The Terrifying Case of Natalie Strecker

Comment: Full blown tyranny, Orwellian style is here. It was bad before, but it's a whole new slice of totalitarianism now descending... We resist this now or the there will be no freedom left to do so. The window is closing...

-------------------

Craig Murray

I am confident that over 2 million people in the UK have shared thoughts on the Genocide in Gaza that are stronger than anything Natalie Strecker has expressed

I am quite certain that I am one of those 2 million.

Yet Natalie Strecker, an avowed pacifist, today faces up to ten years in prison under the Terrorism Act when the verdict in her case comes in.

Strecker is charged with eliciting support for Hamas and Hezbollah, based on 8 tweets, cherry-picked by police and prosecutors from an astounding 51,000 tweets she sent, mainly from the Jersey Palestine Solidarity Committee account.

The tweets were rather rattled off in court and referred to occasionally again in whole and in part. There may be minor inaccuracies not affecting sense, but this is the best reconstruction of those tweets that I can make (they were not displayed to the public):

Read more

Quick Take…The Covid Inquiry’s (Incredibly Predictable) Findings

Kit Knightley | Off Guardian

The UK’s Covid Enquiry has published its second report, and its conclusion is as relevant as it is predictable. 

To quote Sky News:

The response of the UK’s four governments to the pandemic was a “repeated case of too little, too late” and tens of thousands of lives could have been saved had lockdowns been introduced faster, the COVID-19 Inquiry has found

That’s all they were ever going to say, and it’s all we really need to know.

The full report is over seven hundred and fifty pages across two volumes, a Tolstoy novel of irrelevance.

This is the point of formal inquiries, months of quasi-meaningless testimony whose only purpose is to eat up time until the public memory has faded, then lend verisimilitude to the pre-written revisionist conclusion.

We already know the truth, and it’s a truth too big a for single sentence conclusion, five years after the fact, to rewrite.

Read more

THE “GIANT LEAP” — THE WEF’S MOST RADICAL BLUEPRINT YET

Jim Ferguson

THE “GIANT LEAP” — THE WEF’S MOST RADICAL BLUEPRINT YET 

The global elites have finally said the quiet part out loud: their so-called “Giant Leap” is not a proposal — it’s a plan to reshape society from the top down, whether the public agrees or not. 

In their own words, this is a “complete shake-up… everything, everywhere, all at once.” 

They call it “well-being.” 

But look closely at what they demand: 

• A total restructuring of the global economy 

• Mass redistribution of wealth 

• A shift to plant-based, managed diets 

• Centralised control of energy, consumption and resources 

• Universal “dividends” tied to global commons 

• A circular, regenerative economic model 

• Fossil fuels phased out 

• Material consumption restricted 

• And the public “brought along the journey” 

This isn’t environmental policy.

It’s a controlled society. 

 They admit it will be disruptive, that it will create shocks, and that nothing less than five extraordinary turnarounds — imposed simultaneously — will be needed to force the world into their vision. 

They talk about fairness. 

They talk about justice. 

But what they describe is a technocratic governance system powerful enough to decide: 

What you eat. 

How you travel. 

What you consume. 

What you earn. 

What you own. 

And what you’re allowed to do. 

They’re not asking for permission. 

 They’re announcing what comes next. 

 A society run by unelected global planners, not democratic nations. 

A system where compliance replaces consent. 

A future built by elites who believe your freedoms are negotiable — but their power is not. 

Stay awake. The “Giant Leap” isn’t progress. 

It’s control dressed as compassion.

Read More (video)

86% of PCR-Positive “COVID Cases” Were Not Real Infections

Nicholas Hulscher | The Focal Points

A bombshell peer-reviewed study out of Germany just dismantled the scientific foundation used to justify lockdowns, social distancing, and vaccine mandates.

Researchers analyzed data from the Akkreditierte Labore in der Medizin (ALM) — a nationwide consortium of authority-accredited medical laboratories that performed roughly 90% of all SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests in Germany between 2020 and 2023.

