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An Ailing, Flailing, Failing Empire Lashes Out

As a retired U.S. Air Force officer, I firmly believe in civilian control of our military. This country should be a nation of laws — not of special interests, oligarchs, or kings. Before committing our forces to battle, Congress should always declare war in the name of the people. Our military should indeed be a citizen-soldier force, not an isolated caste driven by a warrior ethos. And above all, the United States should be a republic ruled by law and shaped by sound moral values, not a greed-driven empire fueled by militarism.

Yet when I express such views, I feel like I’m clinging to a belief in the tooth fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. It feels idealistic, naïve, even painful to think that way. Yes, I served this country in uniform for 20 years, and now, in the age of Donald Trump, it has, as far as I can tell, thoroughly lost its way. The unraveling began so long ago — most obviously with the disastrous Vietnam War of the 1960s and 1970s, though in truth this country’s imperial desires predated even the Spanish-American War of 1898, stretching back to the wanton suppression of indigenous peoples as part of its founding and expansion.

A glance at U.S. history reveals major atrocities: the displacement and murder of Native Americans, slavery, and all too many imperial misadventures abroad. I knew of such realities when I joined the military in 1985, near the end of the Cold War. Despite its flaws, I believed then that this country was more committed to freedom than the Soviet Union. We could still claim some moral authority as the leader of what we then referred to as “the free world,” however compromised or imperfect our actions were.

That moral authority, however, is now gone. U.S. leaders fully support and unapologetically serve an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. They sell weapons to nearly every regime imaginable, irrespective of human rights violations. They wage war without Congressional approval — the recent 12-day assault on Iran being just the latest example. (The second Trump administration has, in fact, launched almost as many air strikes, especially in Yemen and Somalia, in its first five months as the Biden administration did in four years.) Those same leaders have been doing a bang-up job dismantling the America I thought I was serving when I took that oath and put on second lieutenant’s bars four decades ago. That America — assuming it ever existed — may now be gone forever.

FUBAR: A Republic in Ruins

My fellow citizens, America is FUBAR (a term that dates from World War II). We are not faintly who we claim to be. Rather than a functioning republic, we are an ailing, flailing, perhaps even failing empire. We embrace war, glorify warriors, and profit mightily from the global arms trade, no matter the civilian toll, including tens of thousands of dead and wounded children in Gaza, among the latest victims of U.S.-made bombs, bullets, and missiles.

Signs of moral rot are everywhere. Our president, who would like to be known for his budget cuts, nonetheless giddily celebrates a record trillion-dollar war budget. Our secretary of defense gleefully promotes a warrior ethos. Congress almost unanimously supports or acquiesces in the destruction of Gaza. Images from the region resemble bombed-out Stalingrad in 1942 or Berlin in 1945. Meanwhile, for more than two decades now, America’s leaders have claimed to be waging a successful global “war on terror” even as they fuel terror across the globe. What do they think all those U.S. weapons are for — spreading peace?

My wife and I cope through dark humor. We see news on cuts to Medicaid, the mentally ill in the streets, and crumbling infrastructure, and quip: “But Bibi [Netanyahu] needs bombs. Or Ukraine does. Or the Pentagon needs more nukes.” That’s why Americans can’t have nice things like health care. That’s why all too many of us are unhoused, in debt, out of work, and desperate. In 1967 — yes, that’s almost 60 years ago! — Martin Luther King warned of exactly this: America’s approaching spiritual death through militarism (aggravated by extreme materialism and racism). That death is visibly here, now.

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Massachusetts Governor Criticizes Texas Redistricting – From a State With ZERO Republican Representation

Democrat Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey was asked about the effort to redraw congressional districts in Texas and criticized the move, suggesting that efforts by Democrats to do more gerrymandering in response is justified.

The irony of this is that despite the fact that about a third of the state of Massachusetts voted for Trump, there is ZERO Republican representation there.

This fact was apparently lost on Healey.

Hot Air reported:

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey now has Republicans quaking in their boots.

In response to the Texas legislature’s move to redistrict its state to create more Republican districts, Healey is making a brave stand and threatening revenge.

She, too, will redistrict the state in retaliation.

It is a frightening prospect, I know. In a state known for its fairness to Republicans, a change in attitude could have serious repercussions.

Currently, the state has nine Congressional Districts and nine Democrats representing them. Should a less favorable map be created, the state will have nine Congressional Districts and nine Democrats representing them.

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Devastating US Report Lays Bare The Abuses Of ‘Settled’ Climate Science And Its Role In Net Zero

Net Zero is dead in the United States and the last rites have been administered in the devastating official report from the Department of Energy. Released earlier this week, the report cancels the decades-long censorship imposed by so-called ‘settled’ climate science. It is compiled by five eminent scientists and is a systematic take-down of the claims, methodologies and motivations driving activist scientists, politicians and opinion formers promoting the hard-Left Net Zero fantasy. Despite its ground-breaking importance, to date it has been largely ignored by mainstream media including the BBC and Guardian.

