By John WHITEHEAD’S

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

“We’re gonna win so much, you may even get tired of winning.”—Donald Trump

Donald Trump promised Americans they would get tired of winning.

If this is what winning looks like, America can’t afford much more of it.

We are losing ground economically. We are losing credibility abroad. We are losing tourists, workers, stability, trust, constitutional guardrails, and whatever remained of the illusion that the government answers to “we the people.”

The tourism economy is taking a hit, with international visitors increasingly reluctant to come to the United States. Even migration—the lifeblood of America’s economic growth, innovation, labor force and national renewal—is now moving in the wrong direction. Fewer people are coming in, more Americans are leaving, and by some estimates the country has already crossed into negative net migration.

That is not the mark of a nation “winning.” It is the mark of a nation people are increasingly choosing to escape.

Even the looming World Cup—normally an economic windfall for tourism, travel and hospitality—is being shadowed by the administration’s immigration crackdown, detention protests and threats to disrupt international travel at key airports.

That is what happens when a nation treats visitors, immigrants and dissenters as threats first and human beings second: people stop coming, businesses suffer, and fear becomes official policy.

The economy, despite the administration’s relentless victory laps, is flashing warning signs: downgraded growth, strained consumers, rising costs, depleted savings, and policy chaos that leaves families, small businesses and entire industries guessing what fresh disruption tomorrow will bring.

We are being worn down by the losses.

Meanwhile, the man who promised to end wars has presided over their continuation and expansion. The man who promised to bring prices down has helped drive uncertainty up. The man who promised to drain the swamp has turned government into a spoils system for loyalists, cronies, contractors, oligarchs and power brokers. The man who promised law and order has treated the law as something to be weaponized against enemies and waived for friends.

This is not winning.

This is the slow-motion defeat of a constitutional republic by spectacle, grievance, greed and brute force.

The losses are piling up.

Americans were told they would get prosperity. What they got was an economy in which corporate profits and stock market gains mask the fact that ordinary households are stretched thin, savings are shrinking, debt is mounting, and the cost of basic necessities keeps eating away at wages.

They were told tariffs would punish foreign governments and bring jobs home. What they got were higher costs passed down to consumers, retaliation, supply disruptions, and a trade policy built less on strategy than on political theater. Even the courts have begun treating the tariff agenda as what it is: economic policy by executive improvisation, with judges striking down or narrowing tariff maneuvers while the administration keeps looking for new legal workarounds.

They were told immigration crackdowns would make America stronger. What they got was a nation frightening away the workers, students, tourists, entrepreneurs and families who have long helped power its economy.

They were told America would be respected again. What they got was a country increasingly viewed as unstable, hostile, unpredictable and unsafe—not merely by adversaries, but by allies, visitors, investors and would-be partners.

They were told the wars would end. What they got was more war talk, more military escalation, more blank checks for the war machine, and more excuses for expanding executive power in the name of national security.

They were told the Constitution would be restored. What they got was a president who declared, “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”

Listen carefully when any ruler says something like that.

That is not constitutionalism. That is the language of kings, dictators and strongmen who believe their intentions place them above the law.

The Constitution was written precisely to prevent that kind of thinking from taking root in America.

The problem with Trump’s brand of winning is that it requires Americans to lose.

For the police state to win, the Fourth Amendment must lose.

For the surveillance state to win, privacy must lose.

For the war machine to win, peace must lose.

For the executive branch to win, the separation of powers must lose.

For the oligarchs to win, working families must lose.

For the propaganda machine to win, truth must lose.

For a strongman to win, the Constitution must lose.

Trump’s “winning” is simply the latest branding campaign for an old con: convince the people they are winning while stripping them of the power to govern themselves.

Call it what you will—national security, border security, economic nationalism, law and order, anti-corruption, emergency authority, America First—but when the end result is more government power and less individual freedom, we should know by now who is really winning.

