you might wonder how it is that israel isn't even required to obey our laws, and don't forget the uss liberty while we're at it;

THE LIFE OF THE LAW is neither logic nor justice. Raw power is paramount whether in lawmaking, interpretation or application.  French poet and journalist Anatole France captured the idea in this quip: “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

Israel occupies the apex of power in the United States. Notwithstanding his ongoing criminal trial in Israel for breach of trust, bribery and fraud and the arrest warrant by the International Criminal Court for war crimes and crimes against humanity, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received 55 standing ovations in addressing a joint session of Congress on July 24, 2024, a high-water mark of legislative exuberance. Congressman Thomas Massie (R-KY) related to Tucker Carlson that he is the only Republican in Congress not to have an American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) minder. AIPAC is notorious for brandishing its financial clout to crush political opposition, as it did in 2024 with former House members Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY).

U.S. LAWS WITH DE FACTO ISRAEL EXCEPTIONS

It is no surprise, therefore, that the law is routinely warped to cosset or shield Israel. One prominent example is the Leahy Law of 1997, which prohibits security assistance to any security unit of a foreign country credibly accused of a gross violation of human rights, such as extrajudicial killing, torture or prolonged arbitrary detention. The State Department has de facto carved out an Israel exception to the Leahy Law. No Israeli security unit has ever been disqualified from U.S. security assistance despite what all the world knows and can see in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and elsewhere in the Middle East.

Author James Bamford, in his meticulously documented book Spyfail, confirms AIPAC is an unregistered “foreign agent” of Israel under the Foreign Agents Registration Act that the U.S. Department of Justice ignores. Registration is required of an entity that, among other things, acts at the “request” of a foreign principal to influence the public policy of the United States. To believe Prime Minister Netanyahu has never “requested” AIPAC in body language or clues to influence Congress and public opinion to support Israel after Oct. 7, 2023, takes fantasy to a new level. AIPAC worked hand in hand with the Israeli government to oppose the sale of AWACs to Saudi Arabia in 1981. Did the left hand not know what the right hand was doing? Think of an analogy. When King Henry II, during a Christmas dinner with four knights in 1170, rhetorically asked, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” the words were understood as a request to murder Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, which promptly ensued.........more........

 bill bonner always has a bit of sarcasm about him and his essays, such as this one about our money problems;

As we all know, the US is headed for a fiscal crisis. Like having a ‘heart attack,’ says Ray Dalio.

The only way to prevent it is to make dramatic policy changes now — not just to ‘improper payments’ to federal bureaucrats, but also serious cuts to the firepower industry.

Possible? Here’s Barrons:

Trump Sends Shockwave Through Defense Stocks, Says Military Spending Could Be Halved

“At some point, when things settle down, I’m going to meet with China and I’m going to meet with Russia, in particular those two, and I’m going to say there’s no reason for us to be spending almost $1 trillion on the military … and I’m going to say we can spend this on other things,” Trump said.

But here’s Congress:

House Republicans on Tuesday revealed a budget resolution that would add $100 billion in defense funding, one-third less than the Senate blueprint which would raise defense spending by $150 billion.

Asked about the latest Senate budget proposal, Sen. Rand Paul said:

“I don’t think the numbers are real.”

What follows is a look at how unreal the feds’ world… and their numbers… really are.

News came yesterday that a dozen eggs now cost nearly $5. US News:

US eggs prices hit a record high of $4.95 and are likely to keep climbing

The latest monthly consumer price index showed that the average price of a dozen Grade A eggs in U.S. cities reached $4.95 in January, eclipsing the previous record of $4.82 set two years earlier and more than double the low of $2.04 that was recorded in August 2023.......more.......

when jfk started talking this way they killed him; 

This is the first of two commentaries examining what the writer reads as President Trump’s unfolding offensive against the institutions and agencies comprising the deep state — or, if you prefer, the administrative state or the permanent state or the invisible government. The second in this series will follow shortly.

Wow. In a series of rapid-fire developments last week, the new Trump regime has decisively joined the battle with the deep state on the national security side. This is big, or could be. Either Donald Trump will begin to exert political control over the invisible government or the invisible government will sink Donald Trump just as it did during his first term as president. Let us be attentive.

The attack on USAID, the telephone call with Vladimir Putin, the incipient alienation of the Kiev regime, new talk of talks with the Islamic Republic, Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation as director of national intelligence: I don’t know if these events and their timing reflect a concerted plan, back-of-an-envelope inspirations, or the president’s thinking but not necessarily the thinking of those around him. Let us in any case consider these rat-a-tat developments as one if we are to understand what is fundamentally at issue.

And we must add another to the above list. On Feb. 13 Trump came out with his most explosive proposal to date — or one of them, given how quickly the explosions come these days. This was his statement, as recorded by C–SPAN Thursday, that he wants to convene with the presidents of Russia and China, “and I want to say, let’s cut our military budget[s] in half.”.......more.......

 the author titled this post: i wanted to show the world how it feels to go around gaza these days;

When speaking with children in Gaza “your heart is going to break one billion times a day,” Abubaker Abed told The Electronic Intifada Livestream on 13 February.

