after being hit with fireworks and other projectiles.

One person described the city as looking like a “war zone,” with sexual assaults also reportedly taking place.

“A police spokesperson said officers, firefighters and others were repeatedly shot at with pyrotechnics throughout the city,” reports DW.

“One of the incidents occurred near Alexanderplatz, where around 500 people threw fireworks at each other. Police then dispersed the group at the landmark Neptune Fountain and checked for fireworks, after which a group of 200 people fired pyrotechnics at police, leading to several arrests.”

During the previous New Year’s Eve in 2022, Berlin was also hit by riots and attacks on police and first responders.

One video showed an Albanian child migrant wearing a balaclava firing a pistol into the air in Berlin.

The crowds were very “diverse” to say the least.

It was utter bedlam by the looks of it.

Another video from Bild showed the police response. 4500 were on patrol, but it did little to deter the enrichers.

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 12:50

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Putin Vows Russia “Will Never Back Down” In Year-End Speech

Putin Vows Russia “Will Never Back Down” In Year-End Speech

Russian President Vladimir Putin in his year-end speech, an annual tradition, was widely reported to be somewhat muted in intensity this year (given also it was much shorter than usual, at under four minutes), coming the day after the Russian city of Belgorod suffered its single worst day of attack from Ukraine forces since the war began. During the Saturday cross-border drone and missile attack 24 Russians were killed and 108 were injured.

Putin in the address vowed that Russia would “never back down” and that national unity will be maintained at all costs. “We have repeatedly proven that we can solve the most difficult problems and will never back down because there is no force that can separate us,” he said according to AFP.

“What united us and unites us is the fate of the Fatherland, a deep understanding of the highest significance of the historical stage through which Russia is passing,” Putin said while also hailing Russian citizens’ “solidarity, mercy and fortitude.”

Without naming Ukraine directly, he further praised Russian troops on the front lines of fighting: “We are proud of you, you are heroes, you feel the support of the entire people,” Putin said.

Belgorod was also not mentioned by name, and while many New Year festivities continued as usual across a number of major cities, including in Moscow, many areas canceled their customary fireworks displays this year. The big one held at the Red Square was also canceled, but there were other events in other parts of the capital city.

However, Putin addressed the border problem in great detail during separate statements offered Monday. He said Russia will “intensify” strikes against Ukraine in wake of the deadly strikes on Belgorod city.

“We’re going to intensify the strikes. No crime against civilians will rest unpunished, that’s for certain,” Putin said while touring a military hospital.

“Of course, we can strike public squares and Kyiv, and any other city. I understand. I’m burning with rage myself. But do we need to attack civilians? No, we hit military targets, and we’ll continue to do that,” he added.

He labeled the early Saturday strikes on Belgorod a “terrorist attack” and charged that Ukraine’s military had been intentionally targeting “right in the city center, where people were walking, before New Year’s Eve.” Videos showed that at least one Christmas marketplace had been shelled, where many children had been present. At least two children were reportedly among the deceased.

The day prior to that on Friday, Russia had unleashed a massive missile and drone attack on cities across Ukraine, which killed at least 39. The Kremlin said the operation struck military targets, while Kiev said malls, apartment buildings, and schools were hit.

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 12:15

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Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs Of Decay

Rome Was Eternal, Until It Wasn’t: Imperial Analogs Of Decay

Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

The tricky part is distinguishing the critical dependencies – those resources the empire literally cannot do without – from longer-term sources of decay and decline.

In response to my recent post What If There Are No Analogs for 2024?, an astute reader nominated the Roman Empire as a fitting analog. Longtime readers know I’ve often discussed the complex history of Western Rome’s decay and collapse, for example, Why Rome Collapsed: Lessons For the Present (August 11, 2023).

