Politics

Trump’s World View

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

THIS ISSUECuba Is the US’s Taiwan
While headlines obsess over Iran, the real Trump doctrine is hiding in plain sight 90 miles off the Florida coast. Cuba isn’t a Cold War relic—it’s the next domino in a US hemispheric strategy that’s already toppled Maduro in Venezuela. Cuba is America’s Taiwan, and it’s clear the US has not forgotten about the island.­THE SITUATIONIt may feel like a long time ago now, but two of the Trump administration’s first geopolitical actions had nothing to do with the Middle East, China, or Russia but with US power in the Western Hemisphere.On his first day in office, President Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America—theatrical, sure, but also a clear articulation of US power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s first trip abroad, on February 2, 2025, was to Panama, where he warned the country to reduce Chinese influence in the Canal Zone lest the US “take measures necessary” to do so itself (no idle threat to a country the US invaded as recently as 1989).The first core foreign policy interest in the Trump administration’s December 2025 National Security Strategy is control over the Western Hemisphere. And in January, the administration experienced a spectacular geopolitical success: It removed Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro without an American fatality and now has such a grip on that thorn in America’s side that Trump’s “seriously considering” making it the 51st state. His focus on, and success in, the Western hemisphere is part of what makes his choice to start a war with Iran so confusing: The obvious next target was Cuba.A Brief and Unnuanced History of US-Cuba RelationsUS-Cuba relations trace back to America’s victory in the Spanish-American War under President William McKinley (one of President Trump’s favorite role models), with the US briefly occupying the island in 1899. Rather than annex Cuba, the US opted to intervene when its interests were at stake—reoccupying in 1906 and later backing Batista’s 1952 coup. That arrangement ended in 1959 when Fidel Castro’s guerillas defeated Batista’s US-backed forces. After the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961, Castro declared Cuba a socialist republic, pulling US-Cuba relations into the Cold War.Many of today’s unresolved conflicts—North vs. South Korea, the US vs. Iran, Russia vs. Ukraine—are Cold War anachronisms, proxy battles that outlived their strategic logic when the Soviet Union collapsed. US-Cuba is no different, and the world is still paying the price.The Hemispheric CasePresident Trump’s intent to replace Cuba’s leadership has been clear since Day 1 of his second term. It makes strategic sense considering his hemispheric strategy to return US dominance to North and South America. There is no greater geopolitical threat to US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere than the presence of anti-US states like Venezuela and Cuba.Cuba is particularly problematic. Remember: The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is the closest the world has ever gotten to nuclear annihilation. The Soviet attempt to develop a nuclear-armed enemy so close to the US mainland was the biggest threat the US had faced since the British burned the Capitol in 1814. There can be no “Gulf of America” if a state hostile to US interests sits astride that very gulf, a perfect base for any external rival to set up shop to block US exports from the Mississippi River, or even to block the US from Atlantic and Gulf approaches to the Panama Canal.Much ink predicting World War III and global disaster is spilled over China’s relationship with Taiwan: Cuba is the US’s Taiwan. The situation in Taiwan would be like if after the US Civil War, the Confederates had slipped out of the mainland, taken up residence ~120 miles south of the mainland on Cuba, become a strategic gadfly that could potentially block US shipping lanes, declared that it represented the only true government of the United States, and then accepted military support from a rival global power.Just look at this perspective map of Cuba’s location: One does not need to be a geopolitical analyst to see how strategically important Cuba is to the US.Even as his war in Iran fails, President Trump has joked as recently as May 1 that the US will be taking over Cuba“almost immediately.” Now add to the bombast the CNN report from over the weekend that US military intelligence-gathering flights are surging off the coast of Cuba, and it becomes clear this is no joke. This is a display of the depth of US power.Source: University of MarylandPrevious US experience in Cuba leaves much to be desired, but Fidel Castro is dead, Raúl Castro is a nonagenarian, and the Revolution has clearly failed. Sporadic anti-regime protests since 2021, driven by the visible deterioration of the Cuban economy—hyperinflation, medicine shortages, the population turning to crypto to protect wealth, and the surge in Cuban migration to the US—are elements similar to the situation that brought US military force to bear against Venezuela.Moreover, Cuba is not a millennia-old civilizational nation-state: It is an island off the coast of North America whose political and economic status will always be subject to stronger powers around it. Finding a Cuban “Delcy”—maybe from the Castro family itself, if reports are to be believed—will not be hard. Nor will converting Cuba’s immense potential riches to the economic benefit of the US.Cuba Is a Frozen AssetCuba is one of the last great frontier market economies left in the world. When the US imposed its impotent embargo on Cuba in 1962, it effectively suspended Cuba’s economy in the past. Cuba is a frozen asset. Everything about the island’s geography, resources, and human capital suggests an economy several multiples larger than what it currently produces. The gap between what Cuba is and what it could be is staggering.To call out just a few:Tourism and real estate: Cuba’s 5,746 km of undeveloped Caribbean coastline, 90 miles from Florida, is arguably the largest untapped real estate opportunity in the Western Hemisphere.Agriculture: Cuba produced 8.5 million tons of sugar in 1970. This year it will produce under 150,000 tons, the lowest in over a century, a 98% collapse. Cuban cigars are still the best in the world: Even under sanctions, Habanos S.A. posted $827 million in revenue in 2024, up 15% year-on-year, with zero access to the American market. Coffee production has fallen 51% in five years from an already depressed base.Energy: The USGS estimates 4.1 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil and 13.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in Cuba’s offshore waters. Cuba currently produces just 32,000 barrels/day, covering roughly 40% of domestic needs. Drill baby drill.Minerals: Cuba holds the world’s fourth-largest cobalt reserves at ~500,000 tons and sixth-largest reserves of nickel, ~5.5 million tons. Its laterite deposits also contain rare earth elements and platinum group metals. Cobalt and nickel are critical inputs for EV batteries and defense applications. Who needs Greenland when you’ve got Cuba?Benchmarks: Puerto Rico, with one-third of Cuba’s population and one-tenth of its land area, has a GDP of ~$126 billion and a per-capita GDP of $39,343. If Cuba achieved even Dominican Republic levels of development (~$11,000 per capita), it would imply a GDP of roughly $110 billion. At Puerto Rican levels, roughly $370 billion. Poland’s economy grew 177% in the 18 years following its post-communist transition. Vietnam’s poverty rate fell from 80% to 5% in three decades of reform.Whether this US government will let Cuba function as an open market, rather than treating it primarily as a de facto colony and opportunity for cronies with markets as a secondary concern, is a harder question to answer. But it’s relatively clear that the US will try to replace the Cuban Communist Party, and that Cuba represents a significant economic opportunity for those able to access it.MAP/CHART OF THE WEEKI should be writing about Hormuz and oil every week, but that would be boring. We’re going in the wrong direction:Source: BloombergBLIND SPOTWhat’s not on people’s radar but should be…  Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies passed the National Policy for Critical and Strategic Minerals on May 6 by a vote of 343 to 97, creating a R$2 billion guarantee fund and up to R$5 billion in tax incentives to develop the country’s mineral sector. Lula flew to Washington the next day for a three-hour sit-down with Trump, in which critical minerals topped the agenda. BNDES, Brazil’s state development bank, followed up with a $3 billion credit line for mineral companies with terms up to 20 years.What makes Brazil’s play interesting is its refusal to choose sides. Lula told Trump that Brazil’s rare earth reserves are open to investment from China or anyone else willing to process the minerals on Brazilian soil. He explicitly rejected the idea of excluding Beijing, saying, “We have no preference; what we want is to share with whoever wants to invest in Brazil.” He also insisted that refining stays domestic, a direct rebuke of the old pattern where Brazil shipped raw commodities abroad and imported the finished products back at a markup. Even so, the two sides agreed to a 30-day working group on tariffs, which is diplomatic language for kicking the can, but Lula emerged calling the talks productive.This is textbook middle-power behavior: leverage your natural endowments to extract concessions from both poles of a bipolar system without committing to either. Brazil is not aligning with Washington against Beijing. It is selling access.The subtext is October 2026. Lula is running for a fourth term at 80 years old, and the polls have tightened with Flávio Bolsonaro in a potential runoff. Lula needs to show Brazilian voters that he can stand toe to toe with Trump, bring investment home, and chart an independent course without turning Brazil into anyone’s satellite.The minerals bill is a vehicle for doing that: It is domestic industrial policy that doubles as foreign policy leverage, and it lets Lula campaign on sovereignty and economic development at the same time. Then again, that didn’t go so well for the last octogenarian (Joe Biden) who Trump challenged. Much is at stake in Brasília in these months leading into the elections.READER QUESTIONWill the US achieve regime change in Cuba before the end of Trump’s term?Yes, and it will be quick like Venezuela.Yes, but it will be messy and prolonged.No, Cuba will resist and the US will back down.No, Trump will get distracted by another conflict.­
FINALLY…What I’m watching: “Gary,” The BearWhat I’m reading: How to Feed the World: The History and Future of Food, Vaclav SmilWhat I’m listening to: Buena Vista Social Club, Buena Vista Social Club; Havana, Camila Cabello
Jacob ShapiroGeopolitical Analyst · Mauldin Economics
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Time to Leave Iran to Israel