The winners are the same as always: the defense contractors, data brokers, private prison operators, surveillance companies, lobbyists, political insiders, Wall Street speculators, government contractors, partisan enforcers, donors with access, loyalists seeking payouts, and bureaucratic power centers that thrive on fear, crisis and control.

The losers are “we the people.”

This is the hard truth Americans must face: a government that promises to make you “win” by taking power away from someone else will eventually take power away from you, too.

Rights are not partisan. Due process is not partisan. Free speech is not partisan. Privacy is not partisan. Limits on executive power are not partisan. The Constitution is not supposed to be a campaign prop, a legal technicality or a speed bump on the road to political victory.

The Constitution is the contract that binds the government down.

Without it, all we have are rulers and subjects.

That is why the real measure of any administration is not how loudly it boasts, how many enemies it punishes, how many executive orders it signs, how many troops it deploys, how many agencies it purges, or how many headlines it dominates.

The real measure is whether the people are freer, safer in their rights, more secure in their property, more protected from government abuse, and more capable of holding power accountable.

By that measure, we are not winning.

We are losing in all the ways that matter.

A president can call it winning. A party can call it winning. The media can package it as winning. The crowds can chant along.

But as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, if the price is the Constitution, then we all lose.

Original article:  www.rutherford.org

By Philip GIRALDI 

Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su

Israel will benefit enormously and Americans will bear the burden

There is near certainty that Section 224 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2027 will pass through the House of Representatives to become law this coming week after a failed attempt last Thursday in the House Armed Services Committee to pass an amendment to delete it led by Democratic Party Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie. The NDAA will now be awaiting only the fully expected signature of Israel’s servant President Donald Trump on the Act to become part of the nation’s legislative package that will set the rules and regulations that the nation’s defense will operate under. It will, unfortunately, also set up through Section 224 a “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” that integrates “US-Israeli military research and development, co-production of weapons systems, licensing agreements, AI, directed energy, data integration, and missile defense.” It also creates the framework for “bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and seemingly every manner of US-Israeli military-industrial complex cooperation.” The Director of the “Initiative” will be responsible for the coordination of the work and it is already being suggested that he will be an Israeli. And the funding will come 100% from the US Treasury by way of the budgeted allocation of $1.5 trillion that has been requested for the US military in 2027.

The result is to completely connect the functionality of the US military with that of the Israeli military in what has been described as an equal partnership that will include the government of Israel and its Israeli Defense Force as full participants. There will be full intelligence sharing and a planning process that will determine many aspects of how the American Department of War (sic) procures its weapons and equipment and establishes its strategic goals. This is plausibly the hidden story behind why Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been slyly suggesting that Israel might in future forego the $3.8 billion in annual automatic “aid” (which some refer to as “tribute”) from the US Treasury, a process begun by President Barack Obama. Netanyahu, working through his accomplices in the White House and the US Congress, clearly would have known in advance that a much larger slice of the pie was on its way via Section 224.

Those politicians who have sponsored and promoted 224 inevitably cite how the Jewish state is a major “ally and best friend” even though it is neither, but they ignore the dark side fact that it is also a genocidal state whose leaders have been condemned by international courts for multiple war crimes that is hated by most of the world. And this hatred has rubbed off on the United States, which is Israel’s principal source of arms, money and political cover. The slaughter in Gaza and now in Lebanon would not occur without the support of Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

And there’s more, coming from the Senate which is doing something similar via the FY27 Intel Authorization bill which will make US intelligence sharing with Israel mandatory. The bill in question is S-4615, introduced on May 20^th by leading Israel Firster Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas. The full text is here. S-4615 includes Section 622, entitled “US-Israel intelligence sharing enhancement.” This new section would establish as law (where it would apply forever, unless repealed by Congress) new US national security-related obligations with respect to Israel. It includes a Statement of Policy: “(1) To maintain and strengthen the strategic security partnership with Israel as a means of advancing the national defense of the United States… (2) To enhance intelligence collaboration through robust intelligence sharing and analytic partnership with Israel… (4) To ensure that security assistance and defense cooperation are structured to help Israel maintain its qualitative military edge…”

