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De Omnibus Dubitandum - Lux Veritas

Monday, March 3, 2025

Hollywood Hates Jews

“I’ve had someone say to me, ‘Let’s not forget what Hollywood is made up of. Be careful,’”  

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

 Guy Pearce told a Jewish writer at Vanity Fair in response to a question about his attacks on Israel. 

In an industry where talent has been cancelled for the most minor perceived offenses against political correctness, Pearce’s remarks went unnoticed and he was rewarded with an Oscar nomination for playing an antisemite on screen in The Brutalist and in real life.

Contrast that with the backlash against ‘Karla Sofia’ Gascon, starring in Emilia Perez, the Oscar frontrunner, over old Spanish-language tweets speaking out against Black Lives Matter and Islam, which he has already apologized for several times.

Pearce’s friend was wrong. He had nothing to worry about from Hollywood. Jews however have plenty to worry about from Hollywood as the Oscar nominations once again show.

The Brutalist, a fictional exploitation of an equally fictional Holocaust survivor oppressed by American capitalism and racism, has received ten nominations. Brady Corbet, who wrote, directed and produced the movie, is non-Jewish and has promoted an anti-Israel documentary.

Like last year’s nominee, Zone of Interest, the movie exploits the Holocaust to score points against America. Most current Holocaust movies see Jews as vehicles for contemporary agitprop by non-Jewish liberals like Corbet or Jews like Zone’s director Jonathan Glazer or A Royal Pain’s star Jesse Eisenberg who symbolically shed their Jewishness as part of their promotional campaigns.

“We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness,” Glazer had declared at the Oscars last year. Jesse Eisenberg, whose movie’s depiction of the Polish role in the killing of Jews borders on Holocaust denial, told Bill Maher that he had obtained dual citizenship in Poland.

“A lot of American Jews of Polish descent, you know, have this kind of like negative attitude towards Poland that Oh, it’s anti-Semitic,” Eisenberg complained.

The symbolic shedding of Jewishness, the criticism of Jews and the embrace of antisemites has become an almost mandatory ritual in an industry formerly created by Jews, but where it is trendy to despise Jews and career suicide to stand up for them.

“From ‘A Real Pain’ to ‘The Brutalist’ and beyond, Jewish movies were everywhere in 2024. What does it mean?” the JTA asked. What it means is that these movies aren’t Jewish. They are the work of people who hate Jews and Jews who hate themselves.

Two years after life fundamentally changed for Israeli and American Jews, the industry continues to roll out highly fictionalized prestige Holocaust movies and neurotic shlock about Jewish hipster losers.

Only one movie, September 5, the story of the media coverage of the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes, dealt with anything remotely relevant to Jews after Oct 7.

And it was limited to one Oscar nomination.

The Academy Awards did not choose to recognize any of the documentaries about Oct 7, but did nominate, No Other Land, an anti-Israel agitprop doc also promoted by Brutalist’s Corbet.

It would be tempting to pretend that this is a recent problem, but it’s an old Hollywood tale.

The Pawnbroker, a 1964 Oscar nominated movie about a Holocaust survivor, featured a grotesque stereotype played by Rod Steiger whose experiences in the Holocaust have made him selfish and miserable, exploiting minorities for money, until he is finally redeemed by unselfishly coming to care for them.

Call it a liberal Christmas Carol parable for Holocaust survivors who needed to get over it. The New York Times compared the movie’s Jewish Holocaust survivor protagonist, to “the somber shadow of the legendary, ageless Wandering Jew… who taunted Jesus on the way to Calvary and was condemned to roam the world a lonely outcast until Jesus should come again.”

The Pawnbroker and Nazi propaganda shared the conviction that Jews were horrible people, where they differed was the idea that liberalism could redeem the Jews from damnation.

Understand that and you also understand Glazer, Eisenberg, Hollywood and the pathologies of Jewish liberalism which came to welcome any taunt and act of contempt from the Left.

Jews created Hollywood and were disproportionately responsible for its golden age. They could bring legends to life, invent gangsters, swoosh heroes across the screen, and even make iconic Christmas movies, but the one thing they could not do was talk about themselves.

After the Holocaust, two movies about antisemitism fought it out at the 20th Academy Awards.

Gentleman’s Agreement made by Darryl Zanuck, who was not Jewish, after being barred from joining the Los Angeles Country Club because members assumed he was Jewish. Gregory Peck serves as Zanuck’s much more handsome stand-in as a non-Jewish man whose life falls apart when people start believing that he is Jewish. The movie was sympathetically directed by Elia Kazan, another non-Jewish Hollywood figure who was also often mistaken for Jewish.

Jewish studio heads, including Sam Goldwyn, had pleaded with Zanuck not to make the movie to avoid causing problems for Jews. Instead it won a bunch of awards and everyone agreed that now that it was done with, Hollywood never needed to talk about Jews or antisemitism again.

Up against it was Crossfire, a much more baffling movie about an antisemitic murder, whose plot only makes sense if you understand that it was originally about gay men in the closet.

You can see why the saving grace of Hollywood was that it didn’t make movies about Jews.

Holocaust movies safely boxed off the Jews as hollow figures, convenient victims on stage to provide commentary about some larger social or political issue, a handful of Zionist movies that quickly came and went in the sixties, and then a parade of neurotic postmodern creeps.

Hollywood’s Jews don’t like being Jewish. And so they don’t like Jews very much. Their idea of a Jewish character is a neurotic, because they’re neurotic, and grotesque because they see Jews as grotesque. The handful of Jewish talent who defy the Hollywood establishment and stand up for Jewish issues, Ben Hecht during the Holocaust, and Debra Messing, Julianna Margulies and Selma Blair after Oct 7, damage their careers while the ‘Guy Pearces’ flourish.

Jews showing up in Hollywood movies is rarely something to celebrate. And the Oscars will invariably dole out some awards to The Brutalist or A Royal Pain whose awardees will use their moment in the spotlight to denounce the Jewish State. The Hollywood Jews who couldn’t bother to be heard after Oct 7, or to even stand up for the handful of their colleagues, Jewish (and non-Jewish like Patricia Heaton), will applaud and help fund the next horrible ‘Jewish’ movie.