When researchers compared the ALM’s week-by-week PCR positivity rates with the same labs’ IgG antibody testing data — essentially measuring who truly developed infection-induced immunity — they discovered something staggering:

Only about 14% of those who tested PCR-positive during the early pandemic period (2020–mid-2021) actually developed antibodies — meaning most early “cases” were never real infections.

Read more

 

The West discovers Zelensky is not really a good guy

Tarik Cyril Amar | RT

 

In a fleeting glimpse of lucidity, the mainstream media has noticed a tiny fraction of the corruption and authoritarianism in Kiev.

It's that time of the great proxy war crusade against Russia again. Someone in the mainstream West has woken up to, if not the facts about the politics of Ukraine, then at least a quantum of disquiet.

The last major wave of the likes of the Financial Times, The Economist, and The Spectator suddenly noticing - all at the same time, as if on cue - that Ukraine has an authoritarianism and corruption problem (and then some) took place less than half a year ago.

Now it's Politico - usually a steadfast party organ of Russophobia, Zionism-come-what-genocide-may, and servility to NATO - that feels vaguely troubled by the realities of the Kiev regime or, as the publication puts it, the "dark side" of Vladimir "I don't like elections" Zelensky's rule.

Not all of those realities, of course. That would be asking too much. Instead, Politico is homing in on one great scandal (out of countless ones) concerning one man and the anguish of a few "civil-society"-NGO types, both with good connections to the West. This time, the scandal concerns the obvious, shameless political prosecution of Vladimir Kudritsky, formerly a high-ranking and effective energy infrastructure executive and de facto civil servant.

Yet what about noticing the murder in Ukrainian detention of critical blogger - and US citizen - Gonzalo Lira? Or the vicious persecution of leftist war critic Bogdan Syrotiuk? Or the mean, indecent harassing of Christian clergy and believers for not saying their prayers in quite the right Ukrainian-nationalist-approved manner? Perish the thought!

In a similar spirit of extreme selectiveness, some Western outlets are now registering - a little and very slowly - the brutal realities of Ukrainian forced mobilization that feed the Western proxy war: Recently, a war - pardon, "defense" - editor of the ultra-gung-ho British tabloid The Sun has returned shell-shocked from NATO's de facto eastern front, not because of the bloody and wasteful fighting but because the uncouth Ukrainians press-ganged his fixer.

In a similarly traumatic experience, Hollywood's Angelina Jolie had her local driver snatched away at a Ukrainian military roadblock. Yet violent forced mobilization has been an everyday occurrence in Ukraine for years already. So much so that Ukrainians have chosen the term "busification" (from minibus, a popular vehicle for mobilization manhunts) as word of the year for 2025.

For quite a few of its victims, it ends up even worse than for those privileged enough to work for Western movie stars and British propagandists. Roman Sopin, for instance, who did not even resist, has just been beaten to death in a mobilization precinct in central Kiev, as an official medical assessment of his cause of death implies as clearly as anyone may dare under Zelensky's regime.

But let's get back to the few things Western media deign to notice occasionally: Already dismissed last year, Kudritsky is now facing the courts under transparently trumped-up charges. The reason is obvious to everyone. He has been too popular and far too vocal about corruption at the highest levels and the authoritarian power grabs of Zelensky's presidential office in particular.

Kudritsky's case - comparatively harmless, really - does raise many disturbing questions: why is it that the Zelensky regime has such a nasty record of abusing arbitrary financial sanctions and politically perverted legal processes, or lawfare? And haven't we been told that this regime under its "Churchillian" leader is fighting for Western values of democracy and legality?
 

Read more

Anatomy of The Deep State -Real News and Bill Moyer’s Reports – False Flags as a tool of The Israeli Infiltrated Deep State

Clarity of Signal (2017)

This post will examine the structure and various aspects of The Deep State, along with who controls it and how they use both real and false flag events to carry out their global domination agenda. Bill Moyer’s starts us off with a basic breakdown on The Deep State…..

