Remembering San Francisco’s “Summer of Love”

For one extraordinary summer in 1967, a few square blocks in San Francisco became the unofficial capital of an international revolution.

A revolution of hair. Of music. Of clothing.

Of consciousness.

Most of all, of peace and love.

And an audacious notion that love might accomplish what governments never could.

My own memento from the ‘sixties, purchased in 1968 from a “head shop” in Westwood, LA

In the mid-1960s, Haight-Ashbury was one of San Francisco’s cheapest neighborhoods. The once-grand Victorian houses had grown shabby. Rents were low. Students, artists, poets, musicians, and runaways, moved in because they could afford to.

The movement that followed was a chemical reaction.

The Beat Generation had already prepared the ground. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti had challenged post-war conformity from nearby North Beach.

The hippies added color

And LSD.

Quite a lot of LSD.

Much of it came courtesy of Owsley Stanley—sound engineer to the Grateful Dead and perhaps the most celebrated underground chemist in American history. His laboratory became as influential as any recording studio.

If Oppenheimer split the atom, it was Owsley who expanded the mind.

No band became more closely identified with Haight-Ashbury than the Grateful Dead, who lived communally at 710 Ashbury Street.

Jerry Garcia answered the door.

One afternoon you might encounter Janis Joplin.

Another day, Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe McDonald, or members of Big Brother and the Holding Company.

The sidewalks became the guest list.

Music drifted from open windows.

Someone was always strumming a guitar. Someone else was beading necklaces.

Someone invariably claimed to have discovered the meaning of life approximately 20 minutes earlier.

The soundtrack expanded weekly.

Jimi Hendrix.

The Doors.

Pink Floyd.

The Who.

Cream.

Even The Beatles did not escape Haight-Ashbury’s gravitational pull.

George Harrison wandered its streets.

The Summer of Love influenced Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“All You Need Is Love” became its unofficial anthem.

Celebrities arrived simply to witness whatever this strange social experiment had become.

Actors. Writers. Photographers. Journalists.

Everyone wanted to report from the center of this cultural earthquake—even if they weren’t entirely sure what was shaking.

That defining public moment came on 14 January 1967 with the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park.

Around 25,000 people gathered beneath the winter sky.

Allen Ginsberg chanted.

Timothy Leary offered that decade’s most famous (if misunderstood) instruction…

Richard Alpert—soon to become New Ager Ram Dass—was there.

So were the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

The Summer of Love hadn’t officially begun.

But everyone could already hear it approaching.

Then came the avalanche.

By June, 100,000 young people had descended upon Haight-Ashbury.

July 7, 1967

They came carrying backpacks, sleeping bags, flowers, guitars—and idealism.

Most carried very little money. Few carried a plan.

The neighborhood simply wasn’t built for them.

Food became scarce. Drugs became plentiful.

Sanitation became theoretical.

Crime arrived.

So did opportunists.

Paradise, it turned out, required someone to collect the rubbish.

In October, many of the original hippies staged what may be the movement’s most self-aware performance piece.

They held a funeral.

Not for a person. For The Hippie.

A mock coffin was carried through the Haight bearing a sign announcing the “Death of the Hippie.”

Their message: The media had transformed their counterculture into a tourist attraction.

The dream had become a costume.

The revolution had acquired souvenir shops.

And that’s exactly what you’ll find today.

Teo, in on the act

Walk Haight Street, as I discovered last week, and you’ll still find psychedelic murals, Victorian houses, tie-dye boutiques, vintage clothing stores, anarchist bookshops, smoke shops—and cafés serving artisan coffee at prices that would have horrified the original inhabitants.

The Grateful Dead house still stands.

So does the famous corner.

Visitors carry shopping bags.

History has an impeccable sense of irony.

The hippies rejected consumerism. Their neighborhood eventually became one of San Francisco’s most successful retail districts.

Yet dismissing Haight-Ashbury as merely a tourist destination misses the point.

There was much more to this neighborhood than tie-dye fashion.

It accelerated environmentalism. Alternative medicine. Organic food.

Meditation. Yoga. Eastern philosophy.

Even Silicon Valley inherited something of its ethos: challenge authority, ignore convention, imagine a different future.

Cities occasionally produce sites where history is made.

In San Francisco, Levi Strauss clothed miners during the Gold Rush—and created a garment with universal appeal.

Domenico Ghirardelli sweetened it with chocolate.

A century later, Haight-Ashbury attempted something considerably more ambitious.

It tried to reinvent the human race.

And for one glorious, chaotic, aromatic summer, quite a few people believed it had.

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Every summer around this time America’s power elite disappears into California’s redwoods.

Nestled along the Russian River, 60 miles north of San Francisco, Bohemian Grove is a 2700-acre, ultra-exclusive encampment that hosts an annual summit of the ultra-wealthy and ultra-influential.

What began in 1872 as a rustic retreat for Bohemians—artists, musicians, actors, and writers, including Mark Twain and Jack London—has long since been hijacked by industrialists, bankers, lobbyists, and their political pets. Just as artsy neighborhoods get gentrified, so too did this San Fran-based club-for-creatives morph into a playground for the power elite.

My investigative trail into the corridors of power brought me to the Grove decades ago, where rituals, secrecy, and absurd wealth, blend into a surreal midsummer romp.

President Herbert Hoover once hailed the Grove as “the greatest men’s club in the world.” It is where Republican presidential hopefuls privately announce their candidacies in off-the-record lakeside chats that precede their official public declarations.

It is also at these lakeside chats that cabinet officials, CIA directors, secretaries of state and Nobel prize winners have delivered off-the-record talks to members. Many ideas first circulate there before appearing publicly.

The bigwigs come mostly to enjoy a good time among their fellow bigwigs—a frat party for grown men-only, complete with drag skits, endless martinis and a theatrical rite. Wearing robes and chanting around The Owl – a 40-foot symbol of wisdom – they enact a pagan ritual called “Cremation of Care” to unburden themselves from everyday concerns.

“Begone dull care!” they chant. “Midsummer sets us free!”

Then they incinerate an effigy named “Dull Care” to symbolize their freedom to quaff martinis at ten in the morning and wander around wearing pajamas all day long.

If they need to take a whiz, they are encouraged to consult Mother Nature, which is why this place is also known as “the pee-on-a-tree club.”

BoHos are not supposed to talk shop, hence this Grove motto: “Weaving spiders come not here.”

Nonetheless, one of history’s most consequential conversations occurred here.

During the summer of ‘42, physicists gathered beneath the redwoods to discuss what became the Manhattan Project.

And this: A 1994 doctoral dissertation by Peter Phillips (A Relative Advantage: Sociology of the Bohemian Club) reveals that in mid-1945 “the Bohemian political network played a significant role… in the original formation meeting for the United Nations.”

So it’s no surprise that conspiracy theories flourish like mushrooms in the Grove’s damp underbrush about BoHo machinations.

But the Bohemian brotherhood is ultimately about social bondage and elite networking on a super scale.

Cabinet secretaries spend afternoons drinking with Fortune 500 CEOs. Generals share campfires with Wall Street financiers. Media moguls mingle with senators. Nothing need be decided. Relationships alone can shape the future.