Hollywood would rather that Jews not exist. Jews should return the favor.

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donationThank you for reading. 
 

The Wake up Call for Zelenskyy and Company

By Rich Kozlovich

I'm really tired of all this stuff about Zelenskyy and the world's take on his White House visit.  It really comes down to this, it really was a set up, but not by Trump.   

 And I really like this one, where Molly Hemingway cauterizes Susan Rice's mouth. 

That kind rhetoric, warped reasoning, and deliberate obfuscation of fact by Rice worked in days gone by, but not with real journalists or the alternative media.  They have excellent memories and great rhetorical skills that devastate professional liars like Rice.  Make sure to follow that link. 

Somehow the Pravda media decided they were going to decide American foreign policy, as is suggested by this video.

They just don't get it, they don't count any longer, and no one cares what they think, but apparently Zelenskyy has failed to recognize that, especially when dealing with Donald Trump.
 
Then there's Europe.  After leaving empty handed he went to Europe for a love fest, what Victoria White Berger called Kabuki theater, and King Charles, who talks to and shakes hands with plants, and who assured us the world was going to be incinerated over global warming so we must abandon modern life, with predictions that having long passed and failed, but he assures Zelenskyy, along with the Prime Minister, who won't be in office much longer, will stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes. 
 
It's being claimed after Zelenskyy's failure with Trump Europe is going to double down on Ukraine support, and they're even discussing boots on the ground.  Really? Good luck with that. 
It sounds impressive but I think that's just a lot of CO2, as Europe's economic situation doesn't lend itself to the kind of support Ukraine needs, and I'm betting any effort to send troops to Ukraine will meet with some serious kickback, which the governments of the UK, France, or Germany can ill afford.   The fact is both the UK, and France know that's all horsepucky because without Trump, there is no leadership, nor is there an anchor for their foreign policies.  As Victoria White Berger called it:  Kabuki theater!

One EU leader insists the Free World needs a new leader now.  Okay, America's good with that.  Exactly and who will that be?  And what Free World is she talking about?   It's certainly not in Europe where they've censored the media, jailed people for expressing their views on line, and it's been said any Americans who go to Europe could be subject to arrest for any online expressions these governments may not like.  They're puttin people in prison for silently praying and for exposing the horrors of the rapes, murders, and overall crime caused by the Muslim invasion.   So, as  Vice President JD Vance Asks: "What Has Europe Become, what are you defending yourselves for?’ 

At Munich he really hit some nerves showing their lack of democratic principles is the rule, not the exception.  Freedom of elections, freedom of speech, are out.  Antisemitism, tyranny, and social intimidation is in.   Europe and America no longer share the same values, so, exactly what free world is she talking about?  It's certainly not Europe, and like the Pravda media, Europe still doesn't get it.  Neither of them count any longer.   

The freaks running the Biden administration are out, the post WWII/Cold war strategy is over, NATO needs to stand on it's own hind legs now because America is not going to hold their hands any longer, and Trump understands the real center of concern is not Europe, it's the Middle East.  

Russia, Europe, and China are losers economically, militarily, and socially.  For the time being they just refuse to accept that, but that's soon going to change. Russia was considered the number two military nation in the world, and couldn't beat the number 22 military nation in three years.  Europe is no longer afraid of Russia, even with it's nukes, which he won't use.  If Russia occupies all of Ukraine they still lose as they can't afford to rebuild it, and the Russian Bear has been exposed as a "Teddy Bear", filled with incompetent leadership at all levels.
 
Ukraine knew since 2014 this war was on Russia's agenda, but it didn't happen until Biden became President.  They have all this mineral wealth that could have made Ukraine a hugely wealthy country allowing them to purchase the most advanced military in the world, or even produced it themselves, which would have prevented this war, but they didn't because they were too busy lining their pockets.  And that's what Zelenskyy, and the EU want...not peace.... unending war, unbridled corruption.  
 
Europe is doomed, and at some point is going to break up into their natural social paradigm, a quilt work continent of smaller countries.  China may have the same problem, but even if it doesn't, Xi made a speech recently that is a 180 degree turn around on China's economic system, in direct opposition to his previously ultra Maoist communist economic positions of the past.  If they really go capitalist, he's out, since in order to stabilize their economy they will have to abandon all these military expenditures, and the military in China is almost semi-autonomous, so he fears them. 
 
With Trump they just have no idea who they're dealing with, but they're scared of him, including the Democrats and RINO's.  I believe the next four years are going to be the most geopolitically and domestically profound in my lifetime.  The world is in a state of restructuring, and desperately is looking for an anchor for their policies, and most of their leaders are clueless.  That leaves Donald Trump, and there's no way he can, or even wants to save Europe, since history has played that card, and it's not a "trump" card, pun intended. Europe threw that card away.
 
Trump exemplifies leadership.   Zelenskyy tried to pull a stunt to get more than was agreed to beforehand in an attempt to embarrass Trump into submission in front of the nation, and that was a mistake.   We'll come back to that.
 
Zelenskyy, his supporters, along with Trump's adversaries, got a master class in leadership.  Even the street savvy people in the 'hood, were impressed, and believe it or not, down the road that "down in the streets" impression may be more important than we would normally think, as Clarice Feldman called Zelenskyy a "posturing midget egged on by arrogant armchair warriors."
 
In conclusion, there are three things to be noted, and two of them are questions that are being asked that need to be answered.
If either of those questions are answered in the affirmative, then Zelenskyy was party to one more corrupt scam, and he's toast, and Europe is putting one more nail in their coffin. 