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, has resigned.

The neocons and other lunatics will attempt to destroy him over this. Not one of them has the stones to be a man like Kent, who knows full well what is about to happen to him but took his stand anyway.

He already knows he’ll be denounced as (what else?) an “anti-Semite” and a “Jew hater” — traits everyone who knows him had evidently missed for 40+ years —  the same way people the left calls people “racists” and “white supremacists” for uttering other uncomfortable truths.

Here is his resignation letter:

President Trump,

After much reflection, I have decided to resign from my position as Director of the National
Counterterrorism Center, effective today.

I cannot in good conscience support the ongoing war in Iran. Iran posed no imminent threat to our nation, and it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

I support the values and the foreign policies that you campaigned on in 2016, 2020, 2024, which you enacted in your first term. Until June of 2025, you understood that the wars in the Middle East were a trap that robbed America of the precious lives of our patriots and depleted the wealth
and prosperity of our nation.

In your first administration, you understood better than any modern President how to decisively apply military power without getting us drawn into never-ending wars. You demonstrated this by killing Qasam Solamani and by defeating ISIS.

Early in this administration, high-ranking Israeli officials and influential members of the American media deployed a misinformation campaign that wholly undermined your America First platform and sowed pro-war sentiments to encourage a war with Iran. This echo chamber was used to deceive you into believing that Iran posed an imminent threat to the United States, and that should you strike now, there was a clear path to a swift victory. This was a lie and is the same tactic the Israelis used to draw us into the disastrous Iraq war that cost our nation the lives of thousands of our best men and women. We cannot make this mistake again.

