Zerohedge

Authored by Todd Hayen via Off-Guardian.org,

Black, White, And The Comfortable Lie

I was talking to a very close friend the other day who happens to be a die-hard Trump hater (I know what you are thinking, don’t ask). We unfortunately drifted into a “discussion” about the January 6 fiasco (and also don’t ask me why I bother). Time and time again, I run into this sort of thing—where the position on the left believes they are 100% right about any particular controversial topic.

No matter how much contradicting (to their position) information I provide, they dismiss it all as garbage. “It is obvious what it is, and that’s that.” As with most things these days, I find this odd.

Nothing is 100% a particular way, with zero valid argument in the other direction. Nothing except very simple things. I am, of course, describing the infamous “false binary” or “false dichotomy” or “false dilemma.”

This is nothing new, of course. The idea of the false binary has been kicking around human thought since the days when philosophers in togas were debating the nature of reality. It’s a logical fallacy that’s as old as logic itself, with roots stretching back to ancient Greece.

Aristotle, that granddaddy of Western philosophy, touched on similar ideas in his works on rhetoric and ethics, warning against oversimplifying complex arguments into rigid either-or choices that ignore the messy nuances of life. He didn’t call it a “false dichotomy” per se—that term came later—but he was essentially calling out the same intellectual laziness in his critiques of sophistry, where debaters would trap opponents in contrived binaries to win points rather than seek truth.

Fast-forward a few centuries, and the concept gets more formalized during the Enlightenment, when thinkers like John Locke and David Hume started dissecting human reasoning and its pitfalls. But it really crystallized in the 19th and 20th centuries with the rise of formal logic and fallacy studies. Logicians like John Stuart Mill in his System of Logic (1843) highlighted how people often frame debates as black-or-white to manipulate outcomes, excluding middle grounds or alternative possibilities.

By the mid-20th century, it was a staple in critical thinking texts—consider Irving Copi’s Introduction to Logic in the 1950s, which cataloged it as a classic informal fallacy. In essence, a false dichotomy presents a situation as if there are only two mutually exclusive options, when in reality, there’s a spectrum, or third (or fourth, or fifth) paths lurking in the shadows. It’s like saying, “You’re either with us or against us,” as if loyalty is a switch that can’t be dimmed or rewired.

This trick forces people into polarized corners, shutting down dialogue and making compromise seem like betrayal.

In our modern madhouse, it’s weaponized everywhere—from politics, where elections are pitched as apocalyptic battles between good and evil, to the Covid era’s “vax or die” mantra that erased any talk of natural immunity or alternative treatments. It’s a mind trap that preys on our tribal instincts, making us feel secure in our righteousness while blinding us to the gray areas where real understanding lives. And that’s the shrew’s (contrarian thinkers) edge: spotting these illusions before they hook us.

Kit Knightly, the sharp-witted editor at Off-Guardian, wields the term “false binary” (or its sly cousin “fake binary”) like a scalpel in the operating theatre of narrative dissection—precise, incisive, and always aimed at the festering heart of controlled opposition.

Primarily on OffG, where he’s been a cornerstone voice since the site’s early days, Knightly deploys it to unmask how power structures peddle rigged choices. Such as the endless left/right, red/blue, or vaxx/anti-vaxx traps that corral dissent into neat little pens, ensuring the real exit stays bolted shut. His star turn? Co-hosting the September 2024 livestream “Debunking the False Binary” with the freshly minted Independent Media Alliance (IMA)—flanked by heavyweights like Iain Davis, Derrick Broze, and James Corbett. There, they eviscerate the “fake binary” as a core narrative control technique, spotlighting how “alternative” media gets infiltrated with hopium-laced divides: Trump saviors vs. Harris horrors, pro-Ukraine “freedom fighters” vs. pro-Russia isolationists, or techno-utopias vs. Luddite panic—all engineered to seed division while the technocratic overlords chuckle from the shadows.

Elsewhere, Knightly echoes this in IMA’s launch manifesto, framing the false binary as public enemy #1 in alt-media warfare: countering “false two-party paradigms,” imperial war cheerleading, and digital ID “solutions” pitched as the lone fix for every ill. Knightly doesn’t just name the fallacy; he maps its deployment in real-time psyops, from Covid compliance cults to election theatre, urging us to torch the scripts and dance in the nuance.

Why do people cling to false dichotomies like life rafts in a storm? Sure, the agenda-pushers love them—black-and-white framing is the perfect divide-and-conquer tool, herding sheep into opposing pens while the shepherds count the wool. But let’s not pretend that’s the whole story. The real rot runs deeper, straight into the human psyche, where comfort trumps complexity every time.

Most folks aren’t wired for the cognitive marathon that critical thinking demands. Nuance is exhausting; it requires holding contradictory ideas in your head without your brain blue-screening. Polarity? That’s a cozy blanket. Pick a side, slap on a label, and suddenly the world makes sense—no pesky gray areas to trip over. It’s the mental equivalent of fast food: quick, satisfying, and ultimately bad for you. Cognitive dissonance is painful; false binaries are painkillers.

Carl Jung, that old Swiss sage of the psyche, nailed it when he spoke of the “tension of the opposites”—the electric space where thesis clashes with antithesis, birthing the living synthesis that is real life.

This isn’t some tidy resolution; it’s a perpetual tightrope walk, demanding we hold the unbearable “unknowning” in our trembling hands, staring into the abyss between black and white without flinching. Most sheep-types (and I have to say, many shrew-types as well these days) bolt for the cliffs of certainty, terrified of the vertigo that comes with admitting “maybe I’m wrong, maybe it’s both, maybe it’s neither.” The ego screams for solid ground—pick a side, plant a flag, silence the dissonance—so they collapse the tension into a false binary, snuffing out the very spark that could illuminate truth. Most critical thinkers (at least the ones I mingle with) thrive in the friction, muscles aching from the pull, because that’s where the gods hide, whispering secrets to those brave enough to listen without answers.

Then there’s the tribal pull. Humans are pack animals, and nothing bonds a group faster than a common enemy. “Us vs. Them” isn’t just a narrative trick—it’s evolutionary. Back in the savanna days, you didn’t survive by pondering the moral ambiguity of the rival tribe; you picked your side and swung the club. Today, that instinct gets hijacked by algorithms and talking heads, but the wiring’s the same. Admitting your team might be wrong feels like betrayal, so people double down, even when the facts are screaming otherwise.

And yes, critical thinking’s been on life support for decades. Schools teach compliance, not curiosity. Media rewards outrage, not analysis. Social platforms amplify the loudest, simplest takes. We’ve raised generations that confuse certainty with strength and doubt with weakness. When you’ve never