Updates:  
  • Zelenskyy and the Future of NATO  - Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s childish histrionics and ultimatums in the Oval Office directed at President Trump’s efforts to bring an end to the most devastating war on the continent of Europe since World War II are reflective of the European delusional mindset of self-serving expectations and perceived American obligations stemming from a one-sided seventy-five-year alliance -- the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A treaty that evolved into the United States effectively taking upon itself the unappreciated role of military protector of nearly half of the European continent...........
  • Devious, deluded, or desperate: Zelensky with Trump - Everyone and his brother have an opinion of what actually took place in the Oval Office in the meeting with Trump, Zelensky, and Vance. Some of the talking points are valid, but as the stakes for Ukraine couldn’t be higher, and President Trump is far more experienced with negotiation techniques than Zelensky, emotions were high, leading to emotional outbursts..........
  •  Canada, Europe diss, threaten U.S. - I have always been fond of Canada—and Canadians. I have always had respect for the beauty and history of Europe. But sadly, I have started losing that affinity. Canada and the E.U. have recently been treating the United States like a baby treats a diaper. This is particularly reprehensible in light of 250 years or so of history and shared destinies. Canada and the E.U., we are trying to build a far more transparent government in the U.S., so listen up, the following is a no-sh*tter as those in our military are wont to say: You could not have beat the Germans in World War I or World War II without the help of the United States. No less than Winston Churchill knew that to be true...............
  • Another lesson in Great Power Politics -After the recent Oval Office flare up, it is obvious that Zelensky still believes that his allies in entertainment/media, the Democrat party, and the EU will come to his rescue and derail the Trump train. Maybe it was all those fawning celebrities making their (paid) pilgrimages to Kyiv that inflated Zelensky’s perception of himself. (Recall that many of those appearances were sponsored by our tax dollars, courtesy of USAID.) Maybe it was a Brussels politician whispering in his ear that he does not need to pay attention to Trump because the EU has his back. Whatever is propelling his outward demeanor and rhetoric has led him astray this time around with Trump. Babbling on about Trump being under the influence of the Kremlin is about the worst thing that Zelensky could have said. He is forgetting that this is the president who has weathered partisan accusations of Russian collusion since the start of his first term and is in no mood to listen to such nonsense. .............

The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time -- Part XXXIII

@ Manhattan Contrarian
 
The Greatest Scientific Fraud Of All Time is the fraud by which our government alters existing U.S. and worldwide temperature data in order to enhance an apparent warming trend, and thereby support a narrative of supposedly dangerous global warming. This is Part XXXIII of this series, which goes back to July 2013. A composite link to all 32 prior posts in this series can be found here.

As has been widely reported and discussed, the arrival of the new Trump 2.0 presidency is bringing disruption and change to many areas of a previously complacent federal bureaucracy. One of the areas where disruption appears to be hitting is an agency called NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which is a part of the Department of Commerce. NOAA is the place where the world and U.S. temperature data are collected and compiled — and altered.

Will the new disruption shed some light upon the systematic alterations of our temperature data? It’s too early to tell, but there is reason to hope.

First up, CBS News reported just yesterday that massive layoffs have hit NOAA. The headline is “Hundreds of NOAA employees laid off in latest cuts to federal workforce.”

Hundreds of staffers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, were laid off Thursday. . . . A congressional source told CBS News the layoffs affected 880 NOAA employees. . . . Prior to Thursday's cuts, NOAA had about 12,000 staffers across the world.

880 staffers out of 12,000 would be about a 7+% cut. But then there’s this:

Former NOAA officials told CBS News earlier this month that current employees had been told to expect budget cuts of 30% and a 50% reduction in staff.

The CBS piece does not give any indication of whether the cuts are reaching the people who compile — and alter — the temperature data.

But is there reason to think that there may be some concern that the temperature alterations may come under scrutiny? Well, there is this February 25 piece from ABC News, headline “Yes, NOAA adjusts its historical weather data: Here’s why.” Suddenly, it is time to admit that the alterations are occurring:

When digging into conspiracies claiming that the federal agency “manipulates” its historical weather data, ABC News chief meteorologist and chief climate correspondent Ginger Zee was able to confirm that it was true — but that the routine, public adjustments to records happen for good reason. . . . NCEI [a branch of NOAA] adjusts weather data to account for factors like instrument changes, station relocation and urbanization, and it does so through peer-reviewed studies that are published through its federal website.

It’s nice to see ABC News catching up to the Manhattan Contrarian in noticing that these adjustments are occurring. But I’m seriously put off by their calling claims that NOAA has been altering data “conspiracies.” Have they checked to see if the adjustments are quantitatively appropriate versus completely made up? Beyond noting that the changes are “peer reviewed,” the answer is no.

Others have checked to see if the adjustments are quantitatively justified, and the results so far have been damning for NOAA. Back in Part XXIX of this series (February 18, 2022), I noted the fundamental problem of NOAA’s adjustments:

NOAA/NCEI make no secret of the fact that they are altering the raw data, and they give what appear to be legitimate reasons for the adjustments (e.g., a given temperature station may have moved to a warmer location); but at the same time they make the details of the alterations completely opaque such that no outsider can directly assess the appropriateness of each adjustment.

My February 2022 piece reported on an article then just out from a group of 17 authors let by Peter O’Neill, Ronan Connolly, Michael Connolly and Willie Soon, published in the journal Atmosphere. My description of this article:

[The authors attempt] to reverse-engineer the adjustments to figure out what NCEI is doing, and particularly whether NCEI is validly identifying station discontinuities, such as moves or instrumentation changes, that might give rise to valid adjustments. The bottom line is that the adjusters make no attempt to tie adjustments to any specific event that would give rise to legitimate homogenization, and that many of the alterations appear ridiculous and completely beyond justification. . . .

The O’Neill, et al., article looks specifically into numerous individual stations, to see if the NOAA/NCEI adjustments correlate to legitimate things like station move, instrumentation changes, or the like. The result:

The more the authors looked, the less they found any relationship at all between valid station discontinuities and temperature adjustments inserted by NCEI’s computer algorithm.