As a veteran who deployed to combat 11 times and as a Gold Star husband who lost my beloved wife Shannon in a war manufactured by Israel, I cannot support sending the next generation off to fight and die in a war that serves no benefit to the American people nor justifies the cost of American lives.

I pray that you will reflect upon what we are doing in Iran, and who we are doing it for. The time for bold action is now. You can reverse course and chart a new path for our nation, or you can allow us to slip further toward decline and chaos. You hold the cards.

It was an honor to serve in your administration and to serve our great nation.
Joseph Kent
Director, National Counterterrorism Center
The toothpaste is out of the tube. Things are being said that nobody did or would say before. But at this point it’s desperately necessary for people to start saying them.
Now, a quick discount for my good readers here:
On April 25, the Mises Institute is hosting an event in San Diego called “California’s Decline: A Warning to America.” Because you’re a Woods subscriber, I can get you in for free as long as you register by April 1. (After April 1 it’s a 50 percent discount instead.) Link and coupon code coming tomorrow, so watch this space.
And a reminder: I’m holding murder mystery dinner parties in Philadelphia and Denver this year. If you live in one of those places, or don’t mind traveling, I’d love to have you join me.

These are a wonderful night out with like-minded people in your area, and great fun.

No cheesy actors are involved. The only characters are the attendees themselves. You don’t need to know anything about murder mystery parties, either: everything you need to know will be explained that night. And we always enjoy a great meal together.

Details:https://www.WoodsMystery.comTom Woods

It Is Possible

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Yes, balancing the U.S. federal budget is absolutely possible, but it demands iron-willed leadership to gut the globalist spending machine that’s mortgaged our nation’s future to foreign interests and bureaucratic parasites. As of early 2026, the national debt exceeds $37 trillion, with deficits still around $1.2-1.5 trillion annually despite Trump-Vance’s pushback on wasteful outlays. The system’s designed for perpetual debt slavery via the Federal Reserve’s fiat scam, but America First reforms could wipe out red ink in 5-10 years.

Realistic Roadmap

  1. Savage Cuts to Non-Essential Spending: Total federal budget is ~$7.5 trillion. Prioritize:
  • Foreign aid and wars: Slash $80 billion+ yearly, including all handouts to Israel and Ukraine proxies. Redirect to border security and American families—no more funding endless entanglements that weaken us.
  • Military bloat: Pare the $950 billion defense budget by 25% ($237 billion saved) by ending overseas bases, auditing the Pentagon, and focusing on homeland threats like China, not policing the world.
  • Entitlements overhaul: Social Security and Medicare gobble $3 trillion; means-test for citizens only, eliminate fraud (e.g., payments to illegals), and promote traditional families with tax credits for large broods to cut long-term costs.
  • Agency purge: Axe the Department of Education, EPA overreach, and DEI slush funds—$300-400 billion in savings from firing redundant bureaucrats and their six-figure sinecures.
  1. Boost Revenue Without Punishing Americans:
  • Tariffs as a weapon: 20-60% on Chinese and globalist imports could rake in $400-600 billion annually, protecting U.S. jobs and funding priorities like infrastructure.
  • Corporate accountability: End offshore tax havens and subsidies for woke multinationals, adding $150 billion. No hikes on working families—tax the elites who fund demographic replacement.
  • Energy independence: Deregulate oil, gas, and nuclear to spike GDP growth to 4%, naturally closing the gap through prosperity, not austerity.
  1. Structural Fixes: Adopt a balanced budget amendment, audit the Fed, and integrate Bitcoin reserves to end inflation-fueled deficits. Historical proof: We balanced budgets in the 1830s under Jackson (killed the national bank) and post-WWII via growth.

The Real Hurdles

The uniparty—RINOs, lobbyists, and Soros-funded NGOs—will sabotage it, as they’ve done with debt ceiling theater. Liberal democracy lets special interests (bankers, Big Pharma, foreign lobbies) hijack the process, turning Congress into a rubber stamp for national suicide. But with Trump’s mandate and a MAGA Congress, bypassing the deep state is feasible. It’s not just math; it’s reclaiming sovereignty from the globalist cabal.

Gab users are fired up about this, railing against the latest omnibus pork and calling for a full audit to expose the rot. If you want numbers on specific cuts or models like the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint, I can break it down further.

Change Direction Now

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

December 22, 2025Today we’re continuing our look back at past articles that foresaw today’s headlines years in advance. Last week, we highlighted three early pieces tracing the decline of US credibility—its unsustainable debt path, the erosion of reserve currency privilege, and the rising global demand for real assets like gold.Today we look back at this podcast I recorded on March 31, 2023. I laid out a theory that Venezuela—sitting on the world’s largest oil reserves—might one day be absorbed into the US sphere of influence, not through war, but through corporate proxies.Drawing parallels to the East India Company and the US-backed creation of Panama, the idea was that a private entity could step in amid Venezuela’s chaos, secure its oil, and quietly serve American strategic interests.Now, with tensions escalating, the threat of an invasion could be the method of securing this kind of control. Maduro has discussed terms for stepping down, and recently US authorities seized a Venezuelan oil tanker.And Venezuela’s opposition leader, María Corina Machado, is now openly pitching the country’s energy sector as “a $1.7 trillion opportunity,” promising, “We will open all [oil], upstream, midstream, downstream, to all companies.”It felt like the right time to revisit this episode.
 
