Capitalism fuels ‘racism,’ is ‘difficult to survive’: Iowa State U. lecture

Capitalism is an “oppressive system” that is “incredibly difficult to survive,” a financial coach said during a recent lecture at Iowa State University.

The “Anti-Capitalism Personal Finance Lecture” featured Leo Aquino, a “non-binary Filipinx writer, journalist, and financial coach” known for “their commitment to uplifting BIPOC and LGBTQ+ stories,” according to the event description.

During the lecture, Aquino advocated for an “anti-capitalist” budgeting approach that encourages people to reframe their relationship with money to prioritize well-being over profit, mainly benefiting queer and trans-identifying individuals.

The speaker defined anti-capitalism as “the belief that financial systems do not need to adhere to capitalist values for us to survive.”

An anti-capitalist personal finance perspective supports workers’ abilities to control their labor and decide how profits are invested. It requires people to redefine their “definition of wealth,” Aquino said.

The speaker encouraged students to stop blaming themselves for their financial situations and start questioning the underlying system.

Aquino defined capitalism as “an economic system where workers are required to sell [their] labor for a wage in order to survive.”

The financial coach said this system prioritizes profits over people while causing burnout, depression, and anxiety. “[Capitalism] is an oppressive system profiting from our lack of financial literacy and interpersonal conflicts around money.”

Further, capitalism “necessitates racism, ableism, homophobia, colonialism, and other forms of oppression to perpetuate conflict.” It “has forced people from marginalized communities to do unrealistic things to survive in an oppressive system,” Aquino said.

The speaker contrasted traditional budgeting, defined as a monthly estimate of income and expenses, with anti-capitalist budgeting, described as a “neutral space for us to practice compassionate data analysis.”

Keep reading

Oversight Project Files Formal Request with FBI for Records on Marcus Raskin — Father of Radical Democrat Jamie Raskin Suspected of Being a Communist Agent

The Oversight Project has submitted a formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Federal Bureau of Investigation seeking records on Marcus Raskin — a co-founder of the far-left Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and father of radical Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD).

The request, filed by Michael Howell of the Oversight Project, focuses on Marcus Goodman Raskin’s extensive history of anti-American activism, left-wing organizing, and suspected ties to Soviet-backed communist networks during the Cold War.

According to the FBI’s formal response dated April 17, 2025, the Bureau acknowledged it has “completed its review of records subject to the FOIA” and directed the requestor to its electronic FOIA Library, known as the Vault.

The letter indicated that while some records have already been released publicly, “additional records responsive to your request were processed but are not currently available on The Vault,” suggesting the FBI holds more information on Raskin that may not yet be fully disclosed.

The FBI also offered to conduct a further search through its Central Records System if requested.

Keep reading

China Expels Missionaries, Treating Christianity As Existential Threat To Totalitarianism

This week is significant for Christians worldwide, including myself, as we commemorate Jesus Christ’s death and sacrifice on Good Friday and celebrate his resurrection on Easter Sunday. However, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has announced new regulations that will severely restrict foreign missionaries in China starting May 1. Citing the need to combat “extremism” and protect national security, these measures threaten religious freedoms.

Under the new regulation, foreign missionaries must obtain government approval for lectures, sermons, and group activities, facing a burdensome application process that details the date, time, location, and attendees.

Additionally, the regulation includes a comprehensive set of restrictions that prohibit foreign missionaries from engaging in activities such as “Recruiting religious believers among Chinese citizens and appointing religious clergy,” “Organizing and carrying out religious education and training,” “accepting religious donations from Chinese organizations and citizens,” and producing, distributing, and selling religious materials. Violators of these restrictions may face criminal charges depending on the severity of the offense. According to Breitbart, this new regulation is designed to formally end foreign missionary activities in China.

The new regulation is the latest example of the CCP’s deep-seated animosity toward all religions, especially Christianity. Between the 1980s and early 2000s, China’s Christian population surged significantly, with estimates in 2018 indicating it may range from 100 to 200 million — outnumbering the nearly 100 million members of the CCP itself. The CCP, an atheist organization, is alarmed by the rapid growth of Christians. One of the CCP’s worst fears is that the devotion to God could erode loyalty to the party and thus threaten its very legitimacy. As a result, the CCP sees Christianity as an existential threat.