Dozens of other posts on the topic stretch back to 2009: Complacency and The Will To Radical Reform (February 12, 2009)

What conclusions can we draw from recent research and the voluminous work done by previous generations of historians? Our first conclusion is simply to state the obvious: it’s complicated. There was no one cause of Western Rome’s decay and collapse. A multitude of factors generated feedback loops and responses over hundreds of years, some more successful than others.

Indeed, we cannot help but be struck by how many times impending collapse was staved off by brilliant leadership and policy adjustments.

Our second conclusion is to distinguish between the erosive forces of decay and critical vulnerabilities that can trigger collapse. Many authors have pointed to moral decay and fiscal over-reach as sources of Rome’s eventual fall, but there were far more pressing dependencies that created potentially fatal vulnerabilities.

In the case of Western Rome, these included:

1. The depletion of the silver mines in Spain (and the eventual loss of Spain to the Visigoths). Once you run out of hard currency, your free-spending days are over. This dependence on large quantities of hard currency to fund your armed forces is a trigger for collapse.

2. Dependence on revenues from foreign trade with India, Africa and central Asia. Western Rome’s income was highly asymmetric, depending heavily on import duties from foreign trade funneling through the Red Sea and the Roman ports in Egypt. Many of Rome’s far-flung provinces were net drains on the imperial coffers; rather than generate income, they were costs

3. Military defeats. In his recent book The fall of the Roman Empire: a new history of Rome and the Barbarians, historian Peter Heather persuasively argues that the Roman Empire was neither on the brink of social or moral collapse, nor fatally weakened by resource depletion. What brought it to an end were the Barbarian invasions from what is now Germany and Eastern Europe, mass tribal movements triggered by the Huns pushing into Europe from the east.

Heather argues Rome’s great success eventually led to its undoing, as the small, loosely organized Barbarian tribes learned from the Romans how to form larger, more cohesive and thus more powerful social and military organizations.

We must also note Rome’s many defeats at the hands of Attila the Hun. It is not coincidence that Attila died in 453 AD and the Western Roman Empire expired in 476 AD, unable to recover from the losses incurred by the Huns, Visigoths and Vandals.

4. Dependence on wheat from North Africa. Rome depended entirely on the bread-basket of North Africa to feed its populace. Once the Vandals swept through Spain and conquered North Africa, cutting off Rome’s supply of wheat, the empire was doomed.

5. Incompetent leadership. Western Rome–and every empire, if we look closely–was critically dependent on competent leadership when faced with existential threats to the Empire’s cohesion. We can cite Marcus Aurelius and Constantine as two examples of many.

When the leadership was weak and/or incompetent, defeats and failures piled up and things fell apart.

We must also note the role of the great tidal forces of demographics, disease, climate change, regional rivalries and cultural sclerosis in weakening the empire’s ability to respond to polycrisis. The rise of the Barbarian tribes led to Rome’s successful melding of diplomacy, bribes and military victories, a strategy mirrored by the Han Dynasty in China at the same time.

(I’ll have more to say on the Han Dynasty this weekend for my subscribers.)

Rome successfully Romanized the Barbarian tribes, but made the critical cultural error of dismissing this new cohort of productive Roman citizenry as second-class. Romans who happened to have been born in Gaul (France) or Germany eventually chafed at these institutional biases, and this contributed to their eventual replacement of Italian leadership and its centralized control.

Indeed, the Roman Empire did not disappear in 476 AD as much as break apart into Barbarian-led pieces of what they reckoned was a continuation of the Imperial era. This complex history is ably addressed in the remarkable volume The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages 400-1000.

In some ways, the Catholic Church replaced the political-military empire as a centralized authority in western Europe. In the Eastern Roman Empire (the Byzantine Empire) that continued on for another thousand years, the Orthodox Church played a central role in its coherence.

The Antonine Plague of 165 to 180 AD weakened the empire. Generally ascribed to smallpox, the plague killed millions and decimated the Roman military. Rome recovered, but arguably never quite to the same level.