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power. [1]

During the last five years, the news media have been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics of Washington. The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become the new normal. That is certainly the case, and I have been among the harshest critics of this development. But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American governmental system. On one level, the critique is self-evident: In the domain that the public can see, Congress is hopelessly deadlocked in the worst manner since the 1850s, the violently rancorous decade preceding the Civil War.

Yes, there is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country…

As I wrote in The Party is Over, the present objective of congressional Republicans is to render the executive branch powerless, at least until a Republican president is elected (a goal that voter suppression laws in GOP-controlled states are clearly intended to accomplish). President Obama cannot enact his domestic policies and budgets: Because of incessant GOP filibustering, not only could he not fill the large number of vacancies in the federal judiciary, he could not even get his most innocuous presidential appointees into office. Democrats controlling the Senate have responded by weakening the filibuster of nominations, but Republicans are sure to react with other parliamentary delaying tactics. This strategy amounts to congressional nullification of executive branch powers by a party that controls a majority in only one house of Congress.

Despite this apparent impotence, President Obama can liquidate American citizens without due processes, detain prisoners indefinitely without charge, conduct dragnet surveillance on the American people without judicial warrant and engage in unprecedented — at least since the McCarthy era — witch hunts against federal employees (the so-called “Insider Threat Program”). Within the United States, this power is characterized by massive displays of intimidating force by militarized federal, state and local law enforcement. Abroad, President Obama can start wars at will and engage in virtually any other activity whatsoever without so much as a by-your-leave from Congress, such as arranging the forced landing of a plane carrying a sovereign head of state over foreign territory. Despite the habitual cant of congressional Republicans about executive overreach by Obama, the would-be dictator, we have until recently heard very little from them about these actions — with the minor exception of comments from gadfly Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Democrats, save a few mavericks such as Ron Wyden of Oregon, are not unduly troubled, either — even to the extent of permitting seemingly perjured congressional testimony under oath by executive branch officials on the subject of illegal surveillance.

Read more

Covid response killed more children than covid, UK Covid Inquiry hears

Rhoda Wilson | Expose News

Earlier this month, Professor Steve Turner, a consultant paediatrician, gave evidence at the UK Covid Inquiry.  He testified that paediatricians learnt very early on that covid did not make children sick, the virus “bounced off” even the most severely sick children.

“Children who had kidney transplants, whose immune system was suppressed – we were really worried about them.  But the virus bounced off them.  So, we knew very, very quickly that this virus, for whatever reason, was not doing harm for the vast majority of children in whom we thought it would,” he said.

Professor Steve Turner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (“RCPCH”), provided evidence to the UK Covid-19 Inquiry on 8 October 2025, on behalf of the paediatric workforce.

His testimony focused on the impact of the pandemic on children, young people and their health services, highlighting that the de-prioritisation of children’s healthcare services persisted for too long and that the indirect effects on their health and wellbeing were not adequately recognised. 

Speaking of the most vulnerable children who had serious health issues and should have been at risk of falling victim to covid, as the official narrative had claimed, Prof. Turner explained that it was known very early on that this was not the case.

“When we started, we thought this [covid] could be really nasty, and there were three categories into which people of all ages were placed in terms of risk. But very, very, very, very quickly, our patients and their parents told us that if … children who have gone through heroic surgery, have life-threatening problems, are ventilated at night, when they get covid and the rest of the family gets covid, it was the parents and the carers who were [sick].

“Children who had kidney transplants, whose immune system was suppressed – we were really worried about them.  But the virus bounced off them.  So, we knew very, very quickly that this virus, for whatever reason, was not doing harm for the vast majority of children in whom we thought it would,” he said.

When asked what the Government and its advisors had not done well in responding to covid, Prof. Turner said: “There was not enough consideration given to the innumerable harmful indirect harm that was done to them as a consequence of the provisions made around covid.”

Read more

The Great Barrington Declaration At Five Years

Jeffrey A. Tucker | Zero Hedge

It was 8:45 a.m. and the date was Aug. 23, 2020. We were five months into the pandemic panic. The isolation and strangeness had become unbearable not only to me personally but to vast numbers. The businesses and schools were closed. Anthony Fauci of NIAID and all his media cheerleaders seemed to be the only narrative around.