Since assuming leadership of the CCP in 2013, Xi Jinping has implemented a three-pronged strategy against all religions, particularly Christianity. This strategy involves the sinicization of religion, which entails aligning religion with Chinese culture and communism, and ensuring loyalty to the CCP. It also includes the ruthless persecution of religious believers who refuse to conform to the sinicization of religion and instead remain steadfast in their actual religious beliefs and practices. The third leg of this strategy is using laws and regulations to curb the future growth and expansion of religion.

A well-known instance of the sinicization of Christianity is the CCP’s insistence on selecting Catholic bishops. This practice clearly violates the Catholic Church’s principle that only the pope has the authority to appoint bishops. Other examples of Sinicization include authorities’ instruction that both Catholic and Protestant congregations must prioritize patriotism over religion. In some impoverished areas, local officials compelled villagers to replace posters of Jesus with portraits of Xi Jinping and Chairman Mao, despite Mao in particular being responsible for the worst mass murders in human history. Additionally, the CCP reportedly has plans to “retranslate and annotate the Bible to align with socialism and establish a correct understanding of the text.”

Keep reading

Anti-Trump Protester Speechless When Asked Why He’s Protesting – Pulls Out Communist-Leader’s Talking Points Handed to Him With “Free Sign”

A protest against President Trump and Elon Musk is underway in Washington DC today.  The Gateway Pundit earlier reported on the youngest member of Congress threatening “subpoenas and investigations” if they take back the majority.

But is this an organic rally?  Or is it more in line with colour revolutions that the ‘Deep State’ within the U.S. has orchestrated across the globe, most notably the Orange Revolution (2004-2005) and Maidan in Ukraine (2013-2014)?

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was promoting these protests last night on her show, telling her audience, “Go to bed kind of early.  Hydrate.  Eat your Wheaties in the morning.  Maybe put off that Friday night cocktail to make it a Saturday night cocktail…I’m only saying that because tomorrow is going to be very busy.”

Maddow then brought on Soros-funded Indivisible co-executive director Ezra Levin to promote the protests.

This type of media rhetoric is right in line with the USAID-funded news organizations that popped up in Ukraine in late November, 2013, to promote the Maidan.  It is worth checking out Oliver Stone’s Ukraine on Fire for free here to understand the innerworkings of USAID and the National Endowment for Democracy in helping to orchestrate these colour revolutions.

Journalists on the ground are documenting people being bussed in, some dressed head-to-toe in “full Islamic garb” and donning Palestinian flags, as shown in a video posted by Laura Loomer to X.

Keep reading

Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing on Global Threats Turns Into a McCarthy Hearing of Lies About CODEPINK

Yesterday, in the US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on global threats with the five heads of intelligence agencies of the US government, Senator Tom Cotton, accused on national TV a group I have worked with for over 20 years, CODEPINK: Women for Peace, of being funded by the Communist Party of China.

During the hearing CODEPINK activist Tighe Barry stood up following the presentation of the Director of National Security Tulsi Gabbard’s lengthy statement about global threats to US national security and yelled ‘Stop Funding Israel,’ since neither Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton and Vice Chair Mark Warner had mentioned Israel in their opening statement nor  had Gabbard mentioned the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in Gaza in her statement either.

As Capitol police were taking Barry out of the hearing room, in the horrific style of the McCarthy hearings in the 1950s, Cotton maliciously said that Barry was a “CODEPINK lunatic that was funded by the Communist party of China.”  Cotton then said if anyone had something to say to do so.

Refusing to buckle or be intimidated by Cotton’s lies about the funding of CODEPINK, I stood up and yelled, “I’m a retired Army Colonel and former diplomat. I work with CODEPINK and it is not funded by Communist China.”  I too was hauled out of the hearing room by Capitol police and arrested.

After I was taken out of the hearing room, Cotton libelously continued his McCarty lie, “The fact that Communist China funds CODEPINK which interrupts a hearing about Israel illustrates Director Gabbard’s point that China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are working together in greater concert than they ever had before.”

Senator Cotton does not appreciate the responsibility he has in his one-month-old elevation to the chair of the Senate’s intelligence committee.

Keep reading

NATO Was Never About American Security

The evidence from the Soviet archives shows that Stalin’s policy during the 1947 pivot to Cold War was largely defensive and reactive. But even that departure from the cooperative modus operandi of the wartime alliance arose from what might well be described as an unforced error in Washington.