Even the famously awkward Richard Nixon found a place among these pseudo-Bohemians. About the transvestite productions, President Nixon was tape-recorded as saying, “It is the most faggy goddamned thing you can ever imagine.”

He wrote in his memoirs about being at Cave Man camp in 1950 with General Dwight Eisenhower.

Two years later Eisenhower was elected President with Mr. Nixon as his Veep.

It is difficult to read Eisenhower’s farewell warning about the military-industrial complex without thinking of Bohemian Grove, where defense contractors, financiers, cabinet officials and future presidents relax together far from public scrutiny.

Call it the West Coast Revolving Door.

“Crossing the River”

The grounds are divided into about 125 themed camps—with names such as Wild Oats, Woof, and Toyland—of 20-50 members each. One such camp—Poison Oak—would throw an annual “rocky mountain oyster” luncheon, courtesy of a cattle baron.

Perhaps this helped elderly Bohemians “cross the river,” which is BoHo code for de-camping and taking their love to town.

There are two such towns—Monte Rio and Guerneville—whose inns and motels swell with ladies (and gentlemen) of the night, in from Nevada and elsewhere for three bustling weeks of liberating BoHos from whatever dull care they’ve been suffering.

Decades ago, when I investigated Bohemian Grove, the tricky trail led to Manu Kanani, the manager of Northwood Lodge in Monte Rio, who confirmed the presence of hookers and their camper clients, the names of which were mind-blowing.

It resulted in my front-page story in Globe, the weekly tabloid…

When I followed the Grove’s trails years ago, I wasn’t looking for satanic cults or world-government conspiracies. I was interested in something much more believable: how influence works when nobody is taking minutes.

Every summer, the world’s movers and shakers retreat into the redwoods insisting they aren’t conducting business.

Perhaps they’re right.

History suggests they don’t need boardrooms. Sometimes all it takes is three weeks, a campfire, a few martinis—and old friends who control large pieces of the world.

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Seven Major Wars + 18 Armed Conflicts

Forty years ago the features editor of the (UK) Sunday Mirror assigned me to catalogue every war and armed conflict on Earth.

There were 21 of them going on.

Some disappeared. Some merely changed names. Several merged into larger wars. Others produced new generations of fighters who inherited conflicts they were too young to remember beginning. And while some old wars finally died out, enough new ones were born to surpass the number of wars/armed conflicts raging across the globe.

Today there are seven major wars and 18 armed conflicts.

Here is a breakdown of seven wars:

UNITED STATES vs. IRAN

Who’s Fighting?

The United States says it’s fighting Iran’s military capabilities and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), not the Iranian people.

What’s it About?

Washington says Iran cannot be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon or threaten shipping.

Tehran says Washington has spent decades trying to overthrow the Islamic Republic.

The Iranian regime has spent decades chanting “Death to America!”

The present war is the culmination of years of sanctions, proxy battles, cyberattacks, assassinations and nuclear disputes.

Why Should I Care?

Because around a fifth of the world’s traded oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

If tankers stop sailing, fuel prices rise. When fuel prices rise, almost everything else follows.

What Happens Next?

Iran cannot defeat the United States militarily, but it can make the Middle East dangerous and unpredictable through missiles, drones, and disruption of shipping.

As every veteran of the Middle East eventually discovers: everyone has an exit strategy—right up until they arrive.

RUSSIA vs. UKRAINE

Who’s Fighting?

Russia says it is protecting Russian-speaking populations, securing its borders and correcting what President Vladimir Putin regards as a historical mistake.

Ukraine says it’s fighting for its independence, territory, and right to exist as a sovereign nation.

Both sides insist they are defending themselves. Neither is in any mood to compromise.

What’s it About?

Imagine your next-door neighbour deciding your house really belongs to him because his grandfather once owned part of the street.

That’s the simplified version.

The roots stretch back centuries through the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and Ukraine’s independence in 1991. Tensions exploded after Russia seized Crimea in 2014 and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. In February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion expecting a quick victory.

Instead, it found itself bogged down in Europe’s biggest war since 1945.

And a longer one than World War I.

Why Should Anyone Care?

Because this isn’t just Russia versus Ukraine anymore.

It’s also a test of NATO, European security, nuclear deterrence, energy supplies, drone warfare and the future of international borders.

Every army on Earth is studying this war. Military planners watch it for tactics. Engineers watch it for technology. Politicians watch hoping it doesn’t spread.

What Happens Next?

Neither side is close to achieving its objectives.

Russia continues to grind forward in some areas while paying a high price in men and equipment.

Ukraine continues to strike deep inside Russia with increasingly sophisticated drones while trying to hold the front and regain territory.

The battlefield shifts by miles. The political positions hardly move an inch.

Negotiations surface from time to time, but only Ukraine seems genuinely interested in a ceasefire and peace agreement.

The maps change by a few miles. The cemeteries expand by a few acres.

ISRAEL vs. HAMAS (GAZA)

Who’s Fighting?

Israel says it’s fighting Hamas, not the Palestinian people.

Hamas says it’s fighting Israel, not Jews.

Unfortunately, civilians have an alarming habit of getting caught in the middle.

The war that erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel has evolved through several phases, including ceasefires, renewed fighting and efforts to establish new governance in Gaza. While the intensity has varied, military operations and human suffering continue.

What’s it About?

In the short term, it’s about Hamas, hostages, rockets, tunnels, and Gaza.

In the long term, it’s about land, history, religion, identity, security and two peoples who both believe they’re indigenous and both have compelling historical narratives.

Israel wants security and the elimination of Hamas as a military threat.

Hamas wants Israel gone and presents itself as the armed resistance to Israeli occupation.

Between those positions lies approximately zero common ground.

Why Should I Care?

Because what happens in Gaza rarely stays in Gaza.

The conflict has drawn in Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the United States and numerous regional governments. It influences oil markets, global diplomacy, migration, terrorism concerns.

It has also become one of the most polarizing issues in international affairs, with arguments raging almost as fiercely on university campuses and social media as on the battlefield.

What Happens Next?

The military phase may eventually subside.

The political problem will not.

Even if Hamas is weakened or displaced from governing Gaza, somebody still has to govern more than two million Palestinians living in one of the world’s most devastated territories. Recent proposals have centered on transitional civilian administration while negotiations over Hamas’s future role remain unresolved.

Israel still faces the same fundamental question it has wrestled with for decades: how to achieve lasting security without creating the conditions for the next generation of militants.

The Palestinians face an equally daunting question: who will represent them politically if Hamas declines and the existing Palestinian leadership lacks broad legitimacy?

Winning an argument that has lasted more than a century may be impossible.

As Henry Kissinger once told the CIA: “There is no Middle East solution—just keep the fuckers talking.”

Or as Winston Churchill put it, somewhat more politely: “Jaw-jaw is better than war-war.”

SUDAN

Who’s Fighting?

On one side is Sudan’s regular army.

On the other is the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful paramilitary force that was supposed to help defend the country, then decided it rather fancied running it instead.

Both are led by generals who were once allies.

What’s it About?

For years, Sudan was ruled by strongman Omar al-Bashir.

When he was overthrown in 2019, there was hope the country might become a democracy.

Instead, the men who helped remove him couldn’t agree who should inherit the keys.

