They ALL part of an age-old continuing criminal enterprise . . . .
Jul 23, 2026
Kuhn, Loeb, Bernard Baruch, J.P. Morgan, Eugene Meyer;
Paul Warburg, Max Warburg, Jacob Schiff, Louis Brandeis, Alfred Rothschild
’Twas a long, long Money Trail a-winding
Well, Spritzler got it right today: SOrt of!
I have written here about how Reich does this with his effort to get us to demand “Equal Opportunity” instead of No-Rich-and-No-Poor.
Today I want to focus on Reich’s call to “Get money out of politics,” which came to me as one of his many emails that I copy in full for your convenience in the footnote below.1 Reich says:
Tell Congress: It’s time to get billionaire wealth out of politics! Overturn Citizens United, tax billionaires’ wealth, and enact meaningful election reform.
As Robert Reich knows damn well, as long as there are billionaires then their money will be in politics no matter what campaign reform laws are passed.
Billionaires have power in our society (that’s what “politics” means: power) because our society is based on money (which is a bad thing for it to be based on as I discuss here) and because in such a society money is power, and billionaires have it and ordinary people do not, duh.
There is not a single major institution in our society—for-profit corporations, not-for-profit corporations, universities, hospitals, newspapers and radio stations and large circulation magazines, the military, Hollywood, and on and on, not to mention the government itself—that billionaires do not control, directly or indirectly.
+—+
My comment . . .
Demons, man, DEMONS . . . Paul Moritz Warburg, a German-Jewish immigrant who was one of the founding fathers of the U.S. Federal Reserve, had a fervent wish that his creation would be seen as one of America’s great monuments — “like the old cathedrals of Europe.”
Warburg’s dream that “the Fed” would become a cherished American institution has never looked more in doubt. The Federal Reserve, which was enacted by Congress in 1913 and set up shop the following year, is today an institution under siege. More surprising perhaps is that the Fed is refighting partisan and ideological battles that Warburg and the other founders thought they had settled a century ago.
Dirt:
Ben Bernanke: Served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2006 to 2014.
Alan Greenspan: Served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006.
Eugene Meyer: Served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1930 to 1933.
Janet Yellen: Served as Chair of the Federal Reserve from 2014 to 2018.
Henry Morgenthau Jr.: Treasury Secretary, Board of Governors, 1934 – 1936
So much dirt . . .
Joseph Eugene Stiglitz
Milton Friedman:
Paul Samuelson.
Kenneth Arrow
David Ricardo:
Daniel Kahneman
Claudia Goldin
+–+
The problem is, if GENOCIDE happens in 2026, all over, but with this burning water and sewage and electrical plants in Iran and the daily murder of Gazans, Palestinians, then all bets are off.
RIP:\
Michael Parenti was an American Marxist historian, political scientist, and prolific author whose work focused on class struggle, media hegemony, and anti-imperialism. Best known for seminal works like Democracy for the Few and Blackshirts and Reds, Parenti was a leading “people’s intellectual” who famously bridged the gap between academia and the labor movement. His analysis consistently exposed the capitalist state’s role in managing both domestic exploitation and global empire, making him a central figure in modern Marxist-Leninist and anti-war thought.
Works
The Bogey of the Revolution [Commonweal Magazine Vol.88 No.14] (June 21, 1968)
The High Cost of Empire [Original PDF] [The Progressive Magazine] (November 1981)
Is Nicaragua More Democratic Than the United States? [Original PDF] [CovertAction Information Bulletin No.26] (Summer 1986)
Bush’s Splendid Little War [Original PDF] [CovertAction Information Bulletin No.36] (Spring 1991)
Kozy with the Klan (1992)
Dividends Are Not Royalties: The SAT and Surplus Value [Monthly Review Vol.45 No.5] (October 1993)
Imperialism 101 (1995)
Myths of “Humanitarian” Intervention [Against the Current No. 59] (November/December, 1995)
Free Speech – At a Price (1996)
Hidden Holocaust, USA (1996)
The JFK Assassination: Defending the Gangster State (1996)
Rational Fascism (1997)
Keeping the Rich Invisible: How Census Bureau Hides the Super-rich [Against the Current No. 74] (May/June, 1998)
Yugoslav Sojourn: Notes from the Other Side (January 2000)
The Super Rich Are Out Of Sight (January 2000)
The Media and their Atrocities (May 2000)
Defying the Sanctions: A Flight to Iraq (January 2001)
Monopoly Media Manipulation (May 2001)
Terrorism Meets Reactionism (October 2001)
Global Rollback After Communism [Original PDF] [CovertAction Quarterly No.72] (Spring 2002)
Exposing The Terrorism Trap [International Socialist Review Issue 24] (Jul 20, 2002)
Media Moments (December 2002)
To Kill Iraq (May 2003)
The Demonization of Slobodan Milosevic (December 2003)
Empires, Old and New [ZNetwork] (Feb 19, 2004)
Are Heterosexuals Worthy of Marriage? (Sep 14, 2004)
Good Things Happening in Venezuela (May 2005)
In the Reactionary Era of “No Alternative” [Monthly Review Online] (Jul 26, 2005)