We are referring to the latter’s badly misplaced fears that deteriorating economic conditions in Western Europe could lead to communists coming to power in France, Italy and elsewhere. The truth of the matter, however, is that even the worst case – a communist France (or Italy or Belgium) – was not a serious military threat to America’s homeland security.

As we pointed out in Part 2, the post-war Soviet economy was a shambles. Its military had been bled and exhausted by its death struggle with the Wehrmacht and its Navy, which embodied but a tiny fraction of the US Navy’s fire-power, had no ability whatsoever to successfully transport an invasionary force across the Atlantic. Even had it allied with a “communist” France, for example, the military threat to the American homeland just wasn’t there.

To be sure, communist governments in Western Europe would have been a misfortune for electorates who might have stupidly put them in power. But that would have been their domestic governance problem, not a mortal threat to liberty and security on America’s side of the Atlantic moat.

Keep reading

LA Mayor Karen Bass’ past in communist Cuba revealed… as insiders say her political career is ‘over’

She rose from being a doctor’s assistant to running one of the largest cities in America. 

But today, embattled Karen Bass, 71, is a lightning rod for anger over her handling of historic wildfires that turned huge swaths of Los Angeles into a charred hellscape.

And now her alleged missteps have imperiled her political career and further damaged her crumbling reputation with millions of Angelenos. 

Last night, in yet another on-air embarrassment, she was taken to task in front of millions by none other than President Trump. 

He admonished her for her poor handling of the fires disaster, telling her to use her power appropriately to get people the help they need.  

So far, 27 victims are known to have perished in the fires, fanned by dangerous Santa Ana winds, as authorities continue to sift through mile after mile of horrific devastation searching for human remains.

‘I don’t think she’ll ever be reelected… I think her political career is over,’ former LA County District Attorney Steve Cooley tells DailyMail.com of the city’s 43rd mayor.

‘The perception of her from residents at this point is such that she can no longer effectively lead the city of Los Angeles. She’s lost the public’s trust and importantly, their respect.’

Cooley, who served as DA from 2000 to 2012, states that there is an understandable wave of sentiment to have Bass ejected from the Mayor’s office but that such a move would be an uphill battle.

He added there was already a wave of city-wide antipathy towards Bass before the historic fires which he blames on her decision to prioritize DEI issues rather than focusing on hiring qualified candidates to key departments.

Moreover, he adds that Bass’ focus on her two signature issues – keeping LA a sanctuary city and the ceaseless homeless crisis – have bee a major detriment to the city and its residents.

‘She’s operating against the law when it comes to sanctuary cities, and the other issues of homelessness – she has not accomplished her goals, and it has been a failure,’ said Cooley.

Before becoming Madam Mayor, Bass served six terms as a Democrat in Congress and was a potential running mate in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for president. She entered Congress in 2010 and was chair of Congressional Black Caucus.

Meanwhile, the current wildfire disaster is only the latest controversy to damage Bass.

She praised Fidel Castro and had close associations with Cuba in her youth, traveling to the country in 1973 with an organization called the Venceremos Brigade and seeing the communist leader speak.

In 2016, when Castro died, she referred to him as ‘commandante en jefe’ (commander-in-chief) saying his passing was a ‘great loss to the people of Cuba.’ She also reportedly gave a eulogy for a senior member of the Communist Party USA.

‘And now you have the fires that destroyed (the city) and there is mismanagement. People feel that she let them down. To a certain extent, some people feel the city was set up for this disaster.’

Keep reading

Communism Fumbles Again: Cuba Importing Resource It Was Once Famed For Producing

It’s undeniably one of economist Milton Friedman’s most famous sayings about the failures of central planning: “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

This was, of course, a stroke of hyperbole. Not even a billion Keynesian ditch-diggers could empty the Sahara.

However, we have seen the closest thing to Friedman’s vision coming true: In Cuba, an island practically made of sugarcane, the communist government now needs to import sugar.

It’s bad enough that, according to CiberCuba — an expatriate-run outlet which is critical of the government — a pound of sugar now costs 600 pesos on the island, or about $25 USD.

“Despite efforts to revive the sugar industry, the sector continues to face serious challenges, including failures in the last harvest,” CiberCuba reported earlier this month.

“During the session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz recalled when Raúl Castro remarked that ‘it would be an embarrassment to have to import sugar.’ He then stated, ‘and well, we are experiencing that embarrassment because we are importing sugar.’”

Cruz “emphasized that the crisis in the sector is such that the country has also stopped exporting sugar, which was a key component of the economy,” according to CiberCuba.