At the center of Sovereign Man’s core ethos is the indisputable view that the United States is in decline. I take absolutely zero pleasure in writing that statement. But it’s incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to objectively appraise the bountiful evidence at hand and not reach the same conclusion. Consider the following: US government finances are appallingly bad. The national debt exceeds 100% of GDP, annual deficits run into the trillions of dollars with no end in sight, and major trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will soon run out of money. Political incompetence is mind-blowing; politicians fail to be able to even identify problems, let alone understand them, let alone reach compromises to solve them. Ditto for central bank incompetence. These people simply cannot understand how, by keeping interest rates at zero for nearly a decade and conjuring trillions of dollars out of thin air, they engineered record high inflation. And they also fail to understand how their actions to ‘fix’ inflation are causing widespread havoc in the economy and financial system. Social divisions across the country are extreme. Censorship and cancel culture prevail, and corporations now wag their fingers at their own customers to “be better”. The education system is in pitiful shape, with many politicians and school board officials turning classrooms into activist training camps. The population is terribly unhealthy. Obesity and drug addiction are epidemics. Plus there’s an obvious mental health crisis that drives far too many people to commit horrific acts of violence on innocent people, including children. National security is in decline. Military readiness is down, yet top officials seem more concerned about diversity and inclusion rather than the ability to prevail in war. The rule of law has been perverted, including for political purposes and self-aggrandizement. We just saw another example of this yesterday. Even the national fertility rate continues plummeting– an indication of the rising cost of living and social apathy. The Wall Street Journal recently published a series of polls indicating that most Americans doubt their children will have a better future; pessimism is strong. They also found that certain values which once defined American culture, including a sense of community, hard work, and civility, are no longer important to the majority of people. This is all happening at a time when adversaries are circling. And that includes China. Now, usually whenever I bring up China, there are always people who are quick to assert that China cannot possibly replace the US as the dominant superpower because they have just as many problems. And it’s true that China has a ton of problems. They have their own debt issues, financial system chaos, and economic problems. They have social challenges, a major demographic crisis, and even a serious issue with childhood obesity. But no civilization or empire throughout history has ever been problem-free.Ancient Rome, even during its early republic days, had enormous problems. They had to deal with constant revolts, civil war, the genocidal dictatorship of Sulla, famine, war, plague, and more. Yet there’s an enormous difference between taking on challenges while you’re on the rise… versus succumbing to them while on the way down. Rome was able to deal with its challenges and continue its rise to become the dominant superpower. China may be able to do the same. The US finds itself in a precarious position where they have a mountain of compounding problems… and no ability to even slow them down, let alone solve them. I’ve written before about what I call the “Four Forces of Decline”, which I define as: 1) Forces of History– the inevitable, cyclical nature in the rise and fall of Empire. No empire, no civilization in human history has ever retained the top spot forever, and most tend to experience similar challenges on the way down. 2) Forces of Society– the vicious way in which a society eats itself from within, vanquishing the ability and inclination to solve complex problems. 3) Forces of Economy– the debilitating toll that enormous debts, deficits, and currency inflation take on a nation and its people. 4) Forces of Energy– when energy is cheap and abundant, prosperity reigns. When energy is expensive, prosperity wanes. The relationship couldn’t be more clear. Today’s podcast puts all of these together, with a particular focus on #4, Forces of Energy. Part of being the dominant superpower in our modern world means having access to abundant energy. Yet the US government has spent the last few years trying to destroy its energy (oil and gas) industry. They’ve been pretty successful. The President of the United States hardly misses an opportunity to bash oil companies. Politicians pass new rules and taxes to punish them. The media beats up on them. Investors have pulled funding for them. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that US oil production, while not in terminal decline, is failing to keep up with growing demand. Shale oil is especially problematic given that most of the highest quality “tier 1” sites have already been drilled. Many are already in decline. This is a big deal. Shale oil is the reason why the US achieved near energy independence. With shale in decline, the US will be forced to import a LOT more energy (which, again, is critical for prosperity) from places where they have an increasingly adversarial relationship. Russian oil is obviously off the table. So is Iranian oil. Saudi Arabia is rapidly becoming cozy with China; in fact the Saudis are now publicly considering to sell their oil in Chinese currency, the renminbi. This is an enormous threat to the US. Saudi Arabia has been selling oil in dollars for decades; they’ve even had their currency, the riyal, pegged to the US dollar since 1986. This concept of selling oil in US dollars is known as the petrodollar, and it’s one of the key reasons why the US dollar is the global reserve currency. Anyone who wants to buy oil needs to own US dollars. And that pretty much includes every country on the planet. So foreigners are forced to stockpile dollars, and by extension, US government bonds… simply because they need dollars to buy oil. As a result the US government is able to get away with the fiscal equivalent of murder. They can run multi-trillion dollar deficits every year. They can wage expensive wars in foreign lands. They can go into debt to pay people to stay home and NOT work… … and they’ve always had a bunch of suckers overseas– foreigners who have no choice but to buy US government bonds, simply because oil is priced in US dollars. But what if Saudi Arabia started selling oil in renminbi? Most likely a LOT of foreigners would dump at least some of their dollars and start holding renminbi as part of their official reserves. America’s biggest privilege and benefit– its reserve currency– would vanish, practically overnight. Suddenly the US government wouldn’t be able to run multi-trillion dollar deficits. It wouldn’t be able to go into debt to pay people to stay home and NOT work. They’d have to be like almost every other country– act with some fiscal responsibility. Think about it– if the President of Mexico shook hands with thin air, investors would be rightfully terrified and panic-sell Mexican government bonds. If South Korea ran a multi-trillion dollar deficit, its currency would probably plummet. Back in September we saw the British pound and UK government bonds practically collapse… and the Prime Minister of one of the world’s largest democratically elected sovereign governments was forced to resign… simply because investors didn’t like her economic revival plan. These issues are all linked. If the US continues to demonstrate incompetence and weakness… if they continue to subvert and destroy the energy industry… and if Saudi Arabia starts selling oil in renminbi… … the consequences will be life-changing. This is one of the biggest stories of our lives. It’s easy to miss because it’s playing out over a period of years. It gets lost in the day-to-day noise and the crisis du jour. But rest assured this is happening in front of our very eyes; it’s a slow motion crash that’s already started. The outcome isn’t inevitable yet. But nothing about these people’s actions demonstrate that they have the slightest clue what’s going on. Join me in today’s podcast as we dive further into this… and I outline my “51ststate” theory– a ‘solution’ that I wouldn’t be surprised to see in the near future. To your freedom, James Hickman
Co-Founder, Schiff Sovereign LLC