How the Free Market Killed New Orleans [ZNetwork] (Sep 3, 2005)
Right-Wing Judicial Activism [ZNetwork] (Oct 13, 2005)
Government by Giveaway [ZNetwork] (Dec 31, 2005)
Interviewing Michael Parenti about The Culture Struggle [ZNetwork] (Feb 19, 2006)
Custom Against Women [ZNetwork] (Mar 2, 2006)
The Hidden Politics of Deficit Spending [ZNetwork] (May 11, 2006)
Still Soft on (Corporate) Crime [ZNetwork] (Jun 9, 2006)
Gender Savagery in Guatemala [PDF] [ZNetwork] (Jul 9, 2006)
Mystery: How Wealth Creates Poverty in the World [ZNetwork] (Sep 28, 2006)
Friendly Feudalism: The Tibet Myth (January 2007)
The Stolen Presidential Elections (May 2007)
Globalization and Democracy: Some Basics [Common Dreams] (May 25, 2007)
Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast Track Saints [PDF] (Oct 22, 2007)
Bad Boys, Nasty Boys: Out of the GOP’s Closet [Common Dreams] (Feb 06, 2008)
Dubious Design [Common Dreams] (Apr 11, 2008)
Afghanistan, Another Untold Story [PDF] (Dec 02, 2008)
Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse [PDF] [ZNetwork] (Jan 19, 2009)
Economic Crisis the Inevitable Result of ‘Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse’ [ZNetwork] (Mar 14, 2009)
North Korea: “Sanity” at the Brink [PDF] (Jun 20, 2009)
The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent? [PDF] (Jul 08, 2009)
Italian American Identity: To Be or Not To Be [PDF] (Aug 27, 2009)
The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia (2010)
What Do Empires Do? [PDF] (Feb 13, 2010)
Cuban Prisoners, Here and There, with Alicia Jrapko [Monthly Review Online] (Apr 15, 2010)
Pedophiles and Popes: Doing the Vatican Shuffle [PDF] (May 10, 2010)
Death and Profits: The Utility Protection Racket [Common Dreams] (Oct 14, 2010)
Money Is Still the Name of the Game [PDF] (Dec 9, 2010)
The Mafia and Me [PDF] (Jan 20, 2011)
Profit Pathology and Disposable Planet [PDF] (Feb 27, 2011)
Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy [ZNetwork] (Jul 3, 2011)
The September 11 Orgy (Sep 12, 2011)
Class Warfare Indeed [PDF] (Oct 02, 2011)
The Face of Imperialism: An interview with Michael Parenti [rabble.ca] (Nov 2, 2011)
Occupy America [PDF] (Nov 09, 2011)
Free-Market Medicine: A Personal Account [PDF] (December 2011)
Must We Adore Vaclav Havel? (Dec 19, 2011)
An Opinion About the Opinion-Makers (2 Jan, 2012)
Iran and Everything Else (2012)
Free Market Health Care: True Stories (January 2012)
Reflections on Politics and Academia: An Interview with Michael Parenti (June 2012)
The Nobel Peace Prize for War [PDF] (Oct 18, 2012)
A Terrible Normality (Jan 30, 2013)
Requiem for a Dominatrix (April 2013)
Eating Horses in Paris (Feb 28, 2013)
The Sarin Mysteries [ZNetwork] (Oct 2, 2013)
I Have a Dream, a Blurred Vision (November 2013)
The JFK Assassination: Defending the Gangster State (November 2013)
What’s A Slum? (2014)
Ukraine and Regime Change (2014)
85 Billionaires and the Better Half [Common Dreams] (Feb 18, 2014)
1918: On When a War Ended (Though Others Would Follow) [PDF] (Oct 27, 2014)
A Long Time For Killing [ZNetwork] (Sep 23, 2015)
The Lost Women [ZNetwork] (Dec 26, 2015)
Secondary Literature
The Time Has Come: End All Aid to Apartheid Israel [Signatory] (Socialist Action Vol.6 No.4, April 1988)
Hoist on their own petards, by Dragan Plavsic [Book Review] (International Socialism No. 91, Summer 2001)
Roman history from below?, by Neil Faulkner [Book Review] (Summer 2004)
Michael Parenti, The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome, by Chris Gray [Book Review] (Revolutionary History Vol. 8 No. 4, 2004)
External Links
The Michael Parenti Political Archive [Personal Web Archive]
The Michael Parenti Library a video collection of speeches and lectures [YouTube]
Twelve years ago:
February 18, 2014 by dandelionsalad
85 Billionaires and the Better Half by Michael Parenti
by Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
February 18, 2014
The world’s 85 richest individuals possess as much wealth as the 3.5 billion souls who compose the poorer half of the world’s population, or so it was announced in a report by Oxfam International. The assertion sounds implausible to me. I think the 85 richest individuals, who together are worth many hundreds of billions of dollars, must have far more wealth than the poorest half of our global population.
How could these two cohorts, the 85 richest and 3.5 billion poorest, have the same amount of wealth? The great majority of the 3.5 billion have no net wealth at all. Hundreds of millions of them have jobs that hardly pay enough to feed their families. Millions of them rely on supplements from private charity and public assistance when they can. Hundreds of millions are undernourished, suffer food insecurity, or go hungry each month, including many among the very poorest in the United States.
Most of the 3.5 billion earn an average of $2.50 a day. The poorest 40 percent of the world population accounts for just 5 percent of all global income. About 80 percent of all humanity live on less than $10 a day. And the poorest 50 percent maintain only 7.2 percent of the world’s private consumption. How exactly could they have accumulated an amount of surplus wealth comparable to the 85 filthy richest?