Everyone was waiting for something. One day rolled into the next, marked by unbearable repetition, each turn of the clock nearly indistinguishable from the last one and the next one. Everyone seemed to be waiting for something to happen but it was not clear what that was.

I had been writing about pandemic planning for 15 years and knew that what was going on was a grave error. Indeed, from January 2020 I had warned that some people imagined that the way to battle a virus was through an elaborate duck-and-cover ritual that contradicted the whole history of public health. By mid-March, 2020, the experiment was on, and the world economy was being strangled.

The usual proponents of free enterprise and civil liberties fell silent. This was mostly for reasons of career protection. It was obvious at the time what everyone was supposed to say: listen to the science, we are all in this together, wear your mask, don't do your own research, stop longing for your "freedumb." Most everyone in the professional classes went along, partially because so many people enjoyed working from home and receiving vast sums from the government dropped directly in their bank accounts.

Desperate for allies in this struggle, I happened to notice a professor at Harvard was posting some sensible things. Not sure why this particular post made it through the censors but it did and I read it. I was thrilled, and decided to try my luck. That early morning, I dropped him a note on Twitter direct messaging. I invited him for dinner. He accepted.

That was the beginning of a long friendship that continues to this day. But it was also the beginning of the hardest years of our lives. Martin Kulldorff and I visited each other and I learned from him: about public health principles, natural immunity, the normal course of respiratory infection waves, how to deal with the many features of such pathogens, and so on.

It was Martin's idea to broaden the discussion. What if we invite a group of top journalists in and offer some expert commentary? This would surely help improve their reporting. Maybe then they would stop simply echoing the crazy claims coming from the CDC and NIH. That struck me as a good idea, so I went to work on logistics. The deadline was tight: two weeks.

The problems began immediately. Not a single reporter responded to my invitation. I could not understand why. Three of the world's top epidemiologists — Martin plus Jay Bhattacharya (now directing the NIH) and Sunetra Gupta — were coming together for their benefit. Why were they not interested in learning more about the subject they were covering for TV and newspapers?

The gathering took place anyway.  

Read more

West weaponizing laws to silence pro-Palestine activism: Study

Al Mayadeen 

The right to protest is facing increasing restrictions across the West, The Guardian reported on Monday, citing a new study by the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), which accuses governments of criminalizing pro-Palestine activism and using counter-terrorism and antisemitism laws to stifle dissent.

The report focuses on the UK, US, France, and Germany, accusing authorities in these countries of “weaponizing” national security and anti-hate legislation to silence criticism of “Israel” and suppress demonstrations supporting Palestinian rights in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

“This trend reflects a worrying shift towards the normalization of exceptional measures in dealing with dissenting voices,” Yosra Frawes, head of FIDH’s Maghreb and Middle East desk, told The Guardian.

Compiled from open-source data, witness accounts, and institutional reports gathered between October 2023 and September 2025, the study was released just one day after a US-brokered Gaza ceasefire that secured the release of all living Israeli captives and around 2,000 Palestinian detainees.

According to FIDH, restrictions on speech and assembly have extended beyond protests, impacting journalists, academics, and public officials who express solidarity with Palestinians.

Read more 

Checkpoint Britain: the dangers of digital ID and why privacy must be protected

Big Brother Watch UK

Our groundbreaking new report, 'Checkpoint Britain: the dangers of digital ID and why privacy must be protected’ is a timely response to the Government seeming to be on the brink of forcing every UK adult onto a giant digital ID system – all in the name of tackling illegal immigration.

Let us be clear - no one voted for a digital ID scheme and the government has no clear mandate to implement one.

The vital new report examines how mandatory digital ID would turn the UK into the kind of “papers, please” society that the British public has persistently rejected for decades. It lays out in detail how a digital ID system could work, how the government could mandate it for a range of public services, and the devastating impact it would have on privacy and civil liberties.