A regular contributor to The Electronic Intifada, Abed has been touring Gaza to see the destruction – and the efforts to restore a semblance of normality – for himself.

He has been posting his video reports from across Gaza on his Twitter/X account.

This past week Israel fully dismantled and left the so-called Neztarim corridor, a wide-swath of land it had occupied south of Gaza City, completely severing the north of the Gaza Strip from the territory’s south.

Contributing editor Jon Elmer talked about the significance of this withdrawal – which has allowed displaced Palestinians to return en masse to their devastated neighborhoods in northern Gaza.

According to Hallel Biton Rosen on Israel’s Channel 14, some Israeli soldiers left Netzarim in tears, feeling that “everything they did for more than a year in the Gaza Strip was in vain.”..........more......

 pcr details an accounting problem at social security and you'd think everyone would be up in arms but then you remember that its a point where politics can we waved about;

Social Security Has More Active Social Security Numbers than the United States Has Population

Paul Craig Roberts

Dear Readers, 

If you are puzzled why Democrats and the US Civil Service are begging judges to prevent the Trump administration from having access to official US government data, the Social Security data alone explains it.

The US population according to the CensusBureau is 334 million, but according to current Social Security records, there are 398 million people with active Social Security numbers.  In other words, 64 million more people have US Social Security numbers than exist.

According to the Social Security Administration’s official data, there are two active Social Security accounts of people who are older than the United States.

According to the Social Security Administration, there are active Social Security numbers for 3.6 million Americans between the ages of 110 and 119 years of age; 3.4 million between the ages of 120-129 years of age;  3.9 million between the ages of 130-139; 3.5 million between the ages of 140-149, and to pass by these absurd active Social Security numbers, we have the Social Security Administration attesting to the fact that there are 1,039 active Social Security numbers for people aged 220-229 years old...........more.......

 europe is a lost cause and aught to be ignored for the most part from here on out until they display some intelligence;

While Washington is adopting a more diplomatic stance in the conflict with Russia, the European Union is insisting on a hostile policy. French President Emmanuel Macron is reacting quite negatively to the diplomatic advances, trying to consolidate a unified European position on the issue. The French goal is clearly to boycott any peace process, thus trying to prolong the conflict – even if this harms European strategic interests.

Recently, Macron called for an emergency summit of European leaders to discuss the Ukrainian issue. He believes that it is necessary for the EU to show an alternative to the initiatives taken by the US, otherwise European countries will end up being excluded from all the peace talks.

The meeting of the leaders is expected to take place in Paris at the same time as Russian and American diplomats meet in Saudi Arabia. There are not many details available on the subject yet, but it is known that Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski was one of the first to be invited by Macron – which is natural, considering that Poland is one of the countries with the highest military and political involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

It is important to understand the context in which Macron made his decision. While, on the one hand, the US engaged in direct dialogue with Russia and excluded Europe from the process, on the other, the Europeans met at the Munich Security Conference to discuss relevant issues regarding the main geopolitical developments, but failed to reach any fruitful consensus on the issue of peace in Ukraine.

In addition, US special envoy Keith Kellogg categorically stated that the EU will not be included in the peace negotiations, which further aggravated the Europeans’ anger – certainly motivating Macron to call the meeting in Paris. In fact, it seems clear that the EU feels “betrayed” by the US by being excluded from the talks. European states seem desperate to prevent Donald Trump’s initiatives from succeeding, which is why the EU is expected to continue endorsing the war even if the US changes its stance........more......

there's a hole in daddy's arm where all the money goes, we're told but where did all the money really go? into a black hole with no return address;

Again, from my recent post:

They’re going to quickly stumble on to payments for black world projects and operations and potentially not realize what they’re looking at. It’s hard to imagine that the actual deep state would allow anyone to start pulling on those threads…

As for tracing the money: Are the recipients’ bank routing and account numbers present on the payments?

If so, the money should be traceable.

If not… Hmm. Turn it up to 11, I guess......more........

if you wish to look further into this here is more from another source below;

Apparently our government cannot explain how 4.7 trillion dollars was spent.  Are you kidding me?  A stack of 4.7 trillion one dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon and part of the way back.  This is yet another example of why we desperately need the Department of Government Efficiency.  I realize that my articles about DOGE have caused some confusion in recent weeks, and so let me try to explain.  On the one hand, I have been arguing that we must crack down on  waste, fraud and abuse, but on the other hand I have been arguing that what DOGE is doing is going to cause a great deal of pain.  Some readers think that I have been contradicting myself, but I have not been contradicting myself at all.  There are times when we must do things that are necessary even though we know that they will cause a tremendous amount of pain.  We have piled up the largest mountain of debt in the history of the entire planet, and it really is an existential threat to the future of our nation.  But cutting down the size of the federal government and greatly reducing the flow of cash that is being spewed out of the giant money machine that we call the U.S. Treasury is going to cause immense chaos.  Honestly, I do not know if our society will be able to handle it.

On Monday, DOGE revealed that 4.7 trillion dollars in payments that have come through the U.S. Treasury are basically impossible to trace because they lacked a very important tracking code…......more........