Computer models are said to offer “little guidance” on how much of the climate responds to higher levels of carbon dioxide, most extreme weather events are not increasing, sea levels in North America show no increasing trend while weather attribution claims are challenged by natural climate variation along with an admission that they were originally designed with ‘lawfare’ in mind. For Anthony Watts, who has spent decades challenging the ‘settled’ politicised science, the most important consideration is that the report, “directly confronts the exaggerated and politicised rhetoric that has dominated headlines for decades”.

Watts, who runs the Watts Up With That? (WUWT?) site that was responsible for publicising the infamous Climategate scandal, argues that the new report is unique in that it has both official status and author independence. It is not a think tank paper or an article in a ‘dissenting’ journal.

“It’s rare to see scientists of this calibre (with backgrounds at NASA, IPCC and major universities) allowed to directly challenge prevailing policy narratives with government resources behind them”, he notes.

The work is a “comprehensive critique” quoting extensively from peer-reviewed literature with clear explanations of scientific uncertainties and climate model error. 

For regular readers of WUWT? and other inquiring publications such as the Daily Sceptic, many of the issues discussed in the report will be familiar. In the last four years, your correspondent has written nearly 500 articles on climate science and Net Zero in an attempt to fill in the significant reporting gaps left by the narrative-driven mainstream media. Many of the papers quoted are familiar, not least in the section that deals with the sensational ‘greening’ of the planet caused by higher levels of CO2. 

The report quotes from recent work that shows extensive plant and crop growth due to the atmospheric fertilisation that has enhanced photosynthesis and improved water use efficiency. Over the past 60+ years, the authors observe that there have been thousands of studies on the response of plants to rising CO2 levels, and the overwhelming theme is that they benefit from the extra gas. In 2016, Zhu et al detected greening over 25%–50% of the planet. But there is a near official news blackout on the subject. A few mentions can be found in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports but overall, observe the authors, “the Policymakers Summaries, Technical Summaries and [IPCC] Synthesis reports of AR5 and ASR6 do not discuss the topic”.

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“I Defied My Government For Love” – State Department Official Dated Senior CCP Leader’s Daughter, Admits “She Could Have Been a Spy” – But Didn’t Report Her

The O’Keefe Media Group on Wednesday released undercover video of Daniel Choi, a US State Department Foreign Service Officer who admitted he dated a senior CCP leader’s daughter and refused to report her.

“I defied my government for love,” Daniel Choi said of his romantic relationship with 27-year-old Joi Zao.

Joi Zao entered the US on a work visa in September 2024.

“Her dad was either a provincial or a federal minister of education. So he’s, like, straight up Communist Party,” Choi said.

“Under federal regulations, Foreign Service Officers are required to report close and continuing contact with foreign nationals from adversarial nations, including China,” the O’Keefe Media Group reported.

Choi admitted he didn’t report her: “I was supposed to, whatever, sort of report what I knew about her, but I always thought that was kind of unfair.”

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The Linguistic Kill-Switch: Inside The Modern Propaganda Playbook

The next time someone sneers “conspiracy theorist,” “anti-vaxxer,” “climate denier,” “far right,” “hate speech,” “terrorist,” or the ever-popular “racist,” understand what they are really saying: stop thinking.

These words are a linguistic kill-switch—engineered to short-circuit thought by triggering a reflexive emotional spasm.

If you encounter someone using these words, you can be certain you are not dealing with someone interested in a good faith effort to find the truth.

These terms are precision-guided psychological weapons, fired by unseen hands to herd the public mind. Recall the CIA’s own 1967 memo coining “conspiracy theorist” expressly to silence anyone doubting the magic-bullet fairy tale that supposedly killed JFK.

Although they are a poor substitute for an actual argument, these propaganda terms unfortunately work on many people. Call someone one of these words and you no longer need to refute their ideas with facts, logic, or reason. The slur does the work like magic.

Take the granddaddy of all elastic scare-labels: terrorism.

One hundred years ago the word barely existed. Today it vaporizes civil liberties on contact.

Glenn Greenwald nailed it: the T-word is “simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon.”

The only difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is who controls the narrative.

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Tulsi Gabbard Reveals Deep State Operative James Clapper’s Russia Hoax Wasn’t His First Intel Scam — He “Manufactured” the WMD Lie That Led to the Iraq War

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard accused former Obama DNI James Clapper of being a serial political manipulator, exposing that the Russia Collusion Hoax wasn’t his first rodeo in deception.

Gabbard unloaded on disgraced former DNI James Clapper during her appearance on the Pod Force One podcast with Miranda Devine of the New York Post.

