Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2204

What Is Democracy Anyway?

In a TAC commentary last month, Robert Merry responded to a lament by Brookings Institution fellow William Galston in The New Republic about an “anti-democratic populist” wave sweeping across Europe. In light of the ascent of a Euroskeptic coalition in Italy and the recent impressive electoral win by conservative nationalist Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz Party in Hungary, Galston believes that democracy has suffered a fateful setback:

The global democratic tide which began in 1974 with the end...

The Key Word

The Trump-Kim geopolitical reality-TV show – surreal for some – offered unparalleled entries to the annals of international diplomacy. It will be tough to upstage the US President pulling an iPad and showing Kim Jong-un the cheesy trailer of a straight-to-video 1980s B-grade action movie – complete with a Sylvester Stallone cameo – casting the two leaders as heroes destined to save the world’s 7 billion people.

Away from the TV, the former “Rocket Man”, now respectfully recast in Trump termin...

The World Is Running Out of Sand

A global shortage of sand is prompting black-market gangs to steal large amounts from rivers and beaches. Scientists are warning that the global supply of sand is slipping through our fingers.

Statistics show that worldwide, we go through 50 billion tons of sand every year – twice the amount produced by every river in the world during the same period.

According to writer and journalist Vince Beiser, who wrote a book on the subject, “Sand is the essential ingredient that makes modern life poss...

Summers in the Hamptons

The feeling of summertime abandonment is here—the Hamptons are overflowing with mouth-frothing groupies looking for celebrities, and the Long Island Expressway is replete with hissy fits by enraged drivers stuck in traffic for hours on end. One reason I gave up a beautiful estate in Southampton, L.I., was the inability to get there within, say, a lady’s yes and an eventual refusal due to fatigue and the boredom of sitting in a car watching other stationary cars. The Hamptons have now become a...

Why You Should Conceal Carry

The best way to make sure you’re always protected today is to carry a gun. Chances are you’re reading this because you’re on the fence about concealed carry. Not only should you carry for your own protection, but you should carry because it’s your right with the 2nd amendment.

We live in a country where we’re fortunate enough to have many rights and freedoms. Unfortunately, a lot of these rights are taken for granted and every day there’s more discussion on gun control and the 2nd amendment s...

How To Share the Toughness of the Outdoors

Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from “Father, Son and the Out-of-Doors,” included in Frank H. Cheley’s The Job of Being a Dad, a book published in 1923. It has been condensed from the original chapter.

Today everything is so different. Unquestionably one of the great problems of the modern day is the tendency toward soft living; too much heat; too much dress-up clothes; soft, highly seasoned food to tease the appetite. The curse of modern city life for all of us is softness; soft l...

Second FBI Informant Tried To Entrap the Trump Campaign

Trump campaign aides Roger Stone and Michael Caputo say that a meeting Stone took in late May, 2016 with a Russian appears to have been an “FBI sting operation” in hindsight, following bombshell reports in May that the DOJ/FBI used a longtime FBI/CIA asset, Cambridge professor Stefan Halper, to perform espionage on the Trump campaign.

When Stone arrived at the restaurant in Sunny Isles, he said, Greenberg was wearing a Make America Great Again T-shirt and hat. On his phone, Greenberg pulled...

Is the End of Merkel Nigh?

Europe has another political crisis on its hands, and this one could be a big one as it is right in the middle of Europe’s growth dynamo “ground zero.”

As the WSJ reports, a rebellion over immigration in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc is threatening the stability of her fragile coalition. Merkel’s weekend decision to veto a plan by her interior minister aimed at controlling and reducing illegal migration, and the minister’s refusal to back down, has already shattered an u...

It’s Time for America To Cut Loose Its ‘Allies’

US President Donald J. Trump spent the last week or so churning out initiatives that seemed deliberately calculated to set his critics’ hair on fire:

He met as an equal with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – who is a very bad man! He stated again his willingness to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin – an even worse man! He mocked and threatened our trading partners – and slapped tariffs on them! He suggested that an impenitent Russia (a very bad country!) should be let back into the...

Trump Attacks Russian Aluminum

Looking at the unfolding trade war between Donald Trump and the world the phrase that should come to mind is “One good turn deserves another.”

In the case of the insane sanctions on Oleg Deripaska and Russian Aluminum giant, Rusal, back in April, we finally got some clarity as to how Russia can and will respond to future events.

In yesterday’s Treasury International Capital (TIC) report, we saw clearly that Russia activated its nearly half of its $100 billion in U.S. Treasury debt to buy doll...