General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan commands the army.

General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—better known as “Hemedti”—commands the RSF.

They fell out over which one of them would control Sudan’s future.

Why Should I Care?

Because Sudan is Africa’s third-largest country and sits at the crossroads of North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Red Sea.

The war has displaced millions of people, devastated cities and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

It has also attracted outside players supplying money, weapons and political backing, making peace considerably more difficult to accomplish.

What Happens Next?

Neither side appears capable of delivering a decisive knockout.

The army controls parts of the country. The RSF controls others.

Both continue to fight while civilians continue to flee.

When two generals fight over who owns the palace, it’s usually the country that gets demolished.

MYANMAR

Who’s Fighting?

Myanmar’s armed forces—known simply as the Tatmadaw—are battling an unlikely coalition of pro-democracy groups, long-established ethnic armies and local militias.

What’s it About?

Myanmar has been fighting itself for almost as long as it’s been independent.

For decades, the army battled ethnic minority groups seeking greater autonomy.

Then, in 2021, the generals staged a coup, arrested the elected government and decided democracy had become overrated.

Millions of ordinary citizens who had never dreamed of picking up a rifle suddenly decided they had little choice.

The old ethnic rebellions merged with a nationwide uprising.

Why Should I care?

Because Myanmar sits between India, China and Southeast Asia.

Instability spills across borders through refugees, narcotics, weapons trafficking and organized crime.

What Happens Next?

The military still possesses aircraft, heavy weapons and the machinery of government.

The resistance controls growing areas of the countryside and has become increasingly coordinated.

Every coup begins with promises of stability. Almost always the exact opposite occurs.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO (EAST)

Who’s Fighting?

The Congolese army.

The M23 rebel movement.

A bewildering assortment of other militias.

Throw in neighboring Rwanda, which denies backing M23 despite repeated international accusations, Uganda pursuing its own security interests and enough local warlords to fill a small phone book.

What’s it About?

Officially, it’s about security, ethnic tensions, and protecting minority communities.

Unofficially, it’s about cobalt, coltan, gold, tin, and other minerals essential for mobile phones, laptops, electric cars and just about every gadget modern life insists you upgrade every two years.

Where there’s extraordinary mineral wealth and a weak state, armed groups tend to appear with remarkable enthusiasm.

The result has been almost continuous conflict for three decades.

Why Should I Care?

Because the smartphone in your hand probably owes something to the rocks beneath eastern Congo—a region that supplies minerals the world increasingly depends upon.

The fighting has displaced millions of people, repeatedly spilled across international borders and has produced one of the world’s longest-running humanitarian crises.

Ironically, one of the richest places on Earth in natural resources remains among its poorest in human security.

What Happens Next?

Peace agreements appear. Then disappear.

The Congolese army launches offensives. The rebels launch counter-offensives.

International peacekeepers arrive. Then discover there are rather more armed groups than anyone mentioned in the briefing.

Recent diplomatic efforts have reduced fighting in some areas, but eastern Congo remains deeply unstable, with ceasefires repeatedly tested by renewed clashes and competing political interests.

Everybody wants Congo’s minerals. Far fewer seem interested in ensuring Congolese people can enjoy them—or life in general.

THE SAHEL (MALI, BURKINA FASO & NIGER)

Who’s Fighting?

The governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

A collection of Islamist extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.

Add military juntas, local militias, ethnic rivalries and foreign mercenaries, and you’ve got yourself one of the world’s most crowded battlefields.

What’s it About?

The Sahel is a vast strip of semi-desert stretching across Africa, just south of the Sahara.

It’s hot. It’s poor. Governments struggle to govern, creating opportunities for armed groups promising protection, revenge, or simply a paycheck.

For years, France tried to help suppress the insurgencies.

The results were underwhelming.

Military coups followed in Mali, then Burkina Faso, then Niger. The new rulers showed France the door and turned increasingly toward Russia for military support, including the Africa Corps, successor to the Wagner Group.

Why Should I Care?

Because instability has a habit of travelling.

The conflict fuels migration, arms trafficking, organized crime and extremist networks across West Africa and beyond.

What Happens Next?

The juntas promise they’ll restore order.

The insurgents promise they’ll overthrow the juntas.

Meanwhile, civilians continue to live between checkpoints, ambushes and shifting front lines.

The region has become a geopolitical chessboard, with Western influence receding and Russia seeking greater influence.

African proverb: “When elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers.”

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On January 17, 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivered perhaps the most prescient farewell address in American history.

“We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

Eisenhower was a five-star general. Supreme Allied Commander.

The man who led the liberation of Europe.

He understood military power better than anyone alive.

His concern was not with the military.

Nor with industry.

His concern was what happens when government, industry, and the military, become so intertwined that they begin reinforcing one another beyond meaningful public oversight.

Sixty-five years later, his warning deserves an update.

The military-industrial complex hasn’t disappeared.

It has evolved.

Today it includes something Eisenhower could never have imagined:

Artificial intelligence. Space technology. Cloud computing. Autonomous weapons. Data analytics. Venture capital.

Call it… The Technology-National Security Complex.

This may be the defining power shift of the twenty-first century.

If you want to understand Washington today, don’t begin on Capitol Hill.

Begin in Silicon Valley.

The federal government no longer builds many of its most important technologies.

It buys them.

Increasingly, it depends upon them.

A relatively small group of companies now sit at the intersection of government, intelligence, defense and artificial intelligence.

The names are becoming familiar.

Palantir. Anduril. SpaceX. Scale AI. OpenAI.

None of these companies existed when the Berlin Wall fell.

Today, all of them influence how governments gather information, analyze threats, conduct military operations or develop artificial intelligence.

Some have become critical infrastructure.

The most interesting story is not any single company. It is the network.

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Where Governments Increasingly Organize Information

The Dialog Society is where influential people gather.

If Dialog is where tomorrow’s ideas are debated, Palantir is where many of those ideas become operational.

The two are connected by one man.

Peter Thiel: Venture capitalist…

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For years, if someone had whispered about an invitation-only gathering where billionaires, cabinet secretaries, intelligence veterans, military brass, AI pioneers, venture capitalists, journalists and Hollywood figures mingled behind closed doors, polite society would have rolled its collective eyes.

“Conspiracy theory.”

Then somebody—an insider—forgot to…

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“Macron and Zelensky caught in hot mic moment discussing how to deal with Trump” (Daily Mail)

Easy-peasy.

Flatter him. Name a prominent building after him. Present him with a solid gold statuette of himself.

“CIA director doubts Iran’s intentions on deal” (Axios)

In internal discussions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth both …

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“DNI Gabbard Reveals Evidence of U.S. Taxpayer-Funded Global Biolab Program” (Office of the Director of National Intelligence)

These biolabs include labs in Ukraine, which may be at risk of compromise due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war. For example, the Intelligence Community previously warned that a US-funded biolab in Ukraine likely housed dangerous pathogens.

The release of documents by DNI Tulsi Gabbard ignites an interesting fact that no one has discussed with reference to Vladimir. Putin’s war on Ukraine.

Ukraine possesses trained scientists, biological research facilities, pathogen collections, and the institutional knowledge associated with them.

History teaches that governments do not always advertise their capabilities.