Hundreds of millions live in debt even in “affluent” countries like the United States. They face health care debts, credit card debts, college tuition debts, and so on. Many, probably most who own homes— and don’t live in shacks or under bridges or in old vans— are still straddled with mortgages. This means their net family wealth is negative, minus-zero. They have no propertied wealth; they live in debt.
Millions among the poorest 50 percent in the world may have cars but most of them also have car payments. They are driving in debt. In countries like Indonesia, for the millions without private vehicles, there are the overloaded, battered buses, poorly maintained vehicles that specialize in breakdowns and ravine plunges. Among the lowest rungs of the 50 percent are the many who pick through garbage dumps and send their kids off to work in grim, soul-destroying sweatshops.
The 85 richest in the world probably include the four members of the Walton family (owners of Wal-Mart, among the top ten superrich in the USA) who together are worth over $100 billion. Rich families like the DuPonts have controlling interests in giant corporations like General Motors, Coca-Cola, and United Brands. They own about forty manorial estates and private museums in Delaware alone and have set up 31 tax-exempt foundations. The superrich in America and in many other countries find ways, legal and illegal, to shelter much of their wealth in secret accounts. We don’t really know how very rich the very rich really are.
Regarding the poorest portion of the world population— whom I would call the valiant, struggling “better half”—what mass configuration of wealth could we possibly be talking about? The aggregate wealth possessed by the 85 super-richest individuals, and the aggregate wealth owned by the world’s 3.5 billion poorest, are of different dimensions and different natures. Can we really compare private jets, mansions, landed estates, super luxury vacation retreats, luxury apartments, luxury condos, and luxury cars, not to mention hundreds of billions of dollars in equities, bonds, commercial properties, art works, antiques, etc.— can we really compare all that enormous wealth against some millions of used cars, used furniture, and used television sets, many of which are ready to break down? Of what resale value if any, are such minor durable-use commodities? especially in communities of high unemployment, dismal health and housing conditions, no running water, no decent sanitation facilities, etc. We don’t really know how poor the very poor really are.
Millions of children who number in the lower 50 percent never see the inside of a school. Instead they labor in mills, mines and on farms, under conditions of peonage. Nearly a billion people are unable to read or write. The number of people living in poverty is growing at a faster rate than the world’s population. So poverty is spreading even as wealth accumulates. It is not enough to bemoan this enormous inequality, we must also explain why it is happening.
But for now, let me repeat: the world’s richest 85 individuals do not have the same amount of accumulated wealth as the world’s poorest 50 percent. They have vastly more. The multitude on the lower rungs—even taken as a totality—have next to nothing.
Michael Parenti is an award winning, internationally known author. His two most recent books are The Face of Imperialism (a critique of the U.S. global empire; 2011) and Waiting for Yesterday: Pages from a Street Kid’s Life (an ethnic memoir about his early life in Italian Harlem; 2013). For further information about his work, visit his website: www.michaelparenti.org.
See also:
Global wealth: 1% own 48%; 10% own 87% and bottom 50% own less than 1% by Michael Roberts
OH NO, the JEW has a new book, and he lives in Jew York City, and he is bound to get plenty of bookstore assists.
[Pragmatic stance: Finkelstein has long characterized the two-state settlement (aligned with pre-1967 borders) as the practical, achievable compromise supported by the international community to end immediate suffering.
- Personal ideals: He has described himself as preferring a broader humanist or “no states” outlook rather than identifying strictly with state-based nationalism]
Israel’s genocide in Gaza is heavily dependent upon rhetorical obfuscation of facts. From the highest echelons of international institutions and their officials to international human rights organisations, Palestinians in Gaza have been betrayed on several levels.
Norman Finkelstein’s latest book, Gaza’s Gravediggers: An Inquiry into Corruption in High Places (OR Books, 2026) meticulously dissects reports and rhetoric to expose a corrupt web of impunity — one which would shame the UN, were it not an instrument of enabling, rather than preventing, Israel’s colonial violence.
Finkelstein commences with historical and political details that place Gaza under continuous scrutiny.
Noting Gaza’s obliteration since October 2023, Finkelstein writes, “But since Gaza emerged as a distinct entity after Israel’s ethnic cleansing in 1948, it’s always been a forbidding place.”
This detail in the book’s prologue is a stark reminder of how Gaza is perpetually portrayed. The more Gaza was portrayed as isolated, the easier it was for Israel to launch its periodic bombardments, which, as the author notes, each “typically picked up where the last one left off except at a qualitatively higher level of death and destruction.”
While Israel carried out its periodic ethnic cleansing, it was also able to sustain its narrative of Hamas as a threat, despite its attempts at diplomacy, cooperation with international law and endorsing popular peaceful resistance.
“By 2023, Gaza had vanished from the stage of international politics,” Finkelstein writes.
Yet what happened since October 2023 would see the continuation of an international endeavour that protected not only Israel’s fabricated security narrative, but also its genocide in Gaza.
From false claims to mellowing genocide into war and violations, international institutions and human rights organisations carried out a large-scale diminishing of Israel’s genocidal atrocities and promoted fabricated claims and assertions, even as the evidence inside Gaza continued to pile up.
One example is the UN’s endorsement in a 2024 report of Israel’s very early, unfounded claim that Hamas used rape as a weapon of war on 7 October 2023.
+—+
- Perverted Fantasies: Following the revelation that the book was fictional, some literary critics accused Kosiński of using the historical backdrop of the Holocaust as a shield to write pornographic and sadomasochistic fantasies involving children.