Empires tend to do just fine until climate change disrupts their agriculture and water supplies. Climate change–cooling weather across the prime agricultural regions–weakened both Rome and the Han Dynasty. Historian Kyle Harper describes the gradual and eventually consequential changes in his book The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire.

The centuries-long rivalry with the Persian Empire also drained the Empire of resources, even as new challenges from Barbarians and Huns demanded increasing military expenditures.

We would be remiss not to include the internal decay wrought by clinging to the alluring fantasy that past success guarantees future success, without any nasty sacrifices by the ruling elites. Historian Michael Grant addressed this in his book The Fall of the Roman Empire:

“Enmeshed in classical history, all he can do is lapse into vague sermonizing, telling the Romans, as many a moralist had told them throughout the centuries, that they must undergo an ethical regeneration and return to the simplicities and self-sacrifices of their ancestors.

There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. His whole attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea.

This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.

This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all.”

Roman elites in Gaul were still writing letters to one another complaining of the breakdown of everyday life right up until the system collapsed. Their letters complaining of the collapse were never delivered, it seems. Their estates continued to exist for a time at the behest of their new Barbarian overlords, but power shifted away from old elites to new elites.

Lastly, let us note how cycles tend to impact empires. Systems arise due to their superior performance, reach their limits and then become obsolete as new selective pressures are met with half-measures and doing more of what’s failed.

There are many Imperial Analogs of Decay. The tricky part is distinguishing the critical dependencies–those resources the empire literally cannot do without–from longer-term sources of decay and decline.

Here is a short list of recommended reading on these topics.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (abridged)

How Rome Fell: Death of a Superpower

War and Peace and War: The Rise and Fall of Empires

The Great Wave: Price Revolutions and the Rhythm of History

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization

The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century CE to the Third

The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: Rome’s Dealings with the Ancient Kingdoms of India, Africa and Arabia

End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration

The Collapse of Complex Societies

Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change

*  *  *

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Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 11:40

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Ohio Governor Who Vetoed Bill Blocking Sex-Changes For Children Took $40K From Pro-Trans Hospitals

Ohio Governor Who Vetoed Bill Blocking Sex-Changes For Children Took $40K From Pro-Trans Hospitals

What a shock…

Ohio’s ‘Republican’ governor, Mike DeWine, took over $40,000 from hospitals which prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children, before vetoing a bill that would outlaw puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for children.

DeWine stunned state Republicans on Friday, vetoing House Bill 68, which would also prevent transgender athletes (dudes) from competing in girls’ sports.

According to The Federalist Papers;

A review of donations from 2018 to 2023 reveals that the governor received a total of $40,300 from the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association (OCHA), Cincinnati Children’s, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and ProMedica Children’s Hospital.

The OCHA donated $10,000 to the Mike DeWine and Jon Husted Transition Fund on Dec. 28, 2018, and another $10,000 on Dec. 7, 2022, according to the report. This transition fund allows candidates to spend donations for “transition activities and inaugural celebrations,” as outlined in Ohio’s campaign finance handbook.

Affiliates of OCHA, such as Cincinnati Children’s and ProMedica, also made significant contributions. Cincinnati Children’s donated $300 on Dec. 15, 2022, and ProMedica, another affiliate of OCHA, donated $10,000 in December 2018. Nationwide Children’s, a third affiliate with OCHA, donated $5,000 in December 2018 and another $5,000 in January 2023 to the transition fund.

The Cincinnati Children’s and Nationwide Children’s hospitals, for example, offer gender-affirming care, including puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and have no stated age limit guidelines for patients.

Nick Lashutka, president of the OCHA, slammed House Bill 68 during testimony, arguing that it “strips away” the rights of parents and their transgender children.

As The Federalist Papers’ Elizabeth Allen notes, it’s hard not to link the donations to DeWine’s 11th hour veto of HB68.

Politics at its finest…

Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/01/2024 – 11:05

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