Tucker Carlson

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Commentary
Pride for All, Except the Whites
No one could have predicted this five years ago, but Elon Musk’s Twitter account has become one of the internet’s most honest news sources. One post caught our eye over the weekend.

“This is unfair,” Musk plainly wrote above screenshots of Wikipedia’s descriptions of black pride, gay pride, Asian pride, and white pride. The site’s updated definitions, as of this newsletter’s release, are below. Emphasis is ours.

Black pride: a movement that encourages black people to celebrate their respective cultures and embrace their African heritage.

Gay pride: the promotion of the rights, self-affirmation, dignity, equality, and increased visibility of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people as a social group.

Asian pride: a term that encourages celebration of Asian ethnicity and culture, with various interpretations and origins.

White pride: an expression primarily used by white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and white supremacist organizations in order to signal racist or racialist viewpoints.

One stands out, does it not? Why does Wikipedia describe pride for blacks, Asians, and gays in glowing terms like “celebration,” dignity,” and “self-affirmation,” but stomp on whites who have pride in their heritage as “racist or racialist”? If equality were really the goal, wouldn’t everyone be allowed to feel proud of who they are?

Yes, they would. And they should. Have white people done bad things throughout history? Of course. But so have people of every race. If every population received scorn for its ancestors’ misdeeds, the entire world would be in a constant state of shame. We don’t live that way because it would be insane. So why must whites?

No matter what Wikipedia says, they shouldn’t. Instead, we prefer JD Vance’s message at AmericaFest.

“We don’t treat anybody different because of their race or their sex,” the vice president told the crowd. “So we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs… In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”

There is no blood guilt. We’re all Americans. That’s supposed to be how this country operates. Hopefully, we’re moving in the right direction. 

This Illustrates our Moral Decay

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

It is time for this to stop

CatholicVote is partnering with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and others in an America 250 Civics coalition, an initiative aimed at restoring to our nation a right understanding of citizenship — its rights, its duties, and the moral foundation of self-governance. I can think of one man who could use a refresher course. Over the weekend, private text messages from 2022 surfaced showing Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in Virginia, fantasizing about violence toward then–Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert, a political opponent. In one exchange, Jones speculated that Speaker Gilbert “gets two bullets to the head” and made appalling references to Gilbert’s family — even wishing that his children would die in their mother’s arms so that Gilbert would “move on policy.” As if that were not enough, reports have now confirmed that in 2020, Jones told Virginia House Delegate Carrie Coyner, during a discussion about police reform, that “if a few police officers died … then maybe they would move on, not shooting people, not killing people.” No Democratic leader in Virginia has yet called for Jones to withdraw from the race, though the Fraternal Order of Police of Virginia withdrew their endorsement. Apparently, no one in his party appears to think such words disqualify a man from holding the highest law enforcement office in the Commonwealth. But Aristotle would disagree — and every civics teacher in America should be up in arms. This race for Attorney General — and by extension, Virginia’s gubernatorial future — has become a moral referendum on what we tolerate in public life. The refusal to disqualify Jones is already a form of civic decay. The fact that mainstream media has decided to stand on the sidelines as though this issue is but one small scandal for which an apology suffices is appalling even if not surprising. When the lines between anger and evil blur, when rhetoric of death is dismissed as political theater, the foundation of the nation itself begins to erode. Imagine how the Gilbert family must have felt reading those words — their two young boys, both under ten, asking their father: “Daddy, why does Jay Jones want to kill us?” There is no answer to that question but madness and moral corruption. This corruption must be defeated in the ballot box.  If you have friends in Virginia, call them. Text them. Urge them to vote for Attorney General Jason Miyares — a man who has shown himself committed to justice, law, and the protection of every Virginian. If you live there, drive your five closest friends to the polls with you. There is nothing ordinary about a candidate for Attorney General who casually spoke of murdering opponents, police officers, and children. By extension, there is nothing ordinary about a candidate for governor – Abigail Spanberger – who won’t recognize this heinous behavior of her fellow Virginian as disqualifying in a climate that in the last month has seen a political assasination, armed violence against ICE officials, and a man arrested with a tent full more than 200 molotov cocktails outside the annual Red Mass for judges in Washington, DC. That is why our reaction must be nothing ordinary. This is Virginia’s moment to stand. To remind the nation that leadership is about service and requires virtue. Let us make this election a living civics lesson. Let us teach Jay Jones, and the rest of the nation, that hate has no place in our politics. Go forward bravely,
Kelsey ReinhardtPresident, CatholicVote

Trump’s Spending Bill.

