Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2344

Leave Cake Bakers Alone

Last week the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. The case stems from the refusal of Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery, to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The bakery was found guilty of a civil rights violation and ordered to stop refusing to bake and design cakes because they are for same-sex weddings. The bakery was also required to file reports on the steps it takes to comply and whether it turns down any prosp...

America, Mind Your Own Business

“We will never accept Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation of Crimea,” declaimed Rex Tillerson last week in Vienna.

“Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns full control of the peninsula to Ukraine.”

Tillerson’s principled rejection of the seizure of land by military force — “never accept” — came just one day after President Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and pledged to move our embassy there.

How did Israel gain title to East Jerusalem, the...

Most Wished-for Emergency and Survival Kit Items

Periodically, I visit a number of Amazon lists to get a bead on both best selling and most wished for items.  In the past I would look at lists related to outdoor recreation (which can be found in the second half of this article) but this time around I had some new choices.  With mainstream interest in prepping and preparedness, Amazon has created a list of the Best Sellers in Emergency & Survival Kits as well as a related list for Most Wished For Emergency Items.

Top Emergency and Survival K...

The Evil Freak

Even interventionists are regretting some of the wars into which they helped plunge the United States in this century.

Among those wars are Afghanistan and Iraq, the longest in our history; Libya, which was left without a stable government; Syria’s civil war, a six-year human rights disaster we helped kick off by arming rebels to overthrow Bashar Assad; and Yemen, where a U.S.-backed Saudi bombing campaign and starvation blockade is causing a humanitarian catastrophe.

Yet, twice this century,...

Strzok-gate

Almost eighteen months after Obama’s Justice Department and the FBI launched the Russiagate investigation, and seven months after Special Counsel Robert Mueller took the investigation over, the sum total of what it has achieved is as follows:

(1) an indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates which concerns entirely their prior financial dealings, and which have no connection to the Russiagate collusion allegations;

(2) an indictment for lying to the FBI of George Papadopoulos, the junior volu...

Political Pizza

Over the years, I’ve often been asked to explain the political party system in a simple, easy-to-grasp way. Several years ago, I came up with the following explanation, and, for some people, it’s helped to remove the complexity and smoke and mirrors created by the political world. Let’s see if you agree.

Picture this: You live in a relatively small town. It’s a good place to live, with most townspeople being mutually supportive and often quite helpful. There are just a few local restaurants,...

Russia To Turn to Cryptocurrencies in Oil Trade

The gradual acceptance of digital currencies, with major exchanges about to launch bitcoin futures trading, may prompt some oil producing nations to ditch the US dollar in crude trade in favor of cryptocurrencies, an oil analyst says.

Russia, Iran and Venezuela have more than one thing in common. All three are major oil producing nations dependent on the dollar since the global crude market is traditionally dominated by contracts denominated in US currency.

Moscow, Tehran and Caracas are also...

Deep Political Corruption in the US Secret Police

Former US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is cooperating with the Special Counsel Robert Mueller to determine whether Donald Trump’s associates colluded with Russian government officials during the 2016 electoral campaign and also in the two months before president-elect Trump assumed office on January 20th. Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) special agents regarding two late December telephone exchanges with former Russian Ambassador to the US...

The MSM’s Deference to Authority

I just finished watching an interesting documentary film entitled The Searchers by Randolph Benson, who teaches at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. The film focuses on private researchers during the aftermath of the JFK assassination who have questioned and investigated the official narrative put out by the Warren Commission and the Washington, D.C., establishment.

According to an interview of Benson, his work “has appeared on the Bravo Network and Canal Plus-France, and...

Understanding Russians

Sometimes we are blessed to discover an artist whose miraculous gifts touch the soul, who introduces us to undiscovered beauty and treasured memories; I can think of no finer example than Dmitri Hvorostovsky. One of the foremost interpreters of Verdi, Hvorostovsky had the uncanny knack of making even an operatic villain a fully dimensional, sympathetic character; I am thinking now of his portrayal of Count di Luna in Il Trovatore, exemplified in the aria Il balen del suo sorriso. (The Metropo...