- Plagiarism Accusations: His literary reputation was further damaged by a famous 1982 exposé in The Village Voice, which accused him of plagiarism and using uncredited ghostwriters to compose his books.
Graphic Content: The boy witnesses and is subjected to extreme depravity, including torture, bestiality, incest, rape, and pedophilia.
Spend a few minutes reading this… Lying for the cause, inventing a past that fits with their present aspirations is a kosher adventure..
On a funny note, doesn’t he look a bit like Elie Wiesel? He clearly performing a similar affinity- selling fictional narratives as history…
Edward Reid
I recently came across someone sharing “The Painted Bird” as fact and a story of survival against savages, I’d like to clarify a few things and discuss the truth of his life and how lies can shape reality, history, and perceptions:
“I remember, many years ago, speaking with a Jewish lawyer from New York about Kosinski’s book The Painted Bird. This lawyer, based partly on the book, held the firm belief that Poles were almost sub-human. When he mentioned Kosinski’s description of eyes being torn out in a scene that would seem ‘appropriate’ in a Polish household, I responded, much to his discomfort, that such a scene would be as out of place in a Polish home as it would be in an American one. I added that the only Poles I had ever known were intelligent, civilized, and cultured. He didn’t respond, but his expression suggested that I had just told him something entirely impossible.” – James Park Sloan
Kosinski’s “The Painted Bird” portrayed Poles as inhumane, savage beings, which was and is a horrendous misrepresentation of the very people who risked their lives to save him. The real issue with the book? It’s full of lies, and unfortunately, many bought into it. Many in the Jewish community and Americans in general became captivated by Kosinski and his narrative of wartime suffering at the hands of the “Polish beasts.” The book became a bestseller, shaping the perception of wartime Poland and how Jews were allegedly treated.
The truth is starkly different. Kosinski’s experiences, as he wrote them, were fabricated. Siedlecka, a Pole who knew him and his family personally, reveals that Kosinski spent much of the war living in relative safety and comfort, thanks to the help of Polish families. She describes his father as a crafty survivor (whose life was saved by Poles) with little moral compass, willing to do anything to stay safe, including collaborating with the Germans. After the war, at the liberation of Dabrowa, Kosinski’s father collaborated with the NKVD and the Red Army, sending those who had helped him to Siberia for minor offenses like hoarding.
Still, the real tragedy lies in the actions of Jerzy Kosinski himself. He turned his back on the Polish families who had sheltered him and vilified them, as well as the entire Polish nation, to the world. According to Siedlecka, during the war, young Jerzy Kosinski spent his time enjoying the comforts of sausages and cocoa, luxuries unavailable to his neighbors’ children, within the safety of his home, far removed from the hardship endured by those who risked everything to protect him.
Sadly, Kosinski’s fabricated portrayal of wartime Poland became the narrative many people accepted about the country under German occupation, shaping perceptions for an entire generation. At the peak of his career, some even predicted that Kosinski might win a Nobel Prize. The German edition of his book was an immediate success.
So, if you’re curious about how history becomes shaped by misrepresentation and how stereotypes are born, you can look at people like Kosinski. But I assure you, he was not the only one responsible. It’s crucial for everyone to exercise due diligence before accepting such accounts as factual or forming opinions about an entire group of people.
“The Painted Bird” unfairly and falsely portrayed Poles, shaping a distorted and harmful narrative that still shapes perspectives today
+—+
Moving on . . .
“They’d (U.S. backed opposition candidates) love to win elections so they can profit from selling off the schools. But they can forget it. There won’t be any more elections here, no more elections for them to try and seize the government, to seize power … We are going to work, with the National Assembly and the relevant organizations, on the laws, because we need to create laws that will put up a wall, a barrier, against the coup-plotters, against those who sell off their country, and no matter how much money the Yankees give them, they won’t succeed! They won’t succeed! They won’t succeed!”
Nicaraguan co-president Rosario Murillo further clarified that what Ortega was referring to was preventing foreign interference in Nicaragua, not cancelling elections altogether, saying:
The history of the electoral processes here was established, designed, directed, and guided by the United States. That is history. That is the kind of election that will never return to Nicaragua.
That kind of election that goes against the people will not come back, will never return to Nicaragua. Elections, yes, but our own elections, and when we say our own, we mean elections of our blessed people, designed and organized based on our national sovereignty, based on our national dignity, to elect the best Nicaraguans, those who know about struggle and honor. Blessed, free, dignified, sovereign elections
In his speech, Daniel Ortega accused the U.S. deep state of conspiring with opposition figures in the United States to interfere in Nicaragua, saying, “Don’t think that just because there’s no war we’re at peace… No! They’re constantly conspiring, organizing, looking for a way to create political parties so that in an election they’re supposed to hold, those parties will win. And here this is the end of the history of parties installed by the Yankees, installed by the Somoza regime supporters, ever coming back to power”.
Ortega’s accusations were outright confirmed by Damon Wilson, the current head of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a cutout of the CIA’s regime change arm.
He admitted that the National Endowment for Democracy was actively “supporting” Nicaraguan opposition figures and will continue to do so, saying:
NEDemocracy will continue supporting those who peacefully defend fundamental freedoms and the right of every Nicaraguan to choose their own leaders and determine their country’s future.