My February 2022 piece goes specifically into several specific sites, where data exist as to specific station moves, but NOAA adjustments do not correspond to those moves. Here is the conclusions from the O’Neill, et al., paper itself:

[T]he results raise serious concerns over the reliability of the homogenized versions of the GHCN dataset, and more broadly over the PHA techniques, which do not appear to have been appreciated until now. As shown in Table 1, the homogenized GHCN datasets have been widely used by the community for studying global temperature trends.

If the NOAA data adjustments cannot be tied to specific metadata like station moves or instrumentation changes, then they are not really scientific “data,” but rather just opinions of people who are interested in promoting the global warming narrative. They are completely unusable for purposes of making public policy.

I’ll await further revelations as the prior NOAA personnel get thrown out.

Taxation Changes Behavior…and History

March 1, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Folks on the left claim high tax burdens won’t hurt growth. Some even assert higher taxes are good for growth.

Today, we’re going to give them a history lesson, starting with this video.

There are two lessons from the Tax Foundation’s video about what happened in the late 1700s in France.

 

The French Revolution isn’t the only example from history of how taxes change behavior.

Consider the American revolution, which was based in part on the principle of no taxation without representation. Here are some excerpts from an article by Jared Walczak.


American independence…was born of a tax revolt. That revolt had little to do with tax rates. Oppressive levels of taxation have fomented other rebellions, but not this one. The truth is, colonists paid very little in taxes, directly or (more frequently) indirectly. …for champions of American independence, the problem was not that taxes were high, but that they were arbitrary, occasionally capricious and punitive, and most importantly, adopted without the consent of the governed. …taxes hold pride of place in the causes of the American Revolution.

Colonists protested the Stamp Act and the Navigation Acts; they rechristened one set of parliamentary enactments the Intolerable Acts, which left little room for interpretation; they boycotted dutiable goods; led by troublemakers like Samuel Adams and John Hancock, they turned to smuggling to evade tariffs; and, of course, they brewed their tea in Boston Harbor. Clearly, the colonists did not care for British taxes. But mainly, they did not care for the fact that they weren’t consulted about them.

Tax policy has caused upheaval and change in many nations. You can read some of that history here, here, and here.  

Taxation and taxpayer unrest also can have a profound impact on local government. Here are some passages from a fascinating 2011 column in the Wall Street Journal by David Beito.

 

In its initial phase, the Depression also spawned a powerful movement for smaller government that included tax revolts. …Local property tax delinquency rose to a record (still standing) of 26.3% in 1933, from 10.1% in 1930. In many places, the tax system broke down and payment became almost voluntary.

Throughout the country, Americans formed “taxpayers’ leagues” to demand spending cuts, arguing that since they had tightened their belts, politicians should too. …Because of tax league pressure, 19 states and numerous localities brought property levies under control by capping mill rates or limiting overall property taxes to a percentage of assessed value. …

the Association of Real Estate Taxpayers in Chicago…led one of the largest tax strikes in American history. …The strikers so angered Mayor Anton Cermak in 1932 that he threatened to cut off their city water. During a special visit to Washington, D.C., Cermak implored Congress to send “money now or militia later.”

The best outcome of the Chicago revolt, as Beito noted in a 2024 article, is that the city was forced to reduce its budget by a third.

Sadly, Chicago has since dramatically deteriorated and is now one of America’s worst-governed cities (though New York City is trying to catch up).

Taxes can even change a city’s appearance.

The Tax Foundation has many examples, but let’s consider the infamous window tax in England. Here are some excerpts from an article from the London-based Adam Smith Institute.


The Window Tax was initially levied in two parts. People had to pay 2 shillings annually (a tenth of a pound) per house if they had fewer than 10 windows, 6 shillings if they had between 10 and 20, and 10 shillings for those with more than 20 windows. In current values, 2 shillings then would be worth about £13.50 now. Of course, taxes change behaviour, and dynamic models must take this into account. The tax did not raise the hoped-for sums because many people responded to it by bricking up some of their windows in order to avoid it.

Visitors to Britain stare in fascination at some of our old houses, noting that where there was clearly once a window, there are now bricks or plaster. Sometimes this can be seen in whole rows of terraced houses. New houses were built with fewer windows to avoid the tax. …

The Window Tax was unpopular, because it was seen by some as a tax on “light and air.” The tax was increased many times, especially during the wars with France, but it was halved by the reforming administration of 1823, and ended altogether in 1851 after popular agitation.

I’ve seen bricked-up windows on various trips to London, but never thought to take a photo. But a quick web search will turn up hundreds of examples. Here’s one of them.

Heck, taxes don’t just change how buildings look.  They can change how people look. Here are some passages from a 2017 article in Smithsonian.


…in 1698, Tsar Peter I—known as Peter the Great—established a beard tax. …Peter I embarked on an ambitious project of modernizing Russia so that it could compete with the European superpowers. …Among his reforms, he revised Russia’s calendar, introduced changes to the way Russian was written, completely changed the military and tried to get Russians to go beardless, like the “modern” Western Europeans… As the State Department describes, “for nobility and merchants, the tax could be as high as 100 rubles annually; for commoners it was much lower — as little as 1 kopek. Those paying the tax were given a token, silver for nobility and copper for commoners.”

Since there’s no data on the percentage of men with beards before and after the tax, it’s impossible to know whether there was mass compliance or mass non-compliance.

We know from modern history of tobacco taxation and soda taxation that evasion and avoidance are very common.

Let’s wrap up. The moral of the story is that our friends on the left are wrong for thinking taxes don’t matter. If my series on marginal tax rates (here, here, here, and here) wasn’t convincing, maybe today’s column will be more persuasive.

Yes, Social Security Is a Ponzi Scheme

March 2, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

When I write about Social Security, my main goal is to point out how Americans would be much richer if the United States had personal retirement accounts based on real savings (like workers in Australia, Chile, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Netherlands, the Faroe Islands, Denmark, Israel, and Sweden).

But I also point out that America’s current pay-as-you-go government system is a big fiscal burden with record levels of unfunded liabilities.

We are going to take a different approach today. Let’s start with this screenshot from Wikipedia on the definition of a Ponzi Scheme.  