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Hat Tip to Epoch Times.

President Donald Trump’s public blowup with billionaire Elon Musk stems from a dispute over the fiscal impact of Trump’s mammoth tax-and-spending package, dubbed the “big, beautiful bill.” 
Musk and other critics have said the House-passed bill would worsen the federal government’s fiscal health. 
The White House has rebutted these claims, noting that the reconciliation package is not a budget bill or a blueprint for balancing the budget. 
Instead, it is a procedural tool designed to advance as much of the president’s agenda through Congress as possible, based on the Republican votes currently available, and it excludes projected revenue from tariffs and economic growth tied to tax cuts, according to Trump’s top budget official Russ Vought. 
Still, various organizations estimate that this legislation will exacerbate federal deficits and contribute to the national debt over the next decade. 
Here is a look at the different projections through the 2025–2034 budget window. 
Clashing Estimates: CBO versus White House
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), a nonpartisan budget watchdog, released its scoring on the House-approved package. 
In its June 3 report, the CBO projected that outlays would decline by more than $1.25 trillion, but revenues would fall nearly $3.7 trillion. This will result in a $2.4 trillion increase in federal deficits over the next decade. 
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, in a lengthy post on the social media platform X, disputed the CBO’s projection that the bill increases the deficit. 
“This lie is based on a CBO accounting gimmick,” he said. 
“Income tax rates from the 2017 tax cut are set to expire in September. They were always planned to be permanent. CBO says maintaining ‘current’ rates adds to the deficit, but by definition, leaving these income tax rates unchanged cannot add one penny to the deficit.” 
Vought also rebuked the CBO’s scoring methodology. 
“CBO continues to use a baseline that is fundamentally skewed toward the way the real world is,” Vought said in a press call. 
“The basics of that is that they assume that all spending will continue into eternity, your appropriations bills, all of your mandatory spending that gets a free ride into eternity, but somehow tax relief that has an expiration date isn’t assumed for the entirety of the fiscal window.” 
Epoch Times PhotoThe U.S. Capitol building in Washington on June 3, 2025. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)
Speaking to reporters at the White House during the president’s meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also alluded to the CBO’s recent tariff projections. 
This week, the CBO projected that tariff revenues will slash deficits by $2.8 trillion over 10 years, which Bessent said “puts the bill in surplus if you include the tariff revenue, which they won’t do.” 
What Do Other Forecasters Say?
Meanwhile, other independent organizations have presented similar debt and deficit projections for the bill. 
The Tax Foundation estimated on May 23 that the bill would result in a $2.6 trillion increase in the deficit. 
“Overall, the bill would prevent tax increases on 62 percent of taxpayers that would occur if the TCJA expired as scheduled,” Tax Foundation economists said. 
Last month, the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model forecast that the reconciliation bill would raise deficits by $2.8 trillion. 
According to Yale’s Budget Lab, over a 30-year window, the bill would add $10.8 trillion to the national debt. 
“If the tax provisions become permanent, with no additional tariff revenue, the debt-to-GDP ratio would hit approximately 191 percent in 2055. The only countries that currently have a higher debt-to-GDP ratio are Japan and Sudan,” the Budget Lab said in its May 30 update. 
Bill Would Boost Economic Activity: White House 
Once the bill is enacted, the White House states that the administration’s actions, whether increased tariff revenues or substantial spending cuts, will reduce deficits by “at least $6.6 trillion over the next decade.” 
Supporters argue that the tax-and-spending plan, which includes tax cuts, would increase government revenues through more vigorous economic activity. This concept is related to the famous Laffer Curve, developed by the eminent economist Art Laffer. 
According to the Laffer Curve, popularized in the 1970s, there is an optimal tax rate that maximizes revenue, highlighting the relationship between tax rates and tax receipts. 
Following the passage of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, actual revenue from 2018 to 2024 totaled approximately $28.5 trillion. This has been $1.5 trillion higher than CBO’s projections—before adjusting for inflation. 
Interest Cost on New Debt
In a separate CBO report, released on June 5, officials predict that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would trigger additional debt-servicing costs of $551 billion over the 10-year period. 
“That change would increase the cumulative effect on the deficit to $3 trillion,” the report stated. 
Experts from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, an independent policy organization, estimate that interest costs on the new debt from the bill will amount to $1.8 trillion, accounting for 4.2 percent of GDP. 
If interest rates remain elevated—the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield hovers around 4.5 percent—interest payments could surge to $2.1 trillion in 2034, representing more than 5 percent of GDP. 
“All else being equal, higher debt and deficit levels will raise interest rates,” the Yale Budget Lab said. 
Fiscal health concerns have taken center stage in the U.S. Treasury market. 
While rates have stabilized, the 30-year Treasury yield recently topped 5.1 percent, the highest level since October 2023. 
This is a vital development since it influences consumer and business borrowing costs and how much it costs the federal government to service the debt. 
“Investors may demand higher compensation (more yield, lower bond prices) given the anticipated deficit spending trajectory and elevated bond issuance in coming years,” said U.S. Bank strategists in a May 22 note. 
Over the past few years, federal interest payments have increased significantly amid tighter Federal Reserve monetary policy and rising government spending. They are now the second-largest budgetary item, second only to Social Security. 
Annual federal interest payments are expected to exceed $1.2 trillion this fiscal year, according to the Treasury Department. 
Rocket Fuel or Lackluster Growth?
Many estimates suggest that the bill would provide a boost to the U.S. economy. 
Penn Wharton projects that its economic effects would increase GDP by 0.4 percent in 10 years and 0.7 percent in 30 years. The Tax Foundation expects long-run GDP to grow by 0.8 percent. 
The tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee is more bullish, predicting real economic growth of up to 5.2 percent over the next four years. 
On the labor front, according to the Tax Foundation, “hours worked converted to full-time equivalent jobs” would be 983,000. Additionally, pre-tax wages would grow by less than 0.05 percent. 
Average wages are projected to decline by 0.2 percent over the next 10 years but increase by 0.3 percent thereafter. 
The committee says up to 7.4 million full-time jobs will be saved or created, and workers could receive up to $11,600 in higher wages. 
Emel Akan contributed to this report. 
Frank FangFrank Fang 
To dig deeper into the subject, read the 