Gabbard is accusing the longtime Deep State operator of not one, but TWO of the most catastrophic intelligence failures in modern American history, the phony Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) narrative that dragged the U.S. into a forever war in Iraq, AND the sham “Russia Collusion” hoax used to undermine President Donald Trump.

The “Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) narrative” refers to the false claims made by the U.S. government primarily under President George W. Bush and his administration that Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq possessed active WMD programs, including chemical, biological, and potentially nuclear weapons.

Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, CIA Director George Tenet, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice were central in pushing the WMD case.

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell famously presented the WMD case before the United Nations in February 2003, using satellite photos and intercepts that later turned out to be deeply flawed or outright false.

At the time, Clapper was the Director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), responsible for analyzing satellite imagery and other geospatial intelligence. The NGA’s assessments of potential Iraqi WMD sites contributed to the overall intelligence community’s conclusion that Iraq had such weapons.

Clapper later conceded that the intelligence community’s assessment was wrong, describing it as building “a house of cards” based on faulty assumptions that ultimately led to the conclusion that WMD were present when they weren’t. 

“My fingerprints are on the infamous national intelligence assessment of October 2002,” he said during a 2018 event promoting his book Facts and Fears at GW’s Jack Morton Auditorium.

“[The intelligence community] built a case in our own minds, a house of cards it turned out that led us to the conclusion with pretty high confidence that they were there, and it turns out they weren’t,” he added.

“It represented closure for the country and closure for the intelligence community and certainly personal closure. It was certainly a profound event, and I will never forget it,” he said.

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The truth about Bill Clinton’s cozy friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and his ‘lovely girls’ as House subpoenas testimony

When Bill Clinton looked out of the private plane window as it came to land in Africa, he likely had no idea how much the 2002 trip would change his life.

The tour was to launch his new nonprofit AIDS initiative, taking in five countries and even spending the day with former South African President Nelson Mandela.

But those aspects of the trip have long been forgotten as the ex-president, Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker and others were flying as guests of Jeffrey Epstein aboard the infamous jet later to be known as the Lolita Express.

The devious Epstein, later exposed as a pedophile, had staffed the jet with young girls — one of the tactics he is said to have employed to impress and coerce powerful people.

“I felt Epstein put the president at risk with those young girls on board,” said Spacey in an interview with Piers Morgan last year. “It was disturbing. There were young girls on those flights. I didn’t understand at the time who they were or why they were there.”

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Why the Pesticide Liability Protection Act Threatens Our Food Supply and the Health of a Nation

As stewards of the land and providers of our nation’s food supply, farmers and ranchers carry a profound moral obligation—to produce the safest, healthiest, and most nutritious food on the planet. It is not just our livelihood; it is our responsibility to future generations.

That is why I am writing today with deep concern regarding the Pesticide Liability Protection Act currently under consideration in Congress. If enacted, this legislation could cause irreparable harm—not just to the health of farmers and ranchers who work directly with these chemicals, but to the broader public who unknowingly consume their residues.

The Dangerous Path of Corporate Immunity

This bill threatens to open the floodgates for a new wave of pesticides and herbicides engineered by agrochemical giants—products that may be even more toxic than those currently on the market. By shielding these corporations from legal accountability, it removes their last remaining incentive to ensure their chemicals are safe.

We have seen this story before. In 1986, Congress passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act, granting pharmaceutical companies immunity from liability for vaccine-related injuries. The consequences were swift and staggering: a surge in new products, rushed to market without proper safeguards, and a dramatic rise in chronic health conditions in children and adults alike. It was a public health turning point, and not for the better.

The parallels to our current situation are striking. Consider the case of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. Bayer (which acquired Monsanto in 2018) has faced more than 177,000 lawsuits involving the weedkiller and set aside $16 billion to settle cases. Over $11 billion has been paid out in Roundup lawsuit settlements, with individual jury awards reaching as high as $2.1 billion in recent cases.

These staggering financial settlements reflect the real human cost of inadequate chemical safety oversight. Even more alarming is the widespread exposure we’re seeing in our most vulnerable population: children. About 87 percent of 650 children tested had detectable levels of glyphosate in their urine, according to CDC analysis. Research shows that children exhibit higher levels of glyphosate in biofluids than adults, and recent studies indicate that higher levels of glyphosate residue in urine in childhood and adolescence were associated with higher risk of liver inflammation and metabolic disorders in young adulthood.

To repeat that same mistake with our nation’s food supply would be unconscionable.

Why the Pesticide Liability Protection Act Is Unconstitutional

The Pesticide Liability Protection Act fundamentally violates several core Constitutional principles that form the bedrock of American jurisprudence:

Due Process Violations (5th and 14th Amendments): The Act deprives citizens of their fundamental right to seek redress in courts for injuries caused by defective or dangerous products. This violates substantive due process by eliminating a basic property right—the right to compensation for harm—without adequate justification or alternative remedies.