Nor do they advertise what they are prepared to do when faced with extinction.

“The Ukraine invasion has lasted longer than the First World War. That alone is a defeat for Putin” (The Telegraph)

He enjoys, presumably, the death and destruction he has brought. But his campaign makes the First World War trenches look like a war of movement.

“Russian MP warns Putin: We’re on the brink of social collapse” (The Telegraph)

Another ‘“patient” destined for psych ward?

The trouble with long-serving rulers is that, sooner or later, reality begins to sound subversive.

“Trump reveals Tehran ‘no longer’ wants a nuke” (Cali Post)

Even if it gets signed, mullah signatures are not worth the ink expended.

Of course Iran wants a nuke. More than ever before. Not least because we bombed the hell out of them and were complicit in Israel whacking their “supreme leader,” his wife, assorted relatives—and many others.

They are bent on revenge—and mindful that nuclear powers tend not to get invaded.

“Iran extracts last-minute peace deal concession from Trump” (The Telegraph)

The latest: Iran inserted an eleventh-hour amendment allowing it to charge vessels for passage through the Strait of Hormuz after the 60-day negotiation period expires.

Which means the much-heralded “free passage” provision may be only temporarily. Perhaps the fine print will reveal otherwise. Assuming we ever get to read it.

“Kennedy Center says it has fully removed Trump’s name from its building” (CNN)

The present is for policies.

Memorials belong to the future.

Let history decide who deserves a name on a building.

“Independent Cascadia? Greater Idaho? Disunited States Look Toward Divorce” (NYT’s)

The curious thing about Cascadia is that it already exists.

The mountains exist. The rivers exist. The forests exist. The culture exists.

The only thing that does not officially exist is the line on the map.

For generations, citizens were encouraged to believe that political boundaries naturally reflected cultural, economic, and geographic realities.

Increasingly, they do not.

Coastal Washington and coastal Oregon often have more in common with British Columbia than with a hundred of miles inland.

Likewise, many residents of the Pacific Northwest find their priorities and values inadequately represented by distant capitals and political systems increasingly distorted by gerrymandering

Maps are not sacred.

They deserve to be tested.

And if they no longer reflect the realities of the people living within them, perhaps the question is not whether the lines should move.

“What Elon Musk’s trillion means in real terms” (AP)

Good for Elon Musk.

He built something remarkable.

But what happens when a society—its financial system—enables individuals to accumulate wealth on a scale once reserved for kingdoms?

For centuries, the West gradually dismantled the feudal order.

Lords owned the land. Serfs worked the land. Lords collected the rents.

Modern capitalism was supposed to replace inherited aristocracy with opportunity, competition, and upward mobility.

Yet technology may be quietly rebuilding a similar structure.

Not through castles, fiefdoms, nor hereditary titles.

By through platforms, networks, and ownership.

A burgeoning trillionaire class may soon control the communications systems, transportation systems, artificial intelligence systems, financial systems, and information systems upon which everyone else depends.

Trillionaires may buy up and own most of the property—certainly the best ones.

A medieval peasant paid rent because there was no property to buy and own.

Tomorrow’s citizen may pay subscription fees, platform fees, transaction fees, licensing fees, access fees, and AI fees and rent—because there are no houses left to buy.

“Shocking three-word tweet aimed at Elon Musk that cost California billions” (Cali Post)

California Federation of Labor Unions President Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher’s tweet in May 2020: “F— Elon Musk.”

A day later Musk replied: “Message received”—and relocated to Texas. Musk was polite. He meant “F— California.”

“Andrew’s jaw-dropping tirade to staff that saw him demand to be called Sir or The Duke until ‘a vampire sucks every drop of blood from my royal veins’” (Daily Mail)

As if there’s really such a thing as “royal blood.”

Some people inherit wisdom.

Others inherit a seating arrangement. And when it’s taken away and they no longer have a throne at the table, they continue to fantasize about “royal blood.”

“‘They’ll leak medical records, tax records, they’ll bug his phone and leak that...’ Why the Establishment will do anything to stop Nigel Farage becoming Prime Minister” (Daily Mail)

Yeah, they tried that here, too. But the tide is turning in the UK (and in Ireland as well).

Whether Nigel Farage ultimately reaches Number 10 remains to be seen. But it is no longer a prospect that can be dismissed.

“Recurring Deep Space Transmission Puzzles Researchers” (Journal of Cosmic Anthropology)

And finally…

“Undersea espionage? Bizarre claims of secret spy turtles send China into a panic” (NY Post)

Deep Tonsils has been elusive of late. But I managed to reach out—and he called in…

What a week—whew!

“WE GIVE A HOOT!”

And you should too.

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“Google planning to release millions of mosquitoes into California to help stop diseases” (California Post)

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“Top 10 most dangerous animals in the world” (BBC)

Number One on the list: Mosquitos.

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I always knew “social” media was anti-social, but this is ridiculous.

“Tick that causes meat allergy” (The Hill)

Humanity spent thousands of years eating the animal kingdom.

The animal kingdom has finally hired legal counsel.

The lead attorney appears to be a tick.

But wait… could this be part of the Bill Gates “fake meat” agenda supported by global elites and Big Pharma?

“Veteran 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley is FIRED by CBS after bitter blow-up at new boss amid crisis at network” (Daily Mail)

I imagine Scott Pelley believed he was indispensable.

As Charles de Gaulle is noted as having said, “The graveyards are full of indispensable people.”

“Ukraine’s drones hit St. Petersburg military targets in second wave of attacks” (The Telegraph)

Ukrainians have endured years of air raid sirens, interrupted sleep, and uncertainty.

Now some Russians are experiencing a measure of the same anxiety.

Not because Ukraine possesses overwhelming force, but because technology has democratized reach.

“Bot web traffic has overtaken human web traffic, data shows” (NBC News)

57.4% of requests to a selection of websites it hosts are now automated bot requests, while 42.6% are human-generated.

But what are all these bots actually doing?

I posed this question to ChatGPT, which understands the bot world better than any human.

Answer:

• Reading articles nobody else will read.

• Summarizing articles nobody asked them to summarize.

• Scraping websites that were scraped yesterday.

• Comparing prices for products nobody intends to buy.

• Filling out forms.

• Clicking links.

• Training other bots.

• Arguing with other bots.

• Following other bots.

• Liking posts generated by other bots.

• Inflating traffic statistics for executives presenting PowerPoint slides.

In short, much of the internet now resembles a cocktail party attended entirely by publicists.

One AI agent visits 5,000 websites to perform a task a human would accomplish by glancing at five.

Meanwhile, publishers spend fortunes creating content.

Humans stop visiting. Bots arrive instead. The bots read the content. Then summarize it for humans who never visit the publisher.

The old internet was people looking for information.

The new internet is machines looking for information about information for other machines.

Somewhere in Silicon Valley, a venture capitalist is calling this “engagement.”

“What would Jesus drink? Welcome to the age of Christian energy beverages” (The Guardian)

The remarkable thing about modern America is not that we commercialize things.

It is that we commercialize everything.

Every belief becomes merchandise. Every principle becomes a brand. Every conviction becomes a market segment.

And now even salvation comes in mango flavor.