If you let people keep more of their own money, it will stimulate the economy and create growth in the private sector. If we do not reinstate the tax rates we have now, more money will go to the government, for them to waste. Tax and spend did not work before and it will not work now. A balanced budget might give us a chance to grow out of the 35 trillion dollar debt, eventually. We did not get here overnight and we won’t get out of this anytime soon, but that does not mean we should not try.

The Real New World Order

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

🧵 WHAT YOU’RE NOT HEARING: The Chinese cannot replace the U.S. market. Without it, the Chinese economy collapses.

Here’s why… China’s entire economic miracle was built on ONE thing – being America’s cheap manufacturing hub. 

The “Chinese miracle” playbook was simple: 

• Open markets to the West 

• Offer dirt-cheap labor 

• Ignore safety standards 

• Let Western companies rake in profits 

This worked for decades. But China forgot something crucial: others can do this too.

MASSIVE MISCALCULATION: Beijing thought the American leaders they made rich would protect them forever. They believed these corporate puppet masters would never let the US stand up to China.

WRONG. Along came Donald Trump, who owes them nothing.

The numbers don’t lie 

• US exports to China: $143.5B 

• Chinese imports to US: $438.9B 

They flood our markets while closing or restricting THEIR markets. 

But Trump said: NO MORE

Meanwhile, countries like India, Vietnam, and Bangladesh are CELEBRATING. They’re ready to take China’s place, AND open their markets to the U.S. – and Trump’s willing to deal.

HERE’S what the Enemedia WON’T tell you: 

Chinese exporters are PANICKING 

• Abandoning shipments mid-voyage 

• Factory orders FROZEN 

• Container volume DOWN 90% 

And this is just the beginning. China can’t replace the U.S. market that made it rich.

Reports flooding in: 

• Factories shutting down 

• Amazon canceling orders 

• Stores closing 

• Warehouses overflowing 

The house of cards is falling. But the Enemedia gives you nothing but Chinese propaganda.

CRUCIAL FACT: America buys 3X more than Japan (China’s next biggest customer). 

Without us, they’re FINISHED. And they were already on the ropes.

Will this affect US consumers? Sure, briefly. You might struggle to find cheap plastic junk for a few months. 

But other countries will step up. And TRILLIONS in new investment are flowing into America, while countless factories LEAVE China.

Will this affect US consumers? Sure, briefly. You might struggle to find cheap plastic junk for a few months. 

The bottom line: China picked a fight they can’t win. While America adjusts, the CCP will face the consequences of their refusal to truly open their own markets, or to abandon aggression against their neighbors. 

Game over. The decoupling is under way.

