STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC

Laws ostensibly set up to protect minors on the internet have another, quite nefarious, purpose. From Gary D. Barnett at garydbarnett.substack.com:

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”

H.L. Mencken

In May of 2025, the governor of the state of Virginia signed into ‘law’ the bill that imposes major restrictions on social media use by minors, in this case those under 16 years of age. The newest version of this bill took effect on January 1st, 2026, and limits any minor under the age of 16 to one hour of screen time. There can be exceptions granted, but the bill is targeted toward social media operators, and requires commercial methods be used for age verification. The state ‘claims’ that this of course is meant to “protect the children,” (minors) but that is just pure hogwash, as this is strictly a method to advance additional control measures.

Currently, there are 8 states that have passed legislation to block screen time for minors, but 25 want to implement these bans currently. I am not endorsing that kids should be on phones and devices non-stop, and in fact, I think it harmful and a mistake, but this is up to parents to decide, not the government. Government has no place in raising the kids of this citizenry, and since government and its members are the most corrupt and perverted class of people, why would any allow their families to be taken over by the State?

But this is not about protecting minors, it is about control. By passing these heinous censorship ‘laws,’ the State is setting up a control grid based on age verification. This will require at some point (happening already) that everyone using a phone, or other device, will be required to give their personal information in order to verify age. This will not be restricted to minors, it will be a tracking and tracing of every single individual who wants to access apps, sites, and most importantly for the State monsters, it will be used to require everyone to verify their age and identity to access the internet. This is a pure surveillance tool, and the plot only begins with the minors, but will become mandatory for everyone in the near future.

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To where was ICE going to deport them? From Mike Shedlock at mishtalk.com:

Four Oglala Lakota tribe members (aka Oglala Sioux) were kidnapped by Ice. One released.

4 Oglala Lakota men kidnapped by ICE in Minneapolis have finally been located. One of them was released but the other 3 are being held at Fort Snelling, a former concentration camp used to imprison Native people incl. the Dakota 38 during the Dakota Wars.

ICT reports Four Oglala Detainees Located.

The four Oglala Lakota men detained by ICE in South Minneapolis have been partially identified, according to a Tuesday night statement from Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out.

Star Comes Out said as of Jan. 13, the individuals last names have not been released, only first names. Tribal leaders are demanding full, comprehensive information from the Department of Homeland Security.

Additionally, the tribe is demanding the immediate release of all enrolled tribal citizens held by immigration, written assurances that ICE will stop detaining Native Americans, and immediate government-to-government consultation.

At least one of the men has been released, but tribal leaders said the remaining three are being held at Fort Snelling, a site historically used as a concentration camp for Native people during the Dakota removal period.

“The irony is not lost on us,” Star Comes Out said in a statement. “Lakota citizens who are reported to be held at Fort Snelling — a site forever tied to the Dakota 38+2 — underscores why treaty obligations and federal accountability matter today, not just in history.”

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Lots of things are different between the 1930s, the decade of the Great Depression, and today. Today may ultimately be worse. From Doug Casey at internationalman.com:

You’ve heard the axiom “History repeats itself.” It does, but never in exactly the same way. To apply the lessons of the past, we must understand the differences of the present.

During the American Revolution, the British came prepared to fight a successful war—but against a European army. Their formations, which gave them devastating firepower, and their red coats, which emphasized their numbers, proved the exact opposite of the tactics needed to fight a guerrilla war.

Before World War I, generals still saw the cavalry as the flower of their armies. Of course, the horse soldiers proved worse than useless in the trenches.

Before World War II, in anticipation of a German attack, the French built the “impenetrable” Maginot Line. History repeated itself and the attack came, but not in the way they expected. Their preparations were useless because the Germans didn’t attempt to penetrate it; they simply went around it, and France was defeated.

The generals don’t prepare for the last war out of perversity or stupidity, but rather because past experience is all they have to go by. Most of them simply don’t know how to interpret that experience. They are correct in preparing for another war but wrong in relying upon what worked in the last one.

Investors, unfortunately, seem to make the same mistakes in marshaling their resources as do the generals. If the last 30 years have been prosperous, they base their actions on more prosperity. Talk of a depression isn’t real to them because things are, in fact, so different from the 1930s. To most people, a depression means ’30s-style conditions, and since they don’t see that, they can’t imagine a depression. That’s because they know what the last depression was like, but they don’t know what one is. It’s hard to visualize something you don’t understand.

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Another travesty that, like Epstein, a lot of powerful people would rather you not look too closely. From Seymour Hersh at seymourhersh.substack.com:

An eyewitness account of the ongoing devastation in Gaza

The world remains on fire in many places, but it is easy to forget that things are still burning in Gaza, and the worst is not over for the Palestinians.