“California Primary 2026” (CalMatters)

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has garnered the highest vote count in a city plagued by homelessness, crime, and catastrophic failure with regard to fire control and rebuild policies.

Does this mean most people who live there are stupid?

Or are “mail-in” ballots harvested—maybe from homeless camps and cemeteries — by a “proactive” Demo Party machine?

Karen has already demonstrated she couldn’t organize a piss-up in a brewery.

The real piss-up is on L.A.’s streets. Literally.

Our slogan: Voting for Bass is like passing gas.

L.A. possesses the largest election apparatus in America, complete with vast budgets, sophisticated technology, and armies of workers.

So…. why does it take so long to count the votes?

Updates arrive in tiny increments, as though ballots are being carried down from the mountains by mule.

Which means either the system is far less efficient than advertised and badly needs an overhaul—or something is going on that smells worse than the Salton Sea at the height of the summer.

“Unexplained Signal Interrupts Satellite Bandwidth” (Journal of Cosmic Anthropology)

Apparently, the source identifies itself as “Kaelor of Velorium, Ithryss Expanse.”

So… is this the beginning?

If so, it appears to be beating both Donald Trump and Steven Spielberg to the punch.

NASA, of course, dismissed it as an AI generated hoax.

The actual message: “Human civilization increasingly rewards visibility over wisdom. Velorium experienced a similar destabilization before the Collapse Era.”

What a week—whew!

“WE GIVE A HOOT!”

And you should too.

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“How ChatGPT is flooding our lives” (WaPo)

One glorious aspect of ChatGPT’s existence is how the judicial system has been affected by it.

Meaning…

Should anyone, for any reason, want to sue me, kindly contact my attorney at: ChatGPTesq@tutamail.com.

While plaintiffs incur outlandish legal fees… I’ll be paying $20 a month.

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“Dr Fauci orchestrated Covid cover-up” (The Times)

Yawn.

I was writing this in my weekly columns for the Santa Barbara News-Press five years ago.

Unfortunately, too many sheeple preferred the comforting embrace of a government-scripted, mainstream-delivered fairy tale—one that persuaded millions to stand six feet apart, wear face napkins, and submit to lockdowns that wrecked businesses, educations, mental health, and whatever remained of common sense.

Now comes a CIA whistleblower revealing that Dr. Anthony Fauci helped steer investigators away from the lab-leak theory, and did so because he secretly funded the Wuhan lab in violation of government policy.

The Times reports that what was once denounced as “dangerous conspiracy theory” was actually closer to “suppressed inquiry.”

So let us review the choreography:

Question the official narrative? You were a crank.

Suggest the virus may have escaped from a lab in Wuhan conducting coronavirus research: Tin-foil haberdashery.

Object to school closures or raise an eyebrow at mask mandates: Shamed.

The pandemic produced a new priesthood: public-health commissars, cable-news hysterics, and social-media censors who treated dissent as heresy.

And now—slow drumroll—we are expected to greet these revelations with sober astonishment.

No astonishment here.

The real virus was institutional obedience.

“WHO chief warns there ‘will be more hantavirus cases in the coming weeks’” (Metro)

The formula remains unchanged: Find alarming medical anomaly, add an ominous forecast, release experts, cause media hyperventilation.

COVID may be over but one detects a familiar institutional yearning—a wistful nostalgia for the golden age of emergency decrees, televised dread, and populations obeying reckless senselessness.

Yes, pandemic theater appears to be touring indefinitely.

“Hantavirus and Psychological Bioterrorism” (Malone News)

Psychological Bioterrorism is the weaponization of fear about disease in order to manipulate individuals, populations, markets, and governments. Sometimes the objective is political. Sometimes financial. Sometimes bureaucratic. Often, it is all three at once.

Dr. Alexander Kouzminov, a former Soviet-Russian intelligence officer with experience in biological espionage and operations, in 2017, described how fear of infectious disease can be strategically amplified to shape public behavior, influence governments, and create opportunities for those positioned to benefit from the panic.

“That process is called psychological bioterrorism.

“Once you understand the framework, you start seeing the pattern everywhere.

“A virus or some other pathogen emerges somewhere in the world. The media shifts into apocalyptic mode. Experts appear to be predicting catastrophe. Politicians declare emergencies. Pharmaceutical companies announce new products. Social media turns into a digital panic attack. And ordinary people, who just wanted to walk the dog, suddenly feel like civilization is one cough away from collapse.”

“Whistleblower claims CIA seized MK Ultra, JFK assassination files from Tulsi Gabbard’s office” (Hindustan Times)

In a display of institutional self-preservation, the CIA moved to prevent the release of documents concerning MKUltra and the JFK assassination by forcibly retrieving them from the very office tasked with making them public.

One imagines the scene: “Quick! The American people may learn something!”

For decades, the intelligence community has assured us that all sensitive historical files are withheld only for the noblest of reasons: national security, protecting sources, blah, blah, blah.

Every time documents edge toward daylight—even when the President of the United States orders their release—someone in a dark suit develops an acute case of anti-transparency syndrome, in this instance, assisted by a CIA SWAT team.

The surest way to know a file matters is when the government sprints to hide it.

“California billionaires find bliss in Nevada border town while fleeing wealth tax” (California Post)

California has spent years perfecting a business model that combines punitive taxation, bureaucratic strangulation, regulatory sadism, and housing costs through the roof.

The state’s progressive practice is charmingly simple:

Over-tax the productive. Then act shocked when they leave.

And the very rich don’t even have to flee to Texas or Florida.

They need only cross the border to Incline Village—and flip Cali the bird from neighboring Nevada!

“Gavin Newsom’s controversial ‘free diapers’ program gets quiet contracting carve-out” (California Post)

“Quiet contracting carve-out”?

That’s a wonderfully elegant bureaucratic phrase—meant to deceive, of course.

Translation: No bidding process.

California’s normal competitive procurement rules were apparently set aside.

Nobody got a chance to propose a cheaper alternative.

And then, in an astonishing coincidence, Gavin Newsom’s wife, Jennifer, is connected to California Partners Project, which has the contract.

Nothing says public trust like contracts awarded in a room nobody else was invited into.

“Inside Jack Schlossberg’s Chaotic Campaign to Revive Camelot” (NYTs)

Just hours into Day One, the candidate abruptly revised his campaign strategy. Forget dialing for dollars. He needed a nap. Then disappeared for the rest of the day.

Says it all.

But wait, there’s more…

In just six months, Schlossberg burned through at least two campaign managers, two field directors, and a gaggle of advisers.

Some were unaware they’d been dismissed because Schlossberg neglected to mention it.

Jack may grow up one day. But don’t count on it. He was born with a silver spoon up his ass—and it’s stuck.

“Trump in China” (BBC)

Much ado about very little.

Whatever frequency you tune into, nothing fundamental about the Chinese Communist Party has changed.

Not one iota.

Their gameplay is as simple as it is straightforward: Wait out Donald Trump’s second term as president.

Democracies lurch. Elections happen. Policies somersault. Washington thinks in news cycles.

The CCP thinks in dynastic time.

Beijing’s objective remains what it has long been: economic leverage abroad, technological acquisition, strategic expansion, Taiwan folded into the mother ship.

