Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 2455

Just How Evil Is John McCain?

As soon as John McCain was diagnosed with brain cancer, a bipartisan chorus of praise for the career politician emerged.

Whether McCain is the good man and good “public servant” that he is now being made out to be are empirical questions. The evidence with respect to both is overwhelmingly in the negative.

Since a disastrous public servant is and must be a person with bad character, i.e. not a good person, we needn’t even look at McCain’s private life in order to see that he is neither a good...

Biker Bar in Mexico

You gotta understand about biker bars. Well, maybe you don’t, but you ought to want to at least. They are the last redoubt of American civilization in an age of Snowflakes, Cupcakes, milquetoasts, mollycoddles, and fizzing herds of witless mall rats.

My biker bar is the Iron Horse, just across the carretera from our house. If popular wisdom holds, it was started by a guy in the nuclear-construction business who, I suppose, wanted a biker bar. Vi and I often wander over of a weekend when forty...

Trump Is Being Moved Aside

What is the Congress up to with their stupid bill that imposes more sanctions and removes the power of President Trump to rescind the sanctions that President Obama imposed?

Congress is doing two things. One is that Congress is serving their campaign contributors in the military/security complex by being tougher with Russia, thus keeping the orchestrated threat alive so that Americans denied health care don’t start looking at the massive military/security budget as a place to find money for h...

Is Trump Through?

Given the bravery he showed in stepping out front as the first senator to endorse Donald Trump, Jeff Sessions deserves better from his boss than the Twitter-trashing he has lately received.

The attorney general has not only been loyal to Trump and his agenda, he has the respect and affection of ex-colleagues in Congress and, more broadly, of populists and conservatives nationally.

Trump’s tweets about Sessions are only demoralizing his base.

Yet the president is not wrong to be exasperated an...

Trump Is a Problem

One of the more amusing aspects of the 2016 election was how the pearl clutchers of Conservative Inc. would rush out of their hobbit dens every week, shrieking, “That’s it! Trump is finished!” It was always after Trump mocked their virtue in some way. They would carry on like it was just a matter of time before their adoring public rallied to their banner and chased away the evil dirt monster. They are still waiting for anyone to show up and take their side. Meanwhile Trump has completed his...

Central Banks Can’t Fix the Crisis

If there’s one myth -and there are many- that we should invalidate in the crossover world of politics and economics, it‘s that central banks have saved us from a financial crisis. It’s a carefully construed myth, but it’s as false as can be. Our central banks have caused our financial crises, not saved us from them.

It really should -but doesn’t- make us cringe uncontrollably to see Bank of England governor-for-hire Mark Carney announce -straight-faced- that:

“A decade after the start of the...

The Silk Roads of Revolution

The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan.

When we last left Frankopan’s history of the Silk Roads at the time of the middle of the seventh century, Christianity was on the eastward march.  There was soon to be a new sheriff (or is thatSharīf) in town.

But first, the bubonic plague.  The year is 541:

It moved like lightning, so fast that by the time panic set in, it was already too late.  No one was spared.  The scale of death was barely imaginable.

This is known today as...

OJ and Air Bags

OJ – who almost certainly killed two people and definitely got away with it – didn’t get away with participating in an armed robbery and kidnapping.

He got 33 years, served about 9 – and is scheduled to be released this fall.

Oliver Schmidt – the VW engineer who “cheated” Uncle – is looking at 169 years. He didn’t kill anyone or even trip them up. Yet if convicted, he will be taken out of circulation for life.

Several of them.

Who would you rather have running loose?

OJ? Or Schmidt?

It gives...

The Military Industrial Complex

The ongoing problems with the F-35 and other military programs, stemming from virtually unlimited budgets, underline the inefficiency of the American military-industrial complex (MIC). In contrast, Moscow develops armaments capable of counteracting the latest technological advances of the US at minimal cost.

One of a state’s most insidious mechanisms is the inefficiency of the military-industrial sector. When looking at the world’s first superpower, this becomes all the more pronounced. Still...

A New Alliance in the Greater Middle East

President Trump’s policy in the Greater Middle East is beginning to materialise. While up until now, the United States and their allies have been attempting to destroy states and impose chaos, they are now legitimising alliances against the jihadists. Although in theory, Iran, Syria and the Hezbollah are still enemies to be defeated, in practice, they have become partners. In the end, this new deal could enable the states of the region to force the multinational companies out of the political...