The Israelis are in the process of deciding whether once again to bomb what they fear is a rebuilt Hezbollah command in Lebanon. I’ve been told by an informed official that the Iranian Army, more than a million strong, may hold the fate of Iran. President Donald Trump, after attacking Venezuela and apprehending President Nicolás Maduro, now claims control of more oil in reserve than Saudi Arabia and Russia put together, and of course far more than China. Russian President Vladimir Putin has gone missing from the peace talks with Ukraine.

The Israel military, under the command of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is continuing to drop bombs on Gaza as yet another ceasefire is broken. Now squeezed into one half of Gaza, the Palestinians are staying put and doing all they can to stay alive. Some are even preparing to plant their crops for the coming season.

It is a miracle of endurance despite the fact that, as the New York Times reported this week, the Israeli Air Force and Army have destroyed more than 2,500 buildings in Gaza since the ceasefire agreement with Israel was signed last October. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian survivors are now living in tents that are flooded in heavy rain. It is a zone that is very cold.

As has been widely reported, there is now more food coming into Gaza, but much of it does not reach those in need but instead those most able to pay.

I recently had a long talk with a veteran observer of Gaza, who has been visiting the territory for years, long before and many times after the murderous Hamas attacks on Israel of October 7, 2023.

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The lesson from previous Gestapo states: they happen gradually, the old boiling frog analogy. From George Samuelson at strategic-culture.su:

If Mrs. Good was a “domestic terrorist,” then the United States is a breeding ground of all those millions of “terrorists” who drive around town with their families inside of SUVs.

Americans took to the streets over the weekend in over 1,000 protests across the country to demand justice for a mother who was shot dead by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Renee Nicole Good was your typical suburban American. She was the mother of three children and liked to write poetry. But on January 7, her life was cut tragically short when she was shot in the head by an ICE agent, yet another tragedy that has sharply divided the nation. The protesters insist that Good was unjustly killed, and the visual evidence of the incident strongly supports that argument.

Good was seen on video blocking a neighborhood street with her SUV. While that is certainly grounds for law enforcement to arrive on the scene, what happened in the course of action defies logic. As two ICE agents approach the vehicle, no attempt to calmly converse with Good was seen. Instead, one of the agents grabs the door handle and aggressively demanded that Good exit the vehicle. Obviously scared by the encounter, Good made a fatal decision as she attempted to flee the scene. This caused the second officer, who was standing off to the left in front of the vehicle, to open fire at the windshield with three bullets, hitting Good in the head and killing her instantly.

Most people by now recognize the difference between a regular police stop and the abuse of police powers. A routine police stop involves the officer speaking to the driver in a calm manner while performing the necessary task of checking documents, like the driver’s license and registration. Most Americans are rightly frightened when they get pulled over by the police, and this necessitates that the intervening officer keep the situation under control. That was clearly not the case with Renee Good, who had the misfortune of coming in contact with an ICE agent who is clearly in the wrong profession.

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The 64 dollar question: “can a people remain free if they place their faith in the virtue (or vice) of one man?” From John and Nisha Whitehead at rutherford.org:

NYT: “Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?”

President Trump: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me, and that’s very good.”

n January 1776, Thomas Paine published Common Sense, a pamphlet that gave voice to the discontent of a nation struggling to free itself from a tyrannical ruler who believed power flowed from his own will rather than the consent of the governed.

Paine’s warning was not theoretical.

Two hundred and fifty years later, we find ourselves confronting the same dilemma—this time from inside the White House: can a people remain free if they place their faith in the virtue (or vice) of one man?

When asked by the New York Times what might restrain his power grabs, Donald Trump did not point to the Constitution, the courts, Congress, or the rule of law—as his oath of office and our constitutional republic require. He pointed to himself.

According to Trump, the only thing standing between America and unchecked power is his own morality.

Now America’s founders believed in faith and morality. As John Adams warned in 1798, “Avarice, Ambition and Revenge or Galantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Adams was not advocating for a theocracy. Rather, he was emphasizing that a government of liars, thugs, and thieves will not be bound by constitutional limits. It will treat them as inconveniences.

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If Trump snatches Greenland, he will be waging war against NATO ally Denmark, of which Greenland has been a colony since 1721. Denmark of course doesn’t have the military might to contest such a takeover, even if the rest of NATO joined it. From Uriel Araujo at lewrockwell.com:

American threats against Greenland have forced Europe to rethink NATO’s most basic assumptions. Trump’s foreign policy combines global interventionism with neo-Monroeist ambitions closer to home. The result is an Atlantic Alliance facing erosion not from outside enemies, but from its own power center.