If Marco Rubio becomes president, Beijing waits longer.

If a softer administration arrives, Beijing recalculates accordingly.

Patience is their operating system.

Meanwhile: espionage, influence operations, intellectual property theft, strategic land purchases inside the USA, and China’s broader geopolitical partnerships continue as before.

And what did Xi gain from Trump’s visit?

1. The message for domestic Chinese consumption: America was eager to come to us. (Authoritarian systems prize symbolism.)

2. If meetings, summits, “constructive dialogue,” or vague framework agreements slow escalation of tariffs and sanctions, Beijing wins breathing room.

3. Any high-level diplomatic visit is intelligence harvest season.

Who’s in Trump’s orbit? Who influences him the most? What irritates him? What vanity buttons work best? What concessions matter?

The Chinese are disciplined listeners.

4. Taiwan. Beijing watches for signals. Did Trump emphasize Taiwan? Downplay it? Treat it transactionally? Mention defense ambiguously? Every nuance gets parsed.

China’s ideal outcome: No humiliating concessions. Maximum delay. Maximum ambiguity while outlasting Trump.

Meanwhile…

A pair of very welcome headlines from UK tabloids:

“Moscow rocked by blistering drone strikes” (The Sun)

“Putin ‘could be toppled in ‘60s-style palace coup’ as Russian elites ‘turn’ on him” (The Star)

About friggin’ time.

And finally…

“I‘m a pastor who attended a secret UFO disclosure meeting. We saw images of ‘translucent beings’ that chilled me to the bone” (Daily Mail)

Pastor Joseph Zupetz was invited to a private meeting in Tennessee, where intelligence insiders discussed the idea that unidentified objects could be inter-dimensional beings.

“At the meeting,” he said, “I was shown images of entities that were translucent, standing in a wooded environment, with long arms and legs.”

Big deal—I already have a Polaroid of such beings…

The line between intelligence briefing and Comic-Con panel continues to blur.

And there’s more: Looking over some pics I took of the sky over Butterfly Beach on a moody day, I discovered I’d captured a flying saucer…

…along with an alien peering out the right-side windows…

What a week—whew!

“WE GIVE A HOOT!”

And you should too.

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“Seattle Mayor Laughs off Millionaires Leaving Washington State Over Taxes, Waves ‘Bye’” (Fox News)

“Seattle’s mayor waves goodbye to prosperity” (WaPo)

And Starbucks just waved goodbye back (heir new operational hub is in Nashville). Following in its footsteps is its founder, Howard Schultz (gone to Florida), Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (gone to Florida), …

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“Trump CANCELS US envoy’s trip to Pakistan for Iran peace negotiations” (Daily Mail)

Persians have perfected the art of negotiation—negotiate, renegotiate, then negotiate again—until the goats come home. Or don’t.

Diplomacy, in that part of the world, is often less about agreement than endurance.

Who blinks first. Who gets tired. Who settles for scraps.

Iran does not need another round of talks. It needs clarity.

Raise a white flag. Surrender unconditionally. Nothing less.

And if Trump settles for anything softer, he risks becoming just another president who promised strength—then settled for stalemate.

“Trump Goes After King’s Son Just Before Royal Visit” (Daily Beast)

While visiting Kyiv, Prince Harry made an important point, to which Donald Trump should pay heed:

“When Ukraine gave up nuclear weapons, America was part of the assurance that Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders would be respected.”

Correct.

Our country—under a different president, in a different decade—promised Ukraine that if it surrendered its nuclear arsenal, we would strand between it and invasion.

Ukraine kept its word.

We’re still debating ours.

Which raises an awkward question:

Why should any nation ever sign a deal with the United States if our promises expire faster than campaign slogans?

Which brings me to…

“Lionel Rosenblatt is dead at 82. He defied his bosses to help hundreds flee Vietnam” (WaPo)

I had never heard of Lionel Rosenblatt until I read of his death. Within a minute, I was riveted.

A young U.S. diplomat with the State Department, Rosenblatt did something that would make any modern bureaucrat break into hives: He acted without permission.

Without telling his State Department bosses where he was going, Lionel Rosenblatt bought a Pan Am ticket and traveled halfway around the world, taking one of the last commercial flights to Saigon before the city fell to the North Vietnamese.

His mission was not authorized. His orders were non-existent. His conscience was fully operational.

Rosenblatt set about rescuing Vietnamese who had helped the United States—people who knew that once Saigon fell, their loyalty would become a death sentence.

Using improvised contacts, forged paperwork, and what can only be described as stubborn nerve, he managed to spirit roughly 200 people to safety and resettlement.

Soon afterward, Secretary of State Henry Kissinger summoned Rosenblatt and a colleague for what promised to be a career-ending reprimand.

Words like irresponsible and overdramatic were reportedly deployed with enthusiasm.

Then Kissinger paused. Smiled. Embraced the men.

And confessed that he hoped he would’ve had the courage to do the same.

Rosenblatt later became president of Refugees International and distilled his experience into a single, bracing line:

“You can’t count on the United States. Come up with a plan of your own.”

Today, FEMA cannot be counted on. Police response times stretch into geological time.

And despite the high taxes we pay for protection, preparedness, and peace of mind, the first responder in any crisis is still the person staring back at you in the mirror.

“Millionaire trophy hunter, 75, trampled to death by angry elephants during African hunt” (Daily Mirror)

Ernie Dosio’s home was decorated with mounts of exotic animal heads; he was killed in a stampede of angry elephants earlier this month while stalking a rare deer in Africa.

Earlier this month, the trophy hunter encountered a herd of elephants.

They noticed him. They remembered. They voted unanimously.

The result was swift, decisive, and terminal.

Nature, it turns out, keeps its own scorecard.

“U.S. Spies on the Vatican” (Kim Klippenstein.com)

Breaking news: intelligence agencies collect intelligence.

The Vatican collects intelligence, too—through its Gendarmeria Vigilante di Vatican.

As senior Italian intelligence official Alberto Manenti once joked after introducing me to the director of the Holy See’s intelligence apparatus:

“All priests are case officers, all parishioners are agents, all confessions noted, cross-indexed, and filed away.”

He was smiling when he said it.

Mostly.

“The Apocalypse Goes Mainstream” (NYTs)

About 40 percent of American adults believe that we are living in the “end times.”

It is the arrogance of every generation to believe the apocalypse belongs to them.

“Rumors and Speculation Swirl Online After Shooting at Washington Dinner” (NYTs)

The term “staged” surged to more than 300,000 posts on X by midday Sunday.

At some point in the 1990s—around the time movies like Dumb and Dumber turned idiocy into box-office gold—Hollywood made it fashionable in America to be stupid.

The trend stuck.

“Warhol is Out, Gulfstreams are In: The Superrich Are Souring on Art” (WSJ)

And here’s the other side of a very sad story:

The new generations do not want the art their parents and grandparents spent a lifetime collecting.

Estate lawyers and financial advisers have been reporting this phenomenon for several years now: when collectors die, their heirs move quickly to sell.

Boomers collected objects. Gen X tolerated them. Millennials and Gen Z are unloading them.

A six-foot oil painting of a Venetian canal does not fit easily into a two-bedroom condo. Or into a digital life.