Equal Protection Concerns: The legislation creates an arbitrary distinction between victims of chemical company negligence and all other tort victims. There is no rational basis for why those harmed by pesticides should have fewer legal rights than those harmed by other dangerous products.

Separation of Powers: By preemptively shielding an entire industry from judicial review, Congress unconstitutionally interferes with the judiciary’s role in adjudicating disputes and determining liability. This represents legislative overreach into the judicial branch’s constitutional domain.

Takings Clause Violations: The Act effectively takes private property—the right to legal recourse—without just compensation, violating the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.

The Supreme Court has consistently held that access to courts is a fundamental right, and any legislation that bars entire categories of claims must meet strict constitutional scrutiny. The Pesticide Liability Protection Act fails this test.

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How Obama Dismantled America’s Drug, Crime, and Gang Intelligence Infrastructure

The Obama administration dismantled several key intelligence programs that once played a vital role in the fight against drug trafficking, gang violence, and organized crime. These programs integrated law enforcement data with public health metrics to create early warning systems for emerging threats.

Yet they were terminated, driven largely by political considerations and concerns that the data disproportionately reflected criminal activity in specific demographic groups.

Under Democrat administrations, uncomfortable truths, such as the disproportionate amount of crime, drug trafficking, gang activity, and smuggling committed by illegal aliens, Latinos, and other minority groups, are suppressed and dismissed as disinformation.

The National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), established by Congress in 1993 and placed under the Attorney General’s authority, served as the nation’s primary hub for strategic domestic counterdrug intelligence until President Obama shut it down in 2012. Based in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the NDIC employed over 300 federal and contract personnel at its peak.

What made the center unique was its integration of law enforcement intelligence with data from drug treatment facilities, enabling a more comprehensive view of the national drug landscape.

NDIC fulfilled several critical functions. Its predictive analysis capabilities allowed it to forecast emerging drug trends, giving federal agencies time to prepare and respond proactively rather than reactively. Its Document and Media Exploitation (DOMEX) teams analyzed seized assets, financial records, communications, and other materials to produce detailed profiles of drug trafficking networks, helping law enforcement “make sense of everything they seized.”

NDIC also produced in-depth regional threat assessments, such as the 2008 Indian Country Drug Threat Assessment, which examined trafficking across Native American reservations. Additionally, the center played a vital role in inter-agency coordination, synthesizing intelligence from the DEA, FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and state and local law enforcement into unified reports.

Despite its effectiveness, NDIC faced political pressure throughout its existence and was ultimately shut down in 2012 under President Obama.

The Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring (ADAM) program operated from 1997 to 2003, collecting vital data on drug use among individuals arrested for various offenses. Revived briefly as ADAM II from 2007 to 2014, the program combined interviews and urinalysis to track drug use patterns within the criminal population, offering a rare and valuable window into the link between substance abuse and criminal behavior.

Unlike general population surveys, ADAM focused exclusively on arrestees, delivering real-time intelligence on drug use among those actively engaged in criminal activity. It highlighted regional variations by operating across dozens of metropolitan areas, allowing law enforcement to identify geographic patterns and emerging threats. Interviews provided long-term behavioral context, while urinalysis delivered objective, verifiable data on recent drug use, eliminating the inaccuracies of self-reporting.

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Cincinnati Mob Violence Victim Holly Slams Democrat Leaders For Being Soft on Crime, Says Her Doctors Are “Shocked” She Didn’t Die

Cincinnati mob violence victim who goes by ‘Holly,’ blasted Democrat leaders for being soft on crime during a press conference with GOP Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno on Wednesday.

Earlier this week Holly said she is suffering “very bad” brain trauma after the horrific attack by a mostly black mob at a jazz festival last weekend.

A white man was brutally beaten and stomped on by a violent gang of black suspects. When Holly ran to the victim’s aid, she was also beaten and knocked out.

Six people have been charged so far in the violent attack.

The FBI and the Justice Department’s Civil Rights division are investigating the incident.

“Our streets are being taken over and nobody is doing anything! I am so sad, and I need to be a voice for all of the victims that never got their justice,” Holly said.

Holly said the thug who attacked her should have never been on the streets.

“He had just gotten out of jail previously for something he should have been in there for years,” she said. “It’s really sad to me because I can’t even fathom how many other people who have been attacked by the same type of man over and over and over.”

“The biggest thing that I think really upsets me is the desensitization of humans where there’s a brutal attack, and they all think, ‘oh, cool. Let me get my phone and record it,’” Holly said.

“I truly hope that in the future, there’s some sort of bill to where somebody has to be prosecuted or at least fined if they don’t call 911 to save someone’s life,” she added.

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