Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr.'s Blog, page 253

Orange Man (Still Mostly) Bad

There is no way Donald Trump should be winning this election. He is a blatantly narcissistic loudmouth who has zero charisma and personal appeal as a candidate. Neither has Trump offered even a semblance of a coherent program to remediate the acute economic and fiscal challenges facing the nation at home and the utter disarray of the American Empire abroad.

Even more preposterously, he poses as the savior of patriotism, motherhood, Christian piety, apple pie and the American way of life. What a ...

Central Planning: China’s Miracle–and Malaise

The illusion created by the initial success of central planning is that it can continue indefinitely, when the reality is it’s unavoidably self-liquidating as the distortions unravel the entire economy.

China offers a real-time case study of the upsides and downsides of central planning, broadly defined as the central state establishing the goals, financing, incentives and regulatory structure for various sectors of the nation’s economy.

In the U.S., examples include the transformation of the Am...

Extraordinary Ministers Wear Kamala Harris Shirts While Distributing Holy Communion at DC Parish

A parish in the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. permitted its extraordinary ministers to wear Kamala Harris campaign T-shirts while distributing Holy Communion at a Sunday Mass immediately preceding Election Day.

The Eucharistic Ministers, as well as some lay people attending the Mass who also wore pro-Kamala shirts and hats, apparently were responding to their pastors’ invitation issued the previous week: “Next Sunday, we’re asking you to wear your election apparel.”

“Well, it seems that Fr. R...

Notes on the Vote

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the main American media includes many homely, bitter, left-leaning women and numerous bald, left-wing, and equally unattractive men. No wonder, then, that Kamala is the media’s favorite and Trump is referred to as Hitler and, in the words of a Quasimodo type, one Adam Gopnik, “a vile and malignant actor.”

Another universally acknowledged truth is that the main media in America, in lockstep with the entertainment industry, does not object to its left-wi...

Glenn Greenwald Passes Judgment on the Despicable American Presstitutes

Glenn Greenwald Passes Judgment on the Despicable American Presstitutes’ Fabrications and Call for J.D. Vance’s American-born Wife, Daughter of Indian Legal Immigrants, to Divorce Her White Racist Husband

“Anyone who has ever watched this show or followed my journalism in any way knows that the esteem in which I hold corporate media could not possibly be any lower. Before today, I honestly thought there was nothing they could do that would surprise me. I’ve seen them do it all: lead the country ...

Reflecting on the Last Four Years

The last time I remember the United States being a positive, optimistic, and more or less unified country was in the 1990s, during the Clinton Administration. While Bill made a lot of mistakes—especially his fateful decision to expand NATO eastward—I still think of his time in office as a happy era.

The Bush years were a period in which we were put into a state of hyper-vigilance about terrorism, were forced to go along with disastrous foreign wars, and then traumatized by a financial crisis tha...

The Data Says Stagflation

On Friday Peter capped off the week by discussing the latest round of troubling data. With the nonfarm payroll report coming in far below expectations, Peter elaborates on the predicament the Fed is in. With mounting political pressure and an election in mere days, how will the Fed possibly manage both inflation and a stagnating labor market? Peter’s answer? They can’t.

During the last several months, the media and political class have insisted the economy is healthy, even if it is cooling. But...

A Kamala Loss is a Defeat for the Regime

Tuesday, in theory, will conclude the 2024 presidential election, one of the most bizarre in American political history. From inner-party coups to assassination attempts, Kamala’s Brat summer social media trend to Trump’s courting of comedian podcasts, the campaign cycle has been saturated with the unconventional. It has, of course, also seen its expected share of shallow political rhetorical rhetoric and general economic illiteracy, which are the cornerstones of modern democracy.

The general su...

Pat Buchanan Was Right…And Young Conservatives Agree!

As we arrive at today’s election, there is good news in the US conservative movement regardless of who wins. While the old guard – mostly “boomers” – who still cling to the levers of power continue to mouth the tired old shibboleths (“peace through strength,” “rules based order,” “our greatest ally“), a new generation of young conservatives has emerged that is revitalizing the Old Right view that the focus of conservatism should be to conserve what is actually great about the United States.

Firs...

Rothbard and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In Murray Rothbard’s thinking, the state is a criminal organization of aggression and depredation against the just rights of private property of its subjects. The state acquires its revenue by physical coercion (taxation) and achieves a compulsory monopoly of force and ultimate decision-making power over a given territory. Hence, there is no just state in Rothbard’s libertarianism.

The State of Israel

In 1948, within the boundaries of what was then known as Palestine, David Ben-Gurion announced ...