"A Ponzi scheme is a form of fraud the lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors".

Why are we looking at this definition? Because Elon Musk had the audacity to point out that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. And this has caused controversy, as illustrated by these excerpts from an article on the MSN site.

Musk created a furor by labelling social security in the United States ‘the biggest Ponzi scam of all time.’ He justified his remarks saying that over time, the obligations of social security will be “much worse,” as people are now “living longer than expected.” …

Musk said. “People pay into Social Security, and the money goes out of Social Security immediately, but the obligation for Social Security is your entire retirement career. So if you look at the future obligations of Social Security, it far exceeds the tax revenue. …

Basically, people are living way longer than expected, and there are fewer babies being born, so you have more people who are retired and that live for a long time and get retirement payments. So the future obligations, so however bad the financial situation is right now for the federal government, it will be much worse in the future.”

It is true that Musk’s remarks caused a “furor.” But it’s also the case that what he said is true.

Some defenders of the program claim that there is no problem. They admit that current tax payments get used to pay current benefits, but they assert that Social Security has a trust fund to pay benefits to future retirees.

There are two problems with this argument.

The first problem, as noted by the Congressional Budget Office, is that the so-called trust fund is depleted within 10 years.

The second problem is that the Trust Fund is an accounting fiction. It’s nothing but money the government owes to itself.

You may find that hard to believe, but when Bill Clinton released his new budget in 1999, the Analytical Perspectives (on page 337, if you want to check) contained this important admission about the supposed Trust Fund.

To ensure that nobody wonders whether I’m quoting out of context, here’s a screenshot of the relevant paragraph.

In other words, Elon Musk was right. Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme.  But there is one important difference between a Bernie Madoff-style scheme and Social Security. Madoff had no ability to coerce people into his fraudulent fund.

 

By contrast, politicians can impose massive tax increases in hopes of propping up Social Security. Heck, they could pass a law adding lots of zeroes to the existing IOUs in the Trust Fund.  But neither of those supposed solutions addresses the real problem, which is that Social Security is a bad deal for the American economy and a bad deal for American workers.

P.S. One final note for my left-leaning friends. If you actually care about blacks and other minorities, you should support personal retirement accounts.

From the Back Forty: Heartlanders Cheer for the Trump-Vance Varsity

Hard lessons were learned in front of a live audience.

By | Mar 2, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Articles, Opinion, Politics

Editor’s Note: From the Back Forty is Liberty Nation’s longest-running and most popular weekly column. 

Heartlanders, still reeling from the torrent of DOGE exposures, had a peek inside the Art of the Deal as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky paid a visit to the Oval Office and was sent packing after poking the wrong bear. Additionally, newly minted Attorney General Pam Bondi had folks up in arms for dangling the Epstein files “bombshell” all week long, then fumbling the ball on the one-yard line. No one From the Back Forty has time or patience for a tease. And one baseball legend will finally be awarded the respect he deserves, thanks to Donald Trump.

Are You Gonna Wear That?

President Volodymyr Zelensky showed up to a meeting on America’s most hallowed grounds, appearing as if he and Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) had just played a round of golf. The Ukrainian commander-in-chief, dressed in casual, somewhat athletic-looking attire, attempted to plead his case to the American people to fund his fight against Russia. As folks in middle America often say, “You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” Maybe that adage doesn’t translate into Ukrainian well, as Zelensky tossed the virtual vinegar at Trump in America’s house.

The Oval Office was packed with people, including invited press, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian Ambassador Oksana Markarova, who appeared to want to be anywhere else at that moment in time. As Zelensky poked and prodded, Vance called him out for disrespect: “I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that’s going to end the destruction of your country. Mr. President, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come into the Oval Office and try to litigate this in front of the American media.”

Mike Hobbs, a rancher in Eastern New Mexico, was inspired: “JD Vance has mettle! Zelenskyy obviously arrived to collect more of our tax revenue, not seek peace and an end to the fruitless killing. I am exceedingly proud of Trump and Vance for staying focused. It has been a very long time since I have felt ‘stood-up-for’, aside from my bride! I am beyond grateful for Trump’s and Vance’s decorum today.”

Trump was frustrated. “We have empowered you to be a tough guy … You either make a deal, or we are out. You don’t have the cards,” he told the Ukrainian president before kicking him out of the meeting. Markarova did a facepalm that went viral – so much for diplomacy.

If anything, it was great TV. Within minutes of his eviction, Zelensky had apparently done a bit of introspection and posted a big thank you to America and POTUS for a great visit, insisting Ukraine wants lasting peace.

Chad Smith of North Carolina had his say, too. “When Zelenskyy began appealing to the emotions of the American people, JD Vance stepped in, accusing him of disrespecting Donald Trump. This was brilliant strategy,” wrote Smith. “It’s important to understand that Zelenskyy is trying to gain access to NATO. If Ukraine joins NATO, the U.S. would be bound by NATO’s collective defense agreement—an attack on one is an attack on all.”

In Illinois, Kelly Wilson simply advised: “You should not bite the hand that feeds you.”

The Bondi Bomb

When Attorney General Pam Bondi released her big reveal of The Epstein Files: Phase 1, the highly anticipated “gotcha” filled with “breaking news” that would “make you sick” was, in fact, a heavily redacted nothing-burger. Mostly, the binders contained blacked-out pages and flight logs that had already been made public.

That didn’t sit well with anyone, friend or foe.

 

“THIS IS NOT WHAT WE OR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ASKED FOR and a complete disappointment,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) wrote on X. “GET US THE INFORMATION WE ASKED FOR!”

Bondi turned the tables and claimed the FBI had withheld “thousands of documents.”

“Late yesterday, I learned from a source that the FBI Field Office in New York was in possession of thousands of pages of documents related to the investigation and indictment of Epstein,” Bondi wrote, according to the screenshot. “Despite my repeated requests, the FBI never disclosed the existence of these files.”

But wait a minute: Who is the boss, Ms. AG?