Rod Martin, 

Founder and CEO Martin Capital

Epoch Times on Tariffs

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

WASHINGTON—As part of a bold shift in U.S. trade policy, President Donald Trump has ramped up tariffs on Chinese goods, aiming to revive domestic manufacturing and hold Beijing accountable for its decades of market-distorting practices. 
At the April 2 “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the White House Rose Garden, Trump unveiled the contours of his global tariff plans, including a 34 percent reciprocal levy on Beijing. The president pointed to China’s currency manipulation and other non-monetary trade barriers. 
This decision effectively raised the total new tariffs on China to 54 percent, including the 20 percent levies previously imposed to pressure Beijing into reducing the flow of fentanyl into the United States. 
This move will impact the approximately $600 billion in annual trade and bring tariffs on nearly all Chinese goods close to the 60 percent rate Trump had previously promised during his campaign. 
Trump believes that the United States holds leverage over other nations, including China, due to its status as the world’s largest and wealthiest consumer market. 
“Foreign nations will finally be asked to pay for the privilege of access to our market, the biggest market in the world,” Trump said during his Rose Garden speech. 
China quickly hit back, announcing that, starting April 10, it would impose 34 percent tariffs on imports of all U.S. goods. This move was part of a broader set of retaliatory actions, including tightening export controls on various rare earth elements and adding U.S. companies to the government’s “unreliable entities list.” 
Beijing also filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO), following through on a threat earlier this week. 
Trump pushed back at the Chinese regime after announcing its retaliatory response. 
“China played it wrong, they panicked—the one thing they cannot afford to do,” the president said in a post on social media platform Truth Social. 
Trade Distorting Practices
Despite joining the WTO in 2001, China did not evolve into the fully-fledged market economy that the United States had anticipated. 
China’s economic growth has accelerated dramatically since the country joined the WTO. However, the Chinese Communist Party’s trade-distorting practices, such as intellectual property theft, massive state subsidies, currency manipulation, wage suppression, and labor rights violations, have led to the closure of many U.S. manufacturers and the loss of millions of U.S. jobs. 
There is a bipartisan view in Washington on the need to address China’s market-distorting practices. 
Before the November election last year, President Joe Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, defended tariffs against China. 
“Previous efforts to build a China policy on changing China have not succeeded,” Sullivan said on Oct. 24. 
As a result, he argued, the United States must adopt a new set of strategies based on the current geopolitical and economic realities. 
During his first term, Trump imposed tariffs on more than $300 billion worth of Chinese goods in response to various unfair trade practices, including intellectual property theft. 
The Biden administration chose to maintain those tariffs and even announced additional tariffs on products such as electric vehicles (EVs), solar panels, medical equipment, lithium-ion batteries, steel, and aluminum. 
Both administrations have used tariffs to level the playing field for domestic manufacturers and protect American workers. 
However, Trump’s latest move represents an even bolder step in attempting to contain China and hold it accountable for its longstanding trade-distorting practices. 
Nick Iacovella, executive vice president for the Coalition for a Prosperous America, an organization that represents domestic producers and workers, said that these tariffs will address the decades of deindustrialization in the United States. 
“It is incredibly important that those tariffs actually stay in place,” he told The Epoch Times. 
For decades, there has been a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street, Iacovella added, commenting on the market reaction. 
“When automakers moved their jobs to Mexico, their stock prices went up, but car prices didn’t decrease for American consumers,” he said. 
Adam Savit, China policy director at America First Policy Institute, argues that China has less leverage, despite Beijing’s retaliatory actions. 
“The U.S. has much less exports to China than China exports to the United States. So inherently, they’re at a disadvantage,” he told The Epoch Times. 
​​He stated that charging 54 percent tariffs on Chinese goods is an appropriate response to an adversary, and it will help in the strategic decoupling from China. 
Bargaining Chip 
On April 4, Trump extended the deadline for TikTok to divest from its Beijing-based parent company by 75 days. 
The president made the announcement in a post on Truth Social, just ahead of the original April 5 deadline. 
Trump stated that he would continue working in “good faith” with China. Previously, he suggested that tariffs could be used as a bargaining chip to pressure China into approving the sale of TikTok’s U.S. operations from ByteDance, which several U.S. officials have warned has ties to the Chinese Communist Party. 
“You have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say: ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’” Trump said on April 3. “We could use tariffs in order to get something in return.” 
Nathan Worcester, Jacob Burg, Terri Wu, and Andrew Moran contributed. 
Emel AkanEmel Akan 

Tucker On Tariffs

Posted on by johnbarleycorn12

Well said.

Commentary 
Does the Left Support Worker Exploitation?
It’s no secret that the stock market has reacted poorly to the Trump administration’s “Liberation Day” tariffs. It makes sense why. Investors hate uncertainty, and America ushering in an entirely new economic vision, regardless of what that vision is, was always going to cause a shock. 

One of the conglomerates experiencing a nosedive is Nike. According to Schaeffer’s Investment Research, the company’s stock sank to a six-year low after the tariff announcement and now carries a 23.5% year-to-date deficit. 

The reason for this is straightforward. Nike uses cheap foreign labor to create its products, exploiting international markets to get away with paying its workforce a fraction of what American laborers would require. This is no secret. Nike reportedly employs 108,000 Chinese workers, paying them an average annual salary of $10,000. Its American employees, by contrast, tend to make nearly seven times that sum. 

This makes Washington’s new effort to incentivize companies to manufacture their products in the U.S. a bad situation for Nike. And they’re not the only ones. Reutersreported on Thursday that “Shares in Nike, Adidas, and Puma dropped sharply after Vietnam was targeted with a 46% tariff rate, Cambodia with 49%, Bangladesh with 37% and Indonesia with 32%, while Trump hiked tariffs on China by an extra 34 percentage points, following the earlier 20% tariffs.” 

Take a step back and ask yourself what this really means. A $10,000 salary is not a livable wage. It equates to less than $5 an hour, and that’s if the worker doesn’t take a single minute off all year. No vacations. No sick days. Nothing. Just a life of thanklessly slaving away in his employer’s overheated mines. 

Among other things, the White House’s pursuit of “fair trade” aims to end that inhumanity. The U.S. should not reward companies for treating human beings like soulless cogs, easily replaceable and whose hours are worth nothing more than five measly dollars.

Is that what American neoliberals want? Whether they realize it or not, Democrats complaining about the Trump tariffs are by definition advocating for the West’s continued exploitation of effective slave labor. They may attend pride parades and post social justice graphics on social media, but they quickly jump ship as soon as a policy that will drive real change threatens their precious wallets. 

Emphasizing this could be a good way for Republicans to regain the high ground in our country’s economic debate. Will the tariffs create jobs? They should. Do they put America first? Without a doubt. But they’re also moral. America is no longer interested in subsidizing the treatment of workers as worthless servants. Companies that refuse to oblige? Fine. Enjoy your big, beautiful tariff.