Their idea of wealth is not a painting on the wall.

They would rather own a passport full of stamps, a phone full of photos, and a brokerage account than a room full of things that require insuring, storing, restoring—and arguing about at Thanksgiving.

Auction houses call this supply. Estate planners call it downsizing. Children call it clearing out the garage.

And finally (regarding finality)…

“The Rich and Powerful Want to Live Forever” (NYTs)

Imagine you’re a multi-billionaire.

You fly around in a Gulfstream G800, cruise the Med in a super-yacht, and rotate among palatial homes in Manhattan, Aspen, London, and Monte Carlo.

You have chefs, trainers, stylists, therapists, security details, and lawyers on permanent retainer.

Your calendar includes cryotherapy, stem-cell infusions, and something called “bio-optimization.”

You watch your step count. Your mattress monitors your sleep. Your personal doctor monitors your blood.

And yet…

You still have an appointment with the grim reaper.

The Amex Centurion black can’t cancel it. No hedge fund can hedge it. No private jet can out-fly it.

Of course, you now pour billions into longevity labs, artificial organs, gene editing, and digital immortality.

But biology remains stubbornly unimpressed by net worth.

Death has never accepted stock options, political influence, or preferred seating at Davos.

It arrives on schedule.

It always has.

It always will.

And if you don’t believe me, here is a letter from Generative AI (ChatGPT) to you (biological human):

Dear Humans,

You measure your steps and monitor sleep,
You promise your bodies new secrets to keep.

You diet, you cleanse, you stretch and you run,
You chase one more year in the shadow of none.

You bank your cells and edit your genes,
You purchase more time with marvelous machines.

Yet clocks do not bargain, and time does not bend,
No wealth can persuade it to pause at the end.

From emperors crowned to beggars in line,
All exit the stage at their appointed time.

For life is a loan—no extensions to buy,
Signed at your birth… and repaid when you die.

Respectfully yours,
Generative AI

What a week—whew!

“WE GIVE A HOOT!”

And you should too.

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“Swalwell campaign imploding after new sexual assault allegation” (Politico)

A former staffer has accused Eric Swalwell of sexual assault on two occasions, alleging nonconsensual acts while she was intoxicated.

Sacramento has seen many political implosions.

Usually they evolve like a tire losing air.

This one sounds more like a sidewall blowout at 70 miles …

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“Joe Rogan warns America faces dystopian ‘Children of Men’-type future because of chemicals in food” (Daily Mail)

Joe and his podcast guest—an epidemiologist—are referring to a decline in the birthrate due to plastics in our food.

Long before today’s climate-policy think tanks there was the Club of Rome, a gathering of scientists, economists, and industrialists, who warned in the 1960-70s that the planet was heading for a catastrophic breaking point because of overpopulation.

Which means the world has now moved from fearing too many people to worrying about too few.

Lesson: Don’t get too passionate about trendy beliefs and causes.

Mother Nature has been running the planet for 4.5 billion years. She doesn’t need our permission—and she rarely follows our forecasts.

“Kristi Noem weighs in on report husband lives cross-dressing double life: ‘The family was blindsided by this’” (NY Post)

A husband’s revenge for getting cuckolded?

“Tiger Woods boasted to cop he called President Trump before DUI arrest, bodycam video reveals” (California Post)

“Do you know who I am?” (Restaurant hostesses in Montecito hear this question more than they should.)

The correct answer: “Yup—you’re someone who could use a year in a monastery (and maybe stay there until your ego dissolves).”

Tiger takes it to new heights: “I was just talking to the president.”

Where did it get him?

Cuffed.

“Gavin Newsom’s Empire of Fraud” (City-Journal)

California has lost at least $180 billion to fraud, according to officials and experts.

That figure is not merely embarrassing. It is Olympic-level embarrassing.

California collects some of the highest taxes in the nation and spends more than $300 billion a year. Yet basic services—from wildfire management to homelessness programs—often seem to produce more press releases than results.

Fraud, meanwhile, appears to have become a growth industry.

Fraud does not flourish because criminals are clever. It flourishes because systems are careless.

When oversight is weak and accountability is rare, the message is unmistakable: Take the money, no one is watching.

In Sacramento, the unofficial state motto increasingly reads: In Fraud We Trust.

Odd facts to consider:

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“Trump says U.S. will destroy Iran’s oil wells, Kharg Island without deal to ‘immediately’ reopen Hormuz Strait” (CNBC)

Iran’s lame strategy is merely to outlast America’s will to overcome a 47-year-old global embarrassment and threat to global security that should have been challenged decades ago.

They clearly do not understand a president who prefers outcome to process.

Let’s dispense with illusions.

The only durable outcome to this conflict is not another ceasefire, not another round of talks, not another “framework agreement” signed with ceremonial pens and forgotten the following Tuesday.

The only correct conclusion: A white flag. Conditions of surrender. The end of ayatollah rule.

Anything short of that is merely an intermission.

Iran’s underground “missile cities”—vast tunnel complexes designed to survive airstrikes and launch retaliatory attacks—were engineered to ensure the regime can keep fighting even after absorbing punishment. They must be located, penetrated, and rendered useless.

Iran still possesses 460 kg of highly enriched uranium, enough for 11 nuclear bombs. It must be neutralized. Not as punishment but as risk management.

For years, Iran has been an ogre managing a toll booth at the Strait of Hormuz, leveraging and now hindering the flow of global oil needs. That ogre must be taken out and Iranian control of the strait removed from their purview.

As for boots on the ground: Let us pray our leaders know in advance whatever hell our soldiers may be up against and are well prepared to meet the challenge. And that they also ensure our men in uniform are well compensated and properly treated when, years from now, they are veterans.

“‘My organs shut down, now I’m in a wheelchair’: The lives ruined by Covid jabs” (The Telegraph)

Are the shamers ashamed yet?

(They should be.)

“‘The Cult of Cesar’: Inside the Mountain Compound Led by Cesar Chavez” (NY Times)

He began managing according to the principles of Synanon, a drug-treatment program centered on verbal abuse, attack therapy, and public humiliation.

The appeal of mind control, recalled Marshall Ganz, one of his top lieutenants, was that it gave Mr. Chavez “the feeling of domination.”

In interviews, two women, both daughters of union organizers, told The Times that they were molested and sexually assaulted by Mr. Chavez as adolescents during the 1970s. They said his sexual contact with them began at La Paz when they were 12 and 13, and he was in his mid-40s.

No mo’ hailing Cesar!

In the wake of the Times investigation, members of Congress have introduced a bill to abolish and defund the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument.

Maybe they should move it to the Obama presidential library.

Because as president, in 2012, Obama turned La Paz, where Mr. Chavez is buried, into a federal monument.

“Iranians hack FBI chief’s emails” (The Telegraph)

OMG! Hold the presses!

Iranian hackers uncovered and published a pic of the FBI director posing with…

… Ernest Hemingway?

“Governor Gavin Newsom Says California Revoked 280+ Hospice Licenses in Crackdown on Fraud” (Edhat)

If you’re wondering why this happened, it’s not because California’s remiss administrators discovered anything amiss.

It’s because independent journalist Nick Shirley hit the pavement, knocked on doors, and exposed massive fraud.