It also includes original independent polling we’ve commissioned showing that the clear majority of the British public (63%) does not trust the government to keep their digital ID data secure.

Download the report for free or read the key findings.

Swiss voters narrowly approve plan for electronic ID cards

Imogen Foulkes | BBC

Swiss voters have narrowly approved a plan to introduce voluntary electronic identity cards.

With all votes counted, 50.4% of those who voted said yes to the proposal, while 49.6% rejected it.

The closeness of the ballot is a surprise. Opinion polls had suggested up to 60% backed digital IDs, which also had the approval of the Swiss government, and both houses of parliament.

It was Switzerland's second vote on digital IDs. An earlier proposal was rejected in 2021, amid concerns the data would be held centrally, and controlled largely by private providers.

Sunday's revised proposal keeps the system in government hands. Data will be stored only on the smartphones of individual users, and digital IDs will be optional.

Citizens can continue to use national identity card if they choose, which has been standard for decades in Switzerland.

To further ease privacy concerns, a particular authority seeking information on a person – such as proof of age or nationality, for example – will only be able to check for those specific details.

It comes after the UK government announced plans earlier this week to introduce its own digital ID - which would be mandatory for employment - as part of efforts to curb the number of illegal migrants living and working in the country. 

Comment: It's the other way around. The flood of immigrants - illegal or otherwise - was the means to justify a new digital tyranny. Next stop full integration into a AI-SMART infrastructure from your phone. The only problem is, you won't be able to opt out and your financial, health and political freedom will be gone. All they need is a major crisis (war with Russia; civil war) and they hope everyone will be running to Daddy state to save them. Hello Dr Faustus. 

Read more

EVERY adult in Britain will need a Government-issued ID card despite backlash at Starmer's plan for a 'dystopian nightmare'

Daily Mail

Every working adult in Britain will require a Government-issued digital ID card under a 'dystopian' plan set to be announced by Sir Keir Starmer. 

The idea of a mandatory identification system has long been advocated by Labour as a way to tackle illegal migration. 

But the proposal is fiercely opposed by civil rights campaigners, who warn it will erode civil liberties and turn the UK into a 'papers please' society. 

Meanwhile, polls show a majority of the public do not trust ministers to keep their personal data safe from cyber-criminals. 

Detailed proposals for what has been dubbed a 'Brit Card' could be announced by the Prime Minister as early as tomorrow.

The proposed "Brit Card" Digital ID

Under the scheme, anyone starting a new job or renting a property would be required to show their digital ID on an app so it can be automatically checked against a central database. 

Currently, employees and renters have the option of showing a number of different forms of physical ID, but there are fears these are too easy to fake. 

There is also little to stop unscrupulous employers claiming they have made a check when they have not. 

However, critics have dismissed the plan as a reheated version of Tony Blair's failed ID card scheme, which was axed amid concerns over privacy and soaring costs.

Sir Keir's proposals will be subject to a consultation and are expected to require legislation. The UK is one of the few countries in Europe without an ID system. 

Read more

Graham Linehan arrested at Heathrow over his X posts

Comment: Another example of British tyranny with police arresting people for having the wrong opinions. Forget serious crime, trawling x feeds is a far better use of tax payers' money. A dangerous red flag for our immediate future. The Clown World continues...

BBC News

Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan has been arrested at Heathrow Airport on suspicion of inciting violence in relation to his posts on X.

He was arrested by five officers after arriving on a flight from the US, and said in an online Substack article that officials then became concerned for his health after taking his blood pressure, and took him to hospital.

The Metropolitan Police said that a man in his 50s was arrested on 1 September at Heathrow Airport and taken to hospital, adding his condition "is neither life-threatening nor life-changing" , and he was bailed "pending further investigation".

Linehan said in an online article on Substack that his bail condition stipulates he is "not to go on Twitter" and that his arrest related to three posts on X from April, on his views about challenging "a trans-identified male" in "a female-only space".

The arrest prompted a furious backlash from figures including author JK Rowling.

Linehan shared screen shots of the posts he said he was arrested for on Substack, the subscription-based online platform.