In Vallecito, CO, Sue Shanley wants names – not political protections: “Regardless of political affiliation…if a person was doing illegal stuff, name them! Go for prosecution!”

In the Four Corners, Paul Hayes was ready to take everyone to Gitmo: “Get the dirty alphabet boys and lock them up.” Scott Merritt also jumped on that train in Ohio: “Raid that office like the democrats would.”

Trump Makes America’s Pastime Great Again

This week, the president reiterated that the late Pete Rose, the all-time hit king in Major League Baseball, must be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Nicknamed Charlie Hustle, Rose set MLB career records, including 4,256 hits. “Over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

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It’s News, Captain – But Different!

Heartlanders were supportive. In Zanesville, OH, Deborah Sherfy Merris piped up: “With all the crap that other athletes have done and got by with it, why is he still being punished?”

This Caddo Mills Texan, who uses the handle Chunk Y Tuna, had a thought: “If we are going to judge him, we need to start judging the politicians (99%) that bet on the businesses they regulate in the stock market!”

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

 
Read More from Sarah Cowgill National Columnist

The Rape of Civilization

By Rich Kozlovich, Tags:

On January 13th I published this article, Muslim Rape Gangs, showing how Muslim immigrants are doing horrible things to young girls and women, raping and even murdering them, and that doesn't include all the rest of the crimes being committed by Muslims in western civilization, which is rampant, and they believe the Koran not only justifies their actions, it encourages these crimes against infidels and they believe they gain merit with Allah.

 Eric Utter published this piece on January 19th, The rape of Europa, approved by its leaders, saying:

It appears dead set on returning to darkness...British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is apparently onboard with threatening to arrest Americans -- thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean -- if they dare to criticize, or even speak of, the Pakistani/Muslim rape gangs that have been assaulting the little girls of his nation for many years now.......He may also be unaware that, though England still has a king, he does not have power over the rest of the world -- and, also, he isn't one, anyway.  Nonetheless, the prime minister is on record as essentially saying that those criticizing the actions and policies of his government will face “the full force of the law.

I've been writing and posting articles about this for over twelve years, so I suppose I'm on that list, but since they've never come after me in all these years, I don't think I have to be concerned.  

Starmer is about to have his hands full, since Elon Musk has bypassed the media and their control over "misinformation" by the government exposing these crimes, he's generated a lot of justifiable outrage, including over the short prison sentences for U.K. grooming hang child rapists, and how, according to a whistleblower, Senior Officers were told not to investigate the Rotherham Grooming Gangs  because:

.........that scandal would implicate senior police officers in a report on local failures to protect young girls in the English town, .....claiming ....... previous local investigations into Muslim grooming gangs have been sufficient and that a fresh national inquiry into the widespread child abuse and the politically correct failures to safeguard primarily young white girls is not needed.

In this article, 5 Pillars and the Denial of Systemic Child Exploitation in the U.K., it's the same old leftist lies and tactics.  Deny, blame the victim, deny, claim it's a vast right with conspiracy to undermine the government, deny, etc.   But time and truth are on the same side, and the public isn't buying it, and the Pravda media can no longer control the narrative.  Once truth has been spoken, it can't be forgotten, it can only be suppressed, and that's what these "leaders" have done for years, and are still at it.

When this Labour government is kicked out and Farage becomes PM, a lot of Tories, Labour party members, government officials, along with a host of judges and police may find themselves in jail, and rightly so. They've danced with the devil, and hopefully they'll have to pay the piper.

In Italy 10 North African men gang raped a teen in Milan, and the article notes 65% of crime in Italy is being committed by migrants who represent 20% of the population.  They never mention they're Muslims most likely because that's would be called racism, but to the left all things are racist if what being said or reported doesn't go along with whatever lying narrative they're promoting.  

On January 14, 2025 I published this article, Who Really Are the Destroyers of Western Civilization, with the subtitle, Muslims, Rape, Crime, and Western Civilization, with this quote:

 "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague." -  Marcus Tullius Cicero 

While Cicero never said that it's a quote that defines who's destroying western civilization: Western civilization's leaders, both religious and secular. 

Men who will rape women have no mercy and  will just as easily murder women.  What makes this more disturbing are those who are expected to enforce the laws undermine those laws.  

 "Which side are you on? Will you stand by the gnarled oak of Englishness or will you bring on the bulldozers of soulless modernity? ........ Do you care about western civilization or would you be happy to see it demolished. Are you one of us, or one of them? - Sir Roger Scruton

These women were raped by their abusers and abused by the system. The word civilized carries the basic meaning of being "fit to live in a city".  When the traditional foundations needed for stable moral social behavior disintegrate there is no civilization.   The so-called civilized world is turning into an emotional and social 'dark age', with all the nightmares that entails. 

Those in positions of responsibility and authority all over Europe, including England, have allowed these Muslim wolves to decimate their flocks.  At some point there's going to be a reckoning and I hope these people who are allowing this to go on are prosecuted for their treason. 

Make no mistake about this.....at some point this is going to boil over into violence all over Europe.  Governments are going to fall, civil unrest will become out of control and there will be pitched battles between Muslims and ethnic Europeans.  What will be the final straw?  

Economic collapse of the EU and a number of European countries, and it's coming sometime between now and 2030.  Is it any wonder they're frothing at the mouth over Trump's trade policy?  It's they who will suffer, not the U.S., and I expect much the same for Russia and China.  When these markets dry up they'll go belly up. 

These leftist loons try claiming the rise in crime isn't an immigration problem.  Really?  That's not historically accurate.  I remember when all this started in Sweden many years ago, and they were shocked at the upsurge in violence in their country. Sweden was one of the safest nations on Earth, and open violence was almost unheard of, at least until these Muslim immigrants from the Middle East and Africa started pouring in.

There's a reason whyat one point had one of the highest rape statistics in Europe. Muslim immigrants were raping Swedish women at a shocking rate, and the Swedish government with their catspaws in the media hid what's really going on letting these ravenous wolves tear into the helpless citizens of their society, and if you say anything, you're prosecuted.