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy has stated that “it would be the end of NATO” if the US were to annex Greenland, a remark prompted by President Donald Trump’s declaration that Washington would “do something on Greenland, whether they like it or not”.

Such alarmist-sounding warning has now suddenly become part of mainstream debate across Europe, as Germany pledges a larger Arctic role and senior officials in France, Poland and Denmark openly discuss contingency plans against a threat coming not from Moscow, but from within the Atlantic Alliance itself.

Trump’s renewed fixation on Greenland cannot be dismissed as yet another rhetorical excess. Jeremy Shapiro (Research Director of the European Council on Foreign Relations) has outlined how US pressure could win Greenland, by exploiting economic vulnerabilities, manipulating security arrangements, and even resorting to outright military intimidation. The scenario is no longer purely theoretical. Media outlets such as The Guardian, CNN, Al Jazeera, CNBC and the Financial Times have all reported, in recent days, on emergency consultations within NATO and the EU about how to respond if a NATO member were to threaten another with invasion.

For years, analysts across the ideological spectrum predicted that Trump, sometimes wrongly portrayed as a “pro-Russian” isolationist, would “kill” NATO by withdrawing from it. Both Atlanticists and some anti-imperialist commentators converged on the same conclusion, albeit with opposite moral judgments. Ironically enough, Trump is not threatening the future of NATO through retreat, but is risking its collapse through escalation so aggressively that it turns the Alliance’s logic inside out. As it turns out, an alliance premise on collective defense against external threats cannot survive if its leading power openly threatens to conquer allied territory.

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Statistics can’t hide the U.S.’s deep-rooted economic rot and malaise. From Be Water via zerohedge.com:

The 2008 Crisis Never Ended

Do you wish to know [when] that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society’s virtue. When you see that [commerce is conducted], not by consent, but by compulsion—when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing—when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors—when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you–when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice—[then] you may know [that day has arrived]… 

—Francisco d’Anconia

No Country For Young Men

For most of America, the headlines trumpeting a “strong economy” and “stocks at record highs” land like a cruel joke. Michael W. Green’s recent series My Life Is A Lie attempted to quantify the economic devastation felt by the majority of the country these many years. This carnage has been sanctified by our technocrats—an Aztec priesthood invoking sacred economic statistics as celestial omens to justify the ritual sacrifice of society on the altars of GDP and the S&P 500.

Green, an investment industry insider, gave voice to the Forgotten Man:

Predictably, the priesthood declared heresy. Economists, journalists, thought leaders, think tanks, and other fellow travelers circled the wagons, tearing apart Green’s numbers, splitting hairs, and nitpicking his methodology.

That is a grave mistake.

Fiddling While Rome Burns

How can you expect a man who’s warm to understand a man who’s cold?

—One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn

This sort of wonkish debate—whether the poverty line is $30k or $140k, whether CPI is 2% or 4%—exemplifies the scientism enabling our national dissolution: the religious belief that the statistical map is more real than the economic territory. Perhaps such effete technocratic sophistry could be tolerated—even indulged—were the body politic unified. But it is a fatal conceit in such a Balkanized powder keg of a nation.

Into this highly combustible environment, Green’s essays landed like an errant spark. If nothing else, Green forced a long-overdue reckoning with a reality that the credentialed class has steadfastly refused to acknowledge: that they themselves have spent decades drowning the American Dream in a flood of ruinous policy, even as they now insist that the water level is perfectly fine and that Americans are simply bad swimmers.

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Greenland has a lot to offer the U.S., and it’s there for the taking. That doesn’t mean it would be right for the U.S. to take it, but such considerations rarely, if ever, enter Trump’s mind. From Andrew Korybko at korybko.substack.com:

Building more facilities there to complement Pituffik Space Base would further the US’ “Golden Dome” missile defense plans for obtaining a strategic edge over Russia while extracting more critical minerals from there would reduce dependence on vulnerable Chinese supply chains.

Trump recently reaffirmed his intent to annex Greenland on the pretext that this would supposedly preempt China or Russia from invading NATO member Denmark’s autonomous territory. Many believe that his main motivation, however, is to obtain control over what’s estimated to be the world’s second-largest reserve of critical minerals. The Daily Mail then reported that the US itself is actually planning on invading the world’s largest island, not China or Russia, who Denmark doesn’t consider to pose a threat.

Amidst this news, Bloomberg reported that “UK, Germany Talk NATO Forces in Greenland to Calm US Threat” ostensibly with the intent of deterring the US even though it’s extremely unlikely that they’d fight it over Greenland just like it was earlier assessed that France wouldn’t either. Greenland is basically Trump’s for the taking if he really wants it since neither NATO nor the locals can stop it, the latter of whom have no realistic way to block it from extracting resources or building more military bases there.

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h/t Malone News