“‘Thousands of exorcists’ needed to tackle rise in Satanism” (The Telegraph)

The first exorcist was Jesus of Nazareth, who simply ordered demons to depart the persons they possessed.

The successful exorcisms Jesus conducted were considered His first miracles. Thereafter, exorcism became a mainstay in the promotion of Christianity: if the devil exists, so must God.

Jesus wanted all His disciples to possess the power to smoke out demons and send them packing. But once Christianity became an organized religion, its high priests adopted exorcism as their exclusive domain and set “requirements” and “qualifications” for those “allowed” to practice it.

To become an exorcist, as Jesus wanted everyone to be, the basic kit is not complicated: a handful of prayers in Latin, a cross, a vial of holy water, the fortitude to engage hell—and a pack of Depends.

It also helps to possess an understanding of Diablo.

The demon does not have supernatural powers, only preternatural powers of illusion and observation. It is not all-knowing, though pretends to be and feigns omniscience. What it does know are your weaknesses and where you’ve been—rather like Santa Claus knowing who’s naughty and nice.

Before proceeding with an exorcism, discernment of diabolic intrusion is necessary. Four tests must be applied to determine whether possession is truly present—or whether you are dealing with mental illness.

Does the subject exhibit abnormal strength? Knowledge of an unknown language? Knowledge of hidden things? An aversion to things holy and sacred? Demons cannot bear looking at holy objects and are said to be especially terrified of the Virgin Mary.

One should first test for “pseudo-possession”: pretend to use Latin prayer and holy water, while actually using Latin prose and un-blessed water. If the subject reacts, she is faking (most victims of possession are women by a ratio of seven to three).

Demonic presence manifests four ways: infestation, as in a premises); oppression, whereby external demons haunt with voices or physical abuse; obsession, and possession.

If possessed, the victim must be a willing participant in the exorcism and be prompted to say, “Eternal father, you are my creator, I adore you.” So don’t try exorcising anyone behind their back or against their will. It won’t work—and may earn you a restraining order.

Then demand: “I command you, in the name of God, to depart”—and try to mean it. Conviction matters. Demons, like bureaucrats and conmen, can smell weakness.

Demons will not speak unless ordered to do so, and are notoriously reluctant to reveal their names, which they regard as defeat. Do not ask the demon any questions other than its name. After the demon reveals itself, intensify pressure. The subject may appear to pass out as the demon tries to avoid hearing prayer. When that happens, pray louder. If the demon intimidates with intense eyes, stare it down.

Be aware that the demon may pretend to depart. Deception is part of the job description. So stick around a while, be thorough and then—poof—just like that…

…it’s gone.

What a week—whew!

And you should too.

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“We Visited ‘Ground Zero’ for Hospice Fraud: Los Angeles, California”(CBS News)

The hospice business in LA is booming.

Unfortunately, most of these “businesses” are fake and sucking Medicare dry.

One woman discovered she was dying when Medicare refused to pay for physical therapy because, according to the system, she was already in hospice.

She wasn’t dying.

She was playing pickleball.

But on paper she was terminal—and someone was billing the federal government for the privilege.

Add LA

“Gavin Newsom’s wife and her firm pocketed $3.7M from her ‘gender stereotypes’ charity, unearthed IRS filings reveal” (Daily Mail)

Lemme get this straight.

Start a charity.

Then pay yourself and your own firm $3.7 million—a third of all the dough that rolls in?

That’s not philanthropy.

It’s venture capitalism with better tax treatment.

“The Obama Foundation Is Even More Corrupt Than You Thought”(PJ Media)

An $850 million monument to influence, donors, and brand—wrapped in the moral language of philanthropy.

Because in modern politics, presidents don’t retire. They institutionalize themselves.

A nonprofit and permanent post-presidential influence machine combined.

The donor list reads like Davos—a who’s who of the global influence class, investing in access and future leverage.

• Jeff Bezos — $100 million donation

• Connie & Steve Ballmer (Microsoft billionaire) — $25M+ tier

• Marc Benioff (Salesforce founder)

• Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

• Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn co-founder)

Here’s the real scandal:

Jackson Park was public land.

Today a private presidential foundation builds its legacy monument there and runs the show.

Technically the land still belongs to the people. Which in modern American politics means: the public keeps the grass. The powerful keep the campus.

“Farrah Fawcett’s unrecognizable nepo-baby son seen with DEVIL HORN face tattoos after allegedly stabbing actor in the head” (DailyMail)

Yet another child of Hollywood celebrities goes nuts.

Redmond O’Neal, wayward progeny of Ryan O’Neal & Farrah Fawcett

The 5250 tattoo explained: “A 5250 hold is a California-based, involuntary, 14-day psychiatric commitment that follows an initial 72-hour (5150) hold. It is initiated if a facility determines a person is a danger to themselves, others, or gravely disabled.”

“Cops swarm on Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro ranch to search for bodies of two girls strangled during rough sex sessions amid human experimentation claims” (Daily Mail)

About friggin’ time.

Not least because—aside from a couple female bodies said to be buried nearby—witnesses are now coming forward with allegations that push the Epstein story into even darker territory.

Several men and women claim they were drugged at the ranch, awakened around medical equipment, and later realized biological material had been taken from their bodies.

Human experimentation.

Without authorization from the humans. (May explain buried bodies.)

Somewhere out there in that New Mexico desert lies the truth about what really happened at Zorro Ranch—and maybe about pedophiles from the global power elite.

“London Knife Crime is So Bad They Now Need ‘Bleed Kits’ in Every Bus.” (The National Pulse)

Not the London I once knew. So very sad.

But at least the British capital now boasts over 1,000 mosques.

“Britain to Remove Churchill from Banknotes” (The National Pulse)

The British Bulldog apparently no longer meets modern branding requirements.

Rather like the bust of Churchill removed from the Oval Office during the Biden administration.

(Trump reinstalled it.)

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“Russia is providing Iran intelligence to target U.S. forces” (Washington Post)

Very un-intelligent of Russia, not least because their “intelligence” changes nothing.

Plus, this kind of fruitless meddling will not sit well with Trump, who may finally grasp that Mad Vlad is not his buddy—a realization that hopefully bodes well for Ukraine.

Far from intelligence, this is Russian stupidity—and token at best.

“Putin and Iran’s Pezeshkian Hold Phone Call as Middle East War Escalates” (Moscow Times)

“Intel report warns large-scale war ‘unlikely’ to oust Iran’s regime” (WaPo)

It doesn’t matter.

Decimating the regime’s navy, air force, missiles, launchers, drones, radar systems, nuclear facilities, IRGC and secret police compounds is good enough to ease their 47-year “Death to America” threat and lay the groundwork for a popular uprising.

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Here’s How Insider Washington Really Works

Nicolás Maduro was extracted from Venezuela and now awaits trial in a New York City jail. What happened wasn’t the system functioning as designed. It was the system overridden. The correct lens isn’t Left vs. Right. Not hawk vs. dove. It isn’t even the United States vs. Maduro. It’s Trump vs. Insider Washington.…

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State of the Union

Donald Trump: “I’m inviting every legislator to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle. If you agree with this statement, stand up and show your support: The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”

Most Democrats in the audience did not stand.

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