When the Intel Authorization Bill comes up for a vote in the Senate it will no doubt pass due to the Republican Majority supplemented by the usual Israel Firsters among the Democrats. And to complete the takeover by Israel there is a bill moving through Congress that will give US military benefits to American citizens, often Israeli dual nationals, who serve in the Israeli military, to include educational and medical benefits unavailable to other Americans who have not served in the US armed forces. Ironically, Israel’s new status as America’s partner in national security and warfare coming from both parts of Congress is not shared with any of Washington’s actual allies in NATO, making the relationship with Israel both unique and, in the opinion of many, uniquely dangerous as an empowered Israel will inevitably work to advance its security perceptions and Middle East “Eretz Israel” ambitions at the expense of genuine concerns that the United States might have intrinsic to its much broader worldwide exposure to global threats. In other words, pandering to Israeli concerns will actually make the United States much weaker and more vulnerable.

Astonishingly, the danger that Israel poses to US national security through its insertion as something like an equal into the planning process has been little remarked in the mainstream US media, possibly due to increased federal and state government pursuit of “antisemites” which includes criminalization of criticism of Israel. And it is certainly once again suggesting the power of the Israel Lobby, its “bought” media and its stable of supporting Jewish billionaires. But there has been considerable concern being expressed across much of the alternative media, some of which has even reached the front pages, suggesting that there is some leakage going on to feed official reservations about 224. The New York Times, which sometimes serves as a go-to leaked resource for the intelligence and defense communities had an interesting article on Israeli spying on the United States sourced to the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which appeared just after 224 was being debated in Congress.

The Times article is entitled “Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel” and is summarized as “The Defense Department has increased the counterintelligence threat assessment to its highest level, and Israel is believed to have eavesdropped on American negotiations with Iran.” The story details how “Israel is now at the Pentagon’s highest counterintelligence threat level.” It includes how American officers working with their Israeli counterparts both in the US and overseas have had their phones and other messaging systems tapped through the insertion of surreptitious listening devices by the Israelis. Negotiations to end the Iran War have also been particularly targeted, both through phones being used by the negotiators as well as from the Washington end where the calls and messages are received.

The reality is, of course, that Israel has been a major source of spying and even worse against the United States since the 1950s, always ranking in FBI and Department of Defense assessments as one of the top three foreign espionage offenders, frequently as number one. And Israeli clandestine covert actions and false flag attacks have not hesitated to kill Americans as part of their efforts to cover-up their more disreputable activities. Notably, the Israeli false flag attack on the US Navy’s USS Liberty in international waters on June 8^th 1967 in which 34 crewmen were killed stands out, particularly due to the subsequent cover-up conveniently arranged by Presidents Lyndon B Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.

Israeli spies, which might have included Netanyahu himself when he resided in the US, arranged the illegal removal of enriched uranium from a Zionist-Jewish-owned metallurgical company in Pennsylvania and also obtained the special triggers in California that enabled Tel Aviv to create a nuclear arsenal. When President John F Kennedy sought to stop that development he was assassinated, quite possibly with help from Mossad. And then there was the most damaging spy in the history of the US, Jonathan Pollard, who stole for Israel the most sensitive intelligence ever obtained by a foreign power. He is now running for the Knesset in Israel and is speaking of the next two likely targets for the Israeli army once the Palestinians, Lebanese and Syrians are disposed of, neighbors Egypt and Turkey!

The appearance of the Times article is suspicious and it might have been a shot across the Israeli-Israel Firster bow from the intelligence community coming as it apparently did from what was once called the Department of Defense. But Israel appears to have won this round and will be entering into a new relationship with the United States national security, intelligence and defense systems. Given the utter ruthlessness of Israel and the willingness of its sponsors in Washington to let it get away with mass murder, literally, this is a disaster for the United States and will only produce excruciatingly bad results.

Original article:  www.unz.com