Sweden's finally taking steps over the immigration polices, but unless they take drastic action to seriously reduce their Muslim population, they're doomed, just like much of the rest of Europe.  The demographic growth of ethnic Europeans is so bad compared to Muslims it's believed the Netherlands has gotten past the point of no return . It's being predicted that by 2050 Muslims will be the majority in France.  
The birth rates of the ethnic Western populations of Europe is being outstripped 4-1 by Islamic immigrants.    In the next thirty years, at current trends, Sweden will be unrecognizable, the old Sweden will be irretrievable and the nation will be just as violent as are all other Muslim dominated cultures.   

Along with the Hungarians and Czech's, it's the Poles that will be left to save Europe....once again....... as they did in 1683 at the Battle of Venice, but the demographics are against them, but they may only be able to save themselves.

And who do these Muslims blame for these rapes? European women!  They're at fault because they dare to live their lives based on European culture, and as a result, Muslims become inflamed and just can't help themselves, so it's not their fault, it's the fault of European women.

So, European women now have to abandon their culture to accommodate a culture that thinks rape, murder, and robbery by Muslims should be accepted as a new cultural norm?  Did I get that right?  The leaders of these civilized nations should be kicked out of office and tried for treason.   But polls show the population supports these lunatics.  

Europe is doomed.  This has gone so far the only fix is an outright revolution throughout Europe over the immigration of these Muslim wolves.  And no matter who wins, Europe is done economically.  Europe is a spent force, and will soon be a third rate continent.  If the Muslims win, Europe will be a tenth rate continent.

I've read Ibrahim's book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, and what is made very clear is by the history of Islam is this:  The true pillars of Islam are lust, greed, envy, hate and violence.

Is it any wonder the left and Islam have so much in common.  They're fellow travelers in their hate of Christians, Jews, and America and the only thing keeping them from taking over the world is the American identity, culture, economy and the Constitution.  Between Islam and socialism the world faces two of the most degraded, devastating and deadly philosophies ever known. 

I'm convinced anarchy is going to be rampant throughout Europe.


Saturday, March 1, 2025

P&D and The Week That Was

 Truth is the Sublime Convergence of History and Reality

De Omnibus Dubitandum, (Everything is to be questioned!)

This Link will take you to My Commentaries. 

There are approximately 2.2 million federal civilian employees.  The average cost of a federal employee, including salary and benefits, is around $143,643.  How much money is that in salaries and benefits every year? $316,014,600,000.    

 

Recently it was reported Trump said 1 million federal workers ‘could be fired.’  That's a minimum savings of $172, 371,600,000.  That doesn't count all the other expenses involving employees, such as buildings and the cost of maintaining them.  That's a lot of money, but when you compare saving a hundred and seventy five billion and more dollars to the nation's debt of almost 37 trillion dollars, that's chump change.  But if that's the pattern that plays out in everything they do, then we're talking real money.   I'm convinced by the end of Trump's first year in office, his DOGE team and the generals he's appointed to be heads of these government bureaucracies, are capable of eliminating a trillion dollars in spending. 

I've told this story before, but I think it's  worth repeating.  Some years ago my friend Jay Lehr, who attended Princeton and met Einstein, said when Einstein first came to Princeton he gave seven lectures.  He said the first few were so packed you couldn't beg, steal, borrow, or buy a seat.  By the end of the series there were a lot of empty seats.  I was surprised and I asked him why.  He said Einstein was lecturing some of the smartest people in the world, and they didn't have a clue what he was talking about.  You can only image how that effected their egos.  They didn't dare suggest Einstein didn't know what he was talking about since he was considered the most brilliant man alive.  

Well, I will be the first to acknowledge I'm far more clueless about physics than those sitting in that lecture hall.  But by just watching from the back row there's one thing I've gleaned.  Much about physics is based on a lot of "maybes".  Maybes that can't be proven via the scientific method of observation, experimentation, and analysis.   They can observe, and they can analyze, but how do they experiment?  Take black holes for example, how do you experiment with a black hole?  Now, all of a sudden everything they "knew" about black hole astronomy might be wrong.  As I see it, it's all guess work, and they don't have a clue either, yet they're absolutely positive ..... again.  

Truth be told I find it all interesting and fascinating, and I always have, but in the final analysis, I really don't care.  I consider this to be academic welfare, like so much of what academia does, much of which should not be funded by the government since there's not one iota of practical value in so much of what they do.  If that makes me a neanderthal, I can live with it. 

Fani Willis, of Georgia prosecutor who played the bully role in her attempt to "get Trump" is now crying that Jim Jordan is bullying her.  Imagine that, and doing so in violation of his oath of office.  What? Investigating a known corrupt prosecutor is a violation of his oath?  Really? Why?  Because it's black history month, and he should be celebrating that instead of "bullying" her!  It seems her deck of race cards has no limit.  

The FBI is heading into a maelstrom from which many will not return.  If this true, and I'm betting it is, the "new" FBI has launched an investigation into James Comey, and it's being reported the FBI is destroying evidence including the files on the JFK assassination.

This is the crack national law enforcement agency that raided the home of a mom of four children,  who protested at a school board meeting resulting in an invasion of her home by a FBI SWAT team, knocking down her door, bursting into the house with guns and handcuffing her while she was homeschooling her children.  

The FBI is broken, and it's not just a matter of bad leadership; it's the system itself.  And guess what?  A lot of these miscreants are worried they're going to be thrown in jail, and they have good reason to be worried.  Remember.... no one is above the law.  Their only recourse?  Destroy the evidence! 

I really like being right, and this is one time I wished I wasn't.  The covid shots were not vaccines, not only did they not prevent infections, they weren't designed to do so, and that was right from the mouth of Deborah Birx, who designed their vaccination policy.  A person who needs to be charged with crimes against humanity, or at the very least depraved indifference, right along with Fauci.  Only Fauci has been given a pardon, Brix hasn't.  Fauci isn't immune to  non-federal criminal charges, or civil actions against him. 