The Ortega-Murillo regime may seek to abolish elections, but it cannot abolish the Nicaraguan people’s desire for democracy. We will stand with them until that right is restored.
And I WANT to live in Nicaragua, and this is the Jewish Rubio Plan . . . again and again?
During the NED sponsored coup in 2018, journalist John Perry on the ground wrote, “Public buildings and the houses of government supporters were burnt down by protesters; shops were ransacked; most businesses and all banks and schools were closed. The main secondary school for 3,700 pupils was burnt out twice. The police station was under siege for 45 days, so no police were on patrol. No cars or taxis could use the streets; passing the barricades on foot involved being checked by youths with weapons and on occasion threatened. Dissent was met with violence (before the barricades went up, I took part in a “peace” march which was pelted with stones). At first protesters had homemade mortars, but later many acquired more serious weapons such as AK-47s; paid troublemakers manned the barricades at night-time. A police official captured nearby was tortured and then killed, his body burnt at a barricade”.
2018 John Perry to the Syphilitic Guardian . . .
“I live in the city of Masaya, which was under opposition control for three months, with the streets blocked by hundreds of barricades. Here, briefly, is what happened.
Public buildings and the houses of government supporters were burnt down by protesters; shops were ransacked; most businesses and all banks and schools were closed. The main secondary school for 3,700 pupils was burnt out twice. The police station was under siege for 45 days, so no police were on patrol. No cars or taxis could use the streets; passing the barricades on foot involved being checked by youths with weapons and on occasion threatened. Dissent was met with violence (before the barricades went up, I took part in a “peace” march which was pelted with stones). At first protesters had homemade mortars, but later many acquired more serious weapons such as AK-47s; paid troublemakers manned the barricades at night-time. A police official captured nearby was tortured and then killed, his body burnt at a barricade.
Although the police, who regained control of the city on 17 July, were well armed, there were only three casualties, including a policeman. People came out on the streets, dancing, singing and offering the police food and drink (similar scenes occurred elsewhere). Of course, the community remains very divided but, contrary to your reports, Masaya is far more peaceful than it was when under the control of the protesters. Before April, indeed, Nicaragua was one of the safest countries in Latin America; we look forward to it recovering that status very soon.” — John Perry, Masaya, Nicaragua
Oh god, Mehdi, the fucking crackpot calling the kettle black . . . .
[Mehdi challenges Mark Warner, the pro-Israel vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee, on why he won’t say genocide, the future of ICE, and whether the Dems should be the ‘antiwar party.’]
After months of Donald Trump claiming that he would end the illegal war in Iran within two weeks, the U.S. and Iran are once again trading strikes as nuclear deal negotiations have collapsed.
And to make matters worse, this war – like most of Trump’s claims – is based on a lie.
Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner tells Mehdi: “I’ve seen all the intelligence. There was no imminent threat [from Iran]. And this was a war of choice.”
As Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took to Capitol Hill this week to beg for a near $70 billion in additional funding for the war, Sen. Warner sounds the alarm on just how inept Donald Trump has been at handling the conflict: “There’s not been an organized, straightforward plan, and his unwillingness to come before Congress or go to the American people and say, ‘Here’s what I want to do with this war’ is crazy.”
But Iran isn’t all the two discuss. In this wide-ranging interview, Mehdi also presses Sen. Warner on:
- Whether he regrets his vote for Marco Rubio as Secretary of State
- His recent vote in favor of selling bombs to Israel while opposing the sale of bulldozers
- Whether he believes Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza
- The Sudan, Rohingya, and Uyghur genocides, in comparison to Gaza
- Why he still takes AIPAC money
- Trump’s bogus election interference claims and the ‘five-alarm fire’ about ‘corrupt’ elections
- And his position on the future of ICE.
Paid subscribers can watch the full 27-minute interview above, while free subscribers can access a two-minute preview. Consider upgrading your subscription to never hit a Zeteo paywall again!
[Oh, my, oh, my, two minutes is all you fucking NEED!]
Over 4,200 Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa , , , Drop Site Daily: July 23, 2026
Look closely — Sean Penn, Sandler, Ben Stiller, you name the fucking whore face, they will be seen here. What’s the fly’s name? The other fucker? All fucking Jewish Settlers.
Is that Che there?
Ahh, is Iran now off limits, in terms of calling out the terror campaign of fucking USA mercenaries?
A new wave of U.S. strikes hit sites across Iran starting on Wednesday night, killing at least two and striking additional civilian and energy infrastructure.
- A U.S. missile destroyed an asphalt storage depot in the western Iranian state of Khuzestan on Wednesday night, and explosions were reported around Ahvaz.
- A U.S. missile also hit the Shalamcheh border crossing, at the Iran-Iraq border, according to Iraqi officials, killing two people in a nearby rest facility. Iranian officials said the border crossing, used frequently by religious pilgrims, remained functional.
- Several explosions were heard in Ziyarat, near the southern coastal city of Sirik, according to Tasnim, with additional explosions heard in Bandar Mahshah.
- Iran’s Health Ministry reported on Wednesday the death toll from U.S. airstrikes since June 6 had risen to 53, with 592 people wounded. Among those killed were six women and three children.
QUEER»»>
I’m getting this from a Substacker . . .
I’m not too sure the idea of fighting a rich man’s war is in their minds. I would think that if that were the case, they would not have joined. But they are there to fight for their country and all the BS the country is supposed to stand for. They know that this is not what this war is about.