The first post, from his X feed, called it a "violent, abusive act" for a trans-identified male to be in a female-only space. He suggested: "Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls."

Read more 

Human Brains Re-wired in Tech Age, Big Tech Capitalizes on “Hypersensitized” Dopamine Systems

Daniel Taylor
Old Thinker News

“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works…”

Facebook has been spotlighted for its censorship of Alex Jones and Infowars, but there is another angle to Big Tech tyranny.

Depression and suicide are at record rates in the west. While there are many driving factors behind this trend, one of them appears to be worsening addictions to tech.

Human development has this far driven us toward interaction with others. We needed to connect with and learn from each other. We need to reproduce.

What happens when our technology becomes more “rewarding” than anything else?

In Japan, where cultural norms allow for rapid adoption of new technology, a population crisis is emerging as young people are no longer having relationships.

The Independent reports:

“Some men claimed they “find women scary” as a poll found that around 31% of people aged 18 to 34 from the island nation say they are virgins.”

One Japanese woman said, “I think a lot of men just cannot be bothered. They can watch porn on the internet and get sexual satisfaction that way.”

We are literally becoming addicted to our technology and the distraction that it brings. Every time we see the glowing red indicator on our Facebook page, our brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine.

Dopamine is a central part of the reward center in the brain. It tells us, “Ok, this act (eating food, sex, achieving a goal) brought pleasure, do it again”.

The Guardian reported on the modern phenomenon of our dopamine systems becoming “hypersensitized”, making normal interactions and natural human activities less engaging:

What’s more, our 21st-century world is so heavily baited with cues and stimuli – from stealthy marketing to junk food, not to mention the nagging lure of online life – that it appears to be rigging our dopamine systems to become “hypersensitised”.

Big Tech has capitalized on this mind-hack.

Read more

Gangster State America

Paul Craig Roberts

Where Is America’s Democracy?

Anyone who looks carefully behind the veil of words cannot find democracy in America. For years I have been writing that the US government is no longer accountable to law or to the people (see, for example, my book, How America Was Lost). The Constitution has been set aside, and the executive branch is degenerating into Caesarism.

Government is used to impose agendas that result from the symbiotic relationship between the neoconservative ideology of US world hegemony and the economic interests of powerful private interest groups, such as Wall Street, the military/security complex, the Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and extractive industries (energy, mining, and timber). Dollar imperialism, threats, bribes, and wars are means by which US hegemony is extended. These agendas are pursued without the knowledge or approval of the American people and in spite of their opposition.

Professor Martin Gilens at Princeton University and Professor Benjamin Page of Northwestern University have examined American governance and have concluded that the US is an oligarchy ruled by powerful rich private interest groups and that the US government has only a superficial resemblance to a democracy. Their analysis is forthcoming in publication in the journal, Perspectives on Politics.
Their conclusions are striking:

“The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”
“When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites and/or with organized interests, they generally lose.”

“In the United States, our findings indicate that the majority does not rule–at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes.”

“The preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.”

A number of factors have contributed to the demise of democracy and accountable government in the US. One factor is the concentration of the US media in a few hands. During the last years of the Clinton regime, a formerly diverse media with significant independence was concentrated in five mega-corporations. The value of these corporations consists largely of their federal broadcast licenses. To insure the renewal of these licenses, the media avoids challenging the government on significant issues.
Another factor is the offshoring of US industrial and manufacturing jobs. This development destroyed the manufacturing and industrial unions, which were the backbone of the Democratic Party’s financial support. Now the Democrats have to appeal to the same interest groups as the Republicans–Wall Street, the military/security complex, and the polluting industries that despoil the environment. As both political parties are now financed by the same private interests, both political parties serve the same masters. There is no longer any countervailing power. The Obama regime is simply a continuation of the George W. Bush regime.

Two recent rulings by the Republican majority on the US Supreme Court are another decisive factor. The court ruled that it is merely an exercise of free speech for oligarchs to purchase the US government (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission). A corrupt Supreme Court has invented a “constitutional right” for corporations and oligarchs to use their vast financial resources to form a government of their choosing.