 ;

We're seeing a lot of kickback from Democrats over DOGE and all they're exposing, and there's a reason why.   Here's one example,  Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse Backed Legislation That Funneled Millions to His Wife’s Nonprofit.  They're in on the take, and feeding at the government's trough is addictive.  And ya just gotta love pencil neck Schiff.  He knows there are millions of Americans who are downright ashamed of Trump.   And he's right, they're called nitwits, halfwits, dipsticks, and misfits, all of which are Democrats and RINO's.   And we should care why?

Think about this.  Someone recently pointed out: "There are 18 intelligence agencies, and somehow they had no idea that Hamas was going to attack Israel or that Syria was going to collapse. What were they doing? I would say that is a lot of duplicative waste."  Well, it appears we now know a lot about what some of them were doing.  Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fires 100 perverts spewing out their drooling on government computers and time. 

And this is at the nation's most top secret agency, the NSA, involving the CIA and others.  The questions that now need answering is how did this happen, who in leadership knew about this, when did they know it and is it likely to happen again? Since all these people are being fired, I think I can say, not in the near future, and now, not in the military.  

As for how this happened, and it happened like a things from the left, "a slow march through the institutions", as this article There’s a Trans Cult Inside the NSA, by Christopher F. Rufo explains:

An insider tells the story of the intel agency’s ideological capture..........But according to our whistleblower, these sex chats were just the tip of the iceberg. This longtime NSA insider tells me that the ideological capture of the NSA began a decade ago. Trans activists have entrenched themselves in positions of power, pressured employees to undergo reeducation trainings, and compromised national security in the name of ideology........

It's clear this is deeply entrenched, and it's also clear that many of those who will be thrown out of these top secret agencies may well decide to commit treason in order to get back at those who fire them.  It truly is an "iceberg" problem.

Trump has made it clear any state that doesn't end transgenderism in sports will have their funds cut off, and Maine has made it clear, they don't' care.  They're even going to punish a   GOP Congressman for opposing transgenderism, and they've even attacked a female state Senator for challenging Maine's actions claiming she's done "irreparably breaking the public trust."  The left's capability to use more words in more twisted ways is mind boggling.

As a side bar...did you get a look at their governor?   How does someone that dumb, that strange, and that ugly get elected? There's just gotta be something in the water in Maine. 

 

Another favorite of mine is that great intellectual and moral giant,Michael Moore, with his latest rant filled with logical fallacies claiming one of these deported illegal migrant children might have cured cancer, or stopped an asteroid from hitting the planet.  But then again, maybe they wouldn't.   But if he can show us which ones would be able to do that, we'll keep them.  

In the meanwhile they're criminals because they're here illegally, eating up American's tax money, overwhelming our public services, committing a lot of crimes, forming criminal organizations, and even creating groups to overthrow the United States, much of which Joe Biden can take "credit".  Other than Michael Moore and his ilk, all suffering from mental delusions, the rest of this call this blame, not credit. 

Finally, I was a surprised that all of a sudden DOGE, and the President, want Fort Knox audited.  I thought... really... what's that all about?   There were two show audits in 1953 and 1974, but there's never been a real audit of the gold supply...ever.  And there's some kickback over this, why?  

What really triggered this?  I'm guessing of course, but I'm kinda getting the feeling something unexpected has turned up in one of the DOGE investigations, and I think there's something going on in the background they're not divulging, and it shook them.  But, we'll see.   

This week I've posted eight commentaries of my own, and twenty one by others.  I hope you find them worthy of your time.

Best wishes, 

Rich 

My Commentaries

  1. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Part VII, Fake News
  2. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Part VI
  3. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Part V
  4. We Do Need to Return to the Past
  5. Are We Entering a Golden Age?
  6. Judicial Boundaries Need to be Imposed
  7. It's Time For a Constitutional Confrontation With the Federal Judiciary
  8. Often Wrong, Never in Doubt

Commentaries

  1. Extra! Extra! Changes Coming to The Washington Post Opinion Page By Leesa K. Donner
  2. DOGE Is Very Popular With Americans, New Poll Finds By Leesa K. Donner
  3. Wishful Thinking: Leftists Say Trump ‘Coup’ Has Failed By Tim Donner
  4. Mine, Baby, Mine – Right Here in the USA!  By Paul Driessen
  5. AI: How to Teach Critical Thinking By John Droz, Jr.
  6. The President, the Special Counsel and his Lawyers By Daniel Greenfield
  7. Searching for Condemnations in the Muslim World  By Daniel Greenfield
  8. Is There a Constitutional Right to Castrate Children?  By Daniel Greenfield
  9. Washington DC: The March of Folly By Robin Itzler
  10. Black History Month: 2020 BLM George Floyd riots By Robin Itzler
  11. Birthright citizenship and Democrat hypocrisy By Robin Itzler
  12. Maybe We Need a Government Shutdown By Robin Itzler
  13. HHS Job Cuts: Pork or Purge? By John Klar
  14. The Case Against Socialism, Part IV By Dan Mitchell
  15. What Country Has the Best System of Health Care? By Dan Mitchell
  16. The Process Of Rescinding The Endangerment Finding Has Begun By Francis Menton
  17. Amicus Brief Filed In Glen Oaks Village Owners v. City Of New York By Francis Menton
  18. Karma for Comey: Is the FBI Investigating Its Former Director? By Graham J. Noble
  19. Operation Whirlwind Targets Democrats’ Incendiary Rhetoric By Graham J. Noble
  20. The Wall Street Journal Completes Its ‘Woke’ Transition By Joe Schaeffer
  21. Ethel Rosenberg and the Model UN By Michael D. Shaw

 No matter what anyone says, you can’t marginalize the truth!  You can suppress it, you can ignore it, you can avoid it, you can attempt to undermine it, you can attempt to subvert it, you can attempt to organize against it, you can even laugh at it, but if we have the courage and the fortitude to stand and confront the lies, irrespective of the personal costs, the truth will stand the test of time, because truth and time are on the same side.
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