If they refuse to go, there’s a nice fat court-martial awaiting them. If they go AWAL (AWOL), that will follow them the rest of their lives. If they sabotage the ship and start a laundry fire, someone’s head is gonna roll. If they hide in their barracks or hotel rooms, they will be labeled cowards. If they write their congressperson, they will be ignored. If they blow the whistle on how they are not being protected, they will face fierce punishment. (I just saw a video of an Iranian missile attack posted supposedly by a U.S. soldier).
Video descriptions: Insane close-range footage filmed by a U.S. soldier captures Iranian missiles slamming into Muwaffaq Salti Airbase in Jordan.
Company morale is in the toilet. I feel for them. My heart aches for them. I shed a tear for them. They are blatantly being used as cannon fodder for the rich a-holes who do not care about them at all. These a-holes are making big money trading on the petro-dollar.
The soldiers? Well, they are between a rock and a hard place at this point.
No amount of BS coming from Hegseth, Trump or anyone else who is calling them heroes is gonna change that for them on the ground. No medal of honor will erase the pictures in their heads of their fellow soldiers being blown to bits in front of their eyes. No medal of honor will restore their lost limbs, cure their traumatic brain injuries, overcome their PTSD, heal their family relationships, keep them from being homeless begging in the streets, stop them from hiding during the fireworks displays, keep them from having suicidal ideations, pay for their exorbitant medical bills, stop them trembling through the night due to a barrage of nightmarish dreams or any of the other consequences of the hell they face while fighting these rich man’s wars.
The Navy beat its recruiting goal for new sailors this year, signing up 45,000 new recruits. The service announced the milestone earlier this month. It’s the highest number of people signing up for the Navy in roughly two decades.
“Today’s Navy is stronger because tens of thousands of Americans chose to answer the call to serve,” Rear Adm. Jim Waters, the head of Navy Recruiting Command, said. “Reaching this milestone is not simply about achieving a recruiting objective – it’s about delivering the talented Sailors our Fleet needs to maintain readiness in an increasingly complex security environment.”
“Coast Guard exceeds fiscal year 2025 recruiting goals, achieves highest numbers since 1991”
Some of us WANT 10,000 coffins draped in US China made flags….
Here’s Caitlin, who has banned me….
Then, the Sustacker gives us this?
More Reading:
Another American War of Choice https://www.spykmancenter.org/another-american-war-of-choice
Iran: America’s Next War of Choice by Douglas Macgregor, James Carden | Dec 18, 2024 https://ronpaulinstitute.org/iran-americas-next-war-of-choice/
The Netanyahu Gambit: How Trump Walked America Into an Iranian War Trap https://www.theburningplatform.com/2026/03/02/the-netanyahu-gambit-how-trump-walked-america-into-an-iranian-war-trap/comment-page-2/
The Netanyahu Gambit: How Trump Walked America Into an Iranian War Trap https://www.theburningplatform.com/2026/03/02/the-netanyahu-gambit-how-trump-walked-america-into-an-iranian-war-trap/comment-page-2/
Trump the Demented Felon and his Illegal War of Choice- Ridiculous, deserves no respect https://scsalon.org/index.php/2026/03/03/trump-the-demented-felon-and-his-illegal-war-of-choice-ridiculous-deserves-no-respect/
Mission in Iran war has pivoted toward ensuring oil flow, Trump official says https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/19/trump-official-iran-war-oil-flow-strait-hormuz
The Case Against Trump’s War of Choice in Iran https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-case-against-trumps-war-of-choice-in-iran/
Warner: Trump’s ‘War of Choice Has Been a Disaster’ https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2026/07/19/warner-trumps-war-of-choice-has-been-a-disaster/
Iran expert says Trump’s ‘war of choice’ has morphed into a ‘war of necessity’ March 17, 20266:27 PM ET Heard on Fresh Air Terry Gross https://www.npr.org/2026/03/17/nx-s1-5750397/iran-war-trump-karim-sadjadpour
Might as well get your news from Hartmann: LOOK at all those BOOKS!
Trouble’s brewing inside the Trump White House, with staffers leaking details of growing friction between the president and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. One Republican senator is now publicly admitting that Trump’s war with Iran has left America worse off and that his party will “probably” pay for it in November. Mitch McConnell’s hometown paper just published a pre-obituary laying out why the 84 year-old senator will be remembered as one of the most destructive figures in American politics. And a rural Texas border town is now suing the Trump administration, arguing its border wall could ruin the entire community.
Heroes fuckers like Thom would never admit to: Encelia sent a distress call reporting it had been struck by a missile off Jizan, on Saudi Arabia’s southern Red Sea coast near the Yemen border. British risk firm Vanguard said the ship was hit on its right side, about 80 miles southwest of Al Shuqaiq, another Saudi coastal city.
- Ansarallah strikes two tankers in the Red Sea: Ansarallah forces said on Thursday they had struck two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea with ballistic and cruise missiles and drones, setting both vessels on fire.
- The group identified the tankers as Encelia and Layla, saying they had violated its ban on Saudi-linked shipping. Saudi Arabia later confirmed the attack on the Encelia.
- UKMTO separately confirmed a tanker had been struck by an unknown projectile 70 nautical miles southwest of Al-Shuqaiq, Saudi Arabia, causing an onboard fire. No casualties or environmental damage were reported.