And it’s not just dissident outlets like CiberCuba that are reporting on the failures of Cuba’s sugar industry, either. Earlier this year, the BBC’s Cuba correspondent, Will Grant, filed a piece about the failures of the system.

Shocker of shockers, you know what’s to blame? Communism!

“Cutting cane is all Miguel Guzmán has ever known. He comes from a family of farm hands and started the tough, thankless work as a teenager,” the May piece began. “For hundreds of years, sugar was the mainstay of the Cuban economy. It was not just the island’s main export but also the cornerstone of another national industry, rum.”

“Today, though, he readily admits he has never seen the sugar industry as broken and depressed as it is now – not even when the Soviet Union’s lucrative sugar quotas dried up after the Cold War,” Grant noted. “Spiraling inflation, shortages of basic goods and the decades-long US economic embargo have made for a dire economic outlook across the board in Cuba. But things are particularly bleak in the sugar trade.”

“There’s not enough trucks and the fuel shortages mean sometimes several days pass before we can work,” Guzmán said under a “tiny patch of shade” while he waited for Soviet-era trucks to arrive.

Keep reading

Her Father’s Daughter: Donald Harris’ Hidden Influence on Kamala

“If there is any virtue in the writing of this book, it springs from the sacrifices knowingly or unknowingly made by my two daughters, Kamala and Maya,” Donald J. Harris wrote in 1977 when he was an economics professor at Stanford University. “In return, it is dedicated to them.”

The book, “Capital Accumulation and Income Distribution,” is a 313-page critique of capitalism and its allegedly inherent flaws, including “income inequality,” “cyclical disturbances,” and “exploitation” of workers. “Drawing upon certain elements of Marxian theory,” the preface says, Harris approvingly cites the socialist nostrums of Karl Marx and his partner Friedrich Engels – as well as Vladimir Lenin, the founder of communist Russia – to make his case for an “alternative” economic model in America.

Kamala Harris was 13 at the time. Five years later, she majored in economics at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she led an economics club founded in the name of black Marxist Abram Harris.

Such facts might be unexceptional but for the Harris campaign’s narrative that the presidential candidate has little to do with her father. A New York Times article reported this month that the two have “been estranged for years” and “seldom speak.” The Times even repeated rumors he was a no-show at the Democratic convention, another sign of their alleged “cold war.”

While the vagaries of family relationships are often complex and hidden from view, RealClearInvestigation’s examination of the six-decade relationship between father and daughter suggests they have been closer than the campaign lets on. While there is little evidence to support Donald Trump’s claim that Kamala Harris is a “Communist,” the record shows that Donald Harris’ left-wing views resonate with his daughter. In a campaign that has provided little policy discussion, her perspective also suggests how she might govern.

Despite her mother taking custody of the two daughters following a 1971 divorce, Kamala Harris echoes her father in both the egalitarian language he used, such as “social equity” and “income disparities,” and the progressive policies he advocated, including government-run health care and expansive government poverty programs.

The year before she first ran for president in 2019, her Jamaican-born father wrote an essay for a Jamaican publication in which he recounted instilling a “deep social awareness” in his oldest daughter. “Kamala was the first in line to have it planted,” Donald Harris wrote.

Keep reading

Halloween Is a Middle Finger to Communists

Halloween, by its nature, is the one holiday that can essentially be about anything: fairy tales and storybook characters, movies and celebrities, robots and aliens, pizza and M&Ms, or, one of my new personal favorites, Mrs. Doubtfire and her hot flashes. That there are far more variables than constants on Halloween is a reminder that it is defined, above all, by freedom.

For another reminder, consider that police in China recently cracked down on costumed revelers because of the supposed threat they pose to the Communist government.

Indeed, law enforcement in Shanghai last weekend set their sights on celebrants who had the audacity to dress up, for example, as a poop emoji and as Kim Kardashian, the latter of whom can be seen on video waving goodbye to the group behind her as she was forced into a police van.

Before the parties began this month, police saturated the city. Those not in costume were reportedly left alone, while individuals were taken into custody for dressing up and were sometimes made to remove them. When law enforcement dispersed Zhongshan Park, the cops conditioned their freedom on decostuming. Private businesses were also allegedly ordered not to advertise or host Halloween events. The scrutiny was not limited to Shanghai.

In other words, this was not about crowd control.

Keep reading