Private interest groups in the US are so powerful that they can purchase immunity from law. On March 27 a retiring Securities and Exchange Commission prosecutor, James Kidney, said that his prosecutions of financial criminals at Goldman Sachs and other giant US banks were blocked by SEC political appointees who “were focused on getting high-paying jobs after their government service.”

In a recent test to ascertain the responsiveness of members of Congress to monied interests in comparison to voters, two letters were sent to congressional offices. One letter asked for the representative to meet with community groups in his district. The other letter asked for the representative to meet with a group of active donors. The latter letter received by far the most responses from members of Congress.

In the US and Europe there is constant propaganda about “gangster state Russia.” According to this propaganda, President Putin is a tool of oligarchs who use Putin to rule Russia and loot the people. In my opinion, this propaganda originates in the Washington-funded NGOs that constitute a US fifth column inside Russia. The purpose of the propaganda is to destroy Putin’s legitimacy and that of his government in hopes of bringing to power a Washington-compliant government in Moscow.

My impression is that the Russian government has curtailed activities of some of the oligarchs who used the privatization era to seize control of resources, but that the government’s actions are consistent with the rule of law. In contrast, in the US oligarchs control the law and use it to acquire immunity from law.

The real gangster state is the US. Every institution is corrupt. Regulators sell protection from law for well-paying jobs in the industries that they are supposed to regulate. The Supreme Court not only permits money to purchase the government but also sells out the Constitution to the police state. The Supreme Court has just refused to hear the case against indefinite detention of US citizens in the absence of due process. This is an unambiguous unconstitutional law, yet the Supreme Court refuses to even hear the case, thus granting unchecked police power to the gangster state. http://rt.com/usa/156172-scotus-ndaa-hedges-obama/

Another defining characteristic of a gangster state is the criminalization of dissent and truth tellers. Washington has done everything in its power to criminalize Julian Assange and Edward Snowden for revealing the US government’s illegal, unconstitutional, and criminal actions. Washington reeks of hypocrisy. On April 26 the State Department announced its third annual Free The Press campaign, a propaganda exercise directed at foreign countries that are not Washington’s puppets. The very same day the Justice Department told the Supreme Court to reject the protection US journalists have under the Constitution against being forced to reveal their confidential sources so that James Risen can be imprisoned for reporting a government misdeed. https://pressfreedomfoundation.org/blog/2014/04/state-dept-launches-free-press-campaign-while-doj-supreme-court-force-reporter
In the 21st century Washington has squandered trillions of dollars on wars that have destroyed countries and killed, maimed, and displaced millions of people in seven or eight countries. Declaring its war crimes to be a “war on terror,” Washington has used the state of war that it created to destroy US civil liberty.

In the 21st century it is difficult to find a significant statement made by Washington that is not a lie.

Obamacare is a lie. Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction is a lie. Assad’s use of chemical weapons is a lie. Iranian nukes are a lie. Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea is a lie. No fly zones are a lie. Russian aggression against Georgia is a lie. 9/11, the basis for Washington’s destruction of civil liberty and illegal military attacks, is itself a lie. The fantastic story that a few Saudi Arabians without government or intelligence agency backing outwitted the entire national security apparatus of the Western world is unbelievable. It is simply not credible that every institution of the national security state simultaneously failed. That Washington would tell such a fantastic lie shows that Washington has no respect for the intelligence of the American people and no respect for the integrity of the American media. It shows also that Washington has no respect for the intelligence and integrity of its European and Asian allies.

Washington won’t even tell the truth about little things in comparison–jobs, unemployment, inflation, GDP growth, economic recovery. Washington rigs the markets in order to cover up its sacrifice of the economy for the benefit of a few special interests. In the name of “privatization,” Washington hands over public assets and government responsibilities to rapacious private interests.

The conclusion is inescapable that the US is a gangster state. Indeed, the US is worse than a mere gangster state. The US is a shameless exploitative tyranny.

About Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

  Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts' latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.