- Ansarallah also claimed roughly 10 ships have already turned back since it imposed a blockade on Saudi ships, vowing to continue enforcing its “siege with siege” policy.
- At least nine vessels have made U-turns to avoid the Bab al-Mandab strait as a result of Ansarallah’s blockade, according to the AFP.
- Reuters reported on Wednesday that five vessels, four of them oil tankers, changed course in the Red Sea on Wednesday.
You’re in the Army NOW:
- House narrowly passes $95 billion budget for Iran war: House Republicans narrowly passed their $95 billion budget blueprint 216 to 214 on Wednesday to fund the Iran war and impose new voting restrictions, with two Republicans—Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Warren Davidson (Ohio)—voting against it.
- The measure will provide up to $73 billion in additional military funding for the U.S. campaign against Iran, with $12 billion allocated for farmers and $10 billion for Trump’s voting restrictions.
You’re in the Israeli Offensive and Occupation Murder Forces NOW, you fucking American incels…
- House passes NDAA: The U.S. House of Representatives passed the $1.1 trillion National Defense Authorization Act 216–212 on Wednesday, with six Democrats—Henry Cuellar, Don Davis, Jared Golden, Vicente Gonzalez, Adam Gray, and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez—voting yes and seven Republicans voting no. The measure includes Section 219, which more tightly integrates the U.S. military intelligence and the defense industrial base with Israel.
- The bill makes U.S. military support for Israel easier and more institutionalized. It creates a Pentagon office tasked with accelerating U.S.-Israeli military technology cooperation, including joint R&D, testing, co-production, data sharing, and moving jointly developed technology into procurement.
- Separately, it extends through 2029 an existing authority allowing the U.S. to transfer weapons already stored in its War Reserve Stockpile in Israel. That authority can permit transfers without Congress voting on each shipment, with Congress only receiving notification under the underlying law.
By 1914, as we have already seen, the interests of Britain and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company had become inseparable, and British foreign policy and the Rothschild Banking family foreign policy became one and the same. During this period of purported U.S. neutrality from 1914 to 1917, American sentiment was shifted gradually but inexorably toward a pro-Ally, pro-war position, first because of the sophisticated British propaganda campaign, and later from the increasing pressure from business and corporate elite on both sides of the Atlantic who had a financial and commercial stake in a British and French victory.
American business was soon booming from the war in Europe. Between 1914 and 1917, the American GNP was up 20% and manufacturing was up 40%. Allied Powers purchased over 3 billion dollars in wartime orders and borrowed over 2 billion dollars in bonds, compared to twenty million in Central power bonds. The British surface naval blockade of Germany ensured that American trade was almost exclusively with the Allies.
As early as 1915, the United States, not yet involved in the War, had loaned France and Great Britain millions of dollars through American banks. Had Germany won, those bonds held by American bankers would have been worthless. By the spring of 1917, American bankers had loaned the Allies almost $3 billion dollars plus another $6 billion for exports, and the steel, munitions, chemical and agricultural industries had all become dependent on the war for profit. Lastly, some of the democrats (and Woodrow Wilson’s biggest financial backers) had vested personal financial interests with Britain and France. How did this happen?
The financial aspect of the conflict which became known as World War One is too vast to relate here with the respect the subject deserves, but let it suffice to point out that World War One elevated approximately 21,000 US investors into the brackets of millionaires and billionaires. The Rockefellers alone, who displayed great eagerness for the US to enter World War One on the British side, made in excess of $200,000,000 from that conflict, and in just one afternoon during the war, Bernard Baruch, Wilson’s Czar of American Industry and part of the commission that handled all purchasing for the Allies during the war, made a personal profit of $750,000.
The Federal Reserve System, which began operations in 1914, was the vehicle which in effect forced the American people, without them even knowing it, to lend the Allies twenty-five billion dollars in loans which went unpaid, although the interest on the loans was indeed paid… to New York bankers. The cartel of the Rothschilds and the Bank of England and other London banking houses which ultimately controlled the Federal Reserve Banks through their controlling amounts of bank stock (along with that of their subsidiary firms in New York, J.P. Morgan Co. and Kuhn, Loeb & Co., etc.) directed the successful campaign to have the plan enacted into law by Congress. These very firms had their principal officers appointed to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Federal Advisory Council in 1914.
The banking and business elites salivating for war included J. Henry Schroder Banking Company, the Rockefellers, the Eugene Meyer family, J.P. Morgan, Alex Brown & Sons, Kuhn Loeb & Co., the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Baruch and Guggenheim families and a few others who weaved a tightly connected web of power, money, arms and influence for their own financial gains. Their mutual influence on world affairs often crossed as they financed all sides for a continual, profit rendering conflict.
J. P. Morgan, Jr., one of the signatories to the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, played a prominent role in the financial aspects of war-mongering. It was he who made the first loan of $12,000,000 to Russia, and in 1915, a loan of $50,000,000 to the French Government. All of the munitions purchases in the United States by the British were made through one of his firms, and he organized a syndicate of about 2,200 banks and floated a loan of $500,000,000 to the Allies.
J.P. Morgan also received the proceeds of the First Liberty Loan to pay off $400,000,000 which he in turn advanced to Great Britain at the outbreak of war. By 1917, the Morgans and Kuhn, Loeb Company had floated a billion and a half dollars in loans to the Allies. The bankers also financed a slew of pro-war (disingenuously named “peace”) organizations which prodded US citizens to become involved in the War. The “Commission for Relief in Belgium” made up grisly atrocity stories against the Germans, while a Carnegie organization called the “League to Enforce Peace” (later, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) agitated in Washington for US entry into war.
Sometimes, the bankers financed both sides. The Rothschilds’ agents, the Warburg banking house, were financing the Kaiser. Paul Warburg, a naturalized citizen from Germany who had been decorated by the Kaiser in 1912, was vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. He had also handled large sums furnished by Germany for Lenin and Trotsky while his brother Max (who was Kaiser Wilhelm’s personal banker) was the leader of the German espionage system! It was this brother, Max, who authorized Lenin’s train to pass through the lines and execute the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Jacob Schiff, like the Warburgs, also had two brothers in Germany during the war, Philip and Ludwig, who also were active as bankers to the German Government.
The Rothschilds meanwhile bought the German news agency, Wolff, to further control the flow of information to the German people and what the rest of the world would hear from inside Germany. One of the leading executives of Wolff was none other than Max Warburg! The Rothschilds would later buy an interest in the Havas news agency in France and Reuters in London. The tentacles of the banking families reached deep into the power elites: Dr. von Bethmann Hollweg, was the son of Moritz Bethmann from the Frankfurt banking family of Frankfurt, a cousin of the Rothschilds.
Kuhn, Loeb & Co. represented the Rothschild interests in the US, and along with the Harrimans, the Goulds and the Rockefellers, became the dominant powers in the railroad and America financial world while they war-mongered to fatten themselves even more. The first available appointment on the Supreme Court of the United States which Woodrow Wilson filled was given to Kuhn-Loeb lawyer Louis Brandeis who had been selected by Jacob Schiff to carry on war agitation. Through marriage, the Kuhn Loeb Company managed to twine itself throughout the U.S. Food Administration, the British Secret Service and the Wilson White House. And on and on and on it went, like a ball of twine, tangling and tying the bankers, their progeny and their friends together for war and profits.
On October 13, 1917, Woodrow Wilson stated: “It is manifestly imperative that there should be a complete mobilization of the banking reserves of the United States. The burden and the privilege (of the Allied loans) must be shared by every banking institution in the country. I believe that cooperation on the part of the banks is a patriotic duty at this time, and that membership in the Federal Reserve System is a distinct and significant evidence of patriotism.”
That “patriotism” served the bankers and their cronies well, although it did little for the people of America who sacrificed their sons, fathers, brothers and husbands to a bloody, needless war.
The Lusitania: The Ship That Helped Launch Millions of Deaths
When the Lusitania was launched, she was intended to be the largest, fastest ship ever built, doing better than 25 knots at top speed. Britain had enjoyed naval superiority since 1815, but was gravely impacted by the popularity and financial success of the German luxury liners of Hamburg-Amerika and Norddeutscher Lloyd, and she hoped that Lusitania would restore her sagging reputation. Her maiden voyage was on September 7, 1907 and for the next nine years, the Lusitania crossed the Atlantic 100 times. Her 101st voyage on May 7, 1915 would be her last.
In 1903, British Prime Minister Balfour had authorized the 20-year loan for £2.6 million at 2.5% interest for Cunard to construct both Lusitania and Mauretania. When they were completed, Cunard was given a subsidy of £150,000 for maintaining both ships in a state of war readiness.
Under the command of Captain William Thomas Turner, Lusitania sank within an astonishing 18 minutes of being hit by a German U-boat. Over 1,000 people aboard died because of the quickness of the sinking, including 124 out of 159 Americans on board. There were greater maritime tragedies, but none provided such a perfect opportunity for pro-war propaganda, and probably never before had the innocent dead been as quickly and blatantly exploited. Sir Gilbert Parker, the member of the British propaganda bureau in charge of information and propaganda aimed at the USA, used the occasion to rush the infamously dishonest “Bryce Report of German Atrocities” into print within five days after the sinking, with the sole aim of bringing the USA into the war on Britain’s side.
The American media parroted British reports that the Germans had fired two torpedoes at the ship without any prior warnings. There had been clear, repeated warnings beforehand, however, and even on April 24, 1915, German officials had published notices in forty US newspapers that a state of war existed between Germany and Britain and that passengers would be travelling at their own risk. The public had no idea that British passenger ships would also be carrying implements of war intended for use against Germany, thus making them targets.
From the onset of war in 1914, Britain’s horrendous blockade on Germany under First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill prevented even food from being imported into Germany and brought death, starvation and malnutrition to thousands of people. The British blockade violated the tenets of generally accepted international law which had been codified by several international agreements of the previous two centuries and is believed to have caused up to a million German civilian deaths. U.S. Senator Robert LaFollette pointed out, in vain, that food blockades violated international law and struck at America’s rights as a neutral power. LaFollette even cited an admission by Lord Salisbury, one of England’s prominent statesmen, that “food for the civilian population was never contraband… a principle that the English were callously ignoring in their blockade of Germany.”
Not only were the British employing the blockade to stop, destroy or confiscate ships carrying cargo to Germany, they also disguised warships as merchant ships, used neutral flags as cover (Q-ships), and armed merchant ships, giving them orders to ram German U-boats. This turned every British merchant ship into a warship in the opinion of Germany, who had objected to this policy in vain. The Royal Navy showed its own disregard of civilians by loading passenger ships with weapons.
Come on Ansarallah! More wrecks for fucking divers like myself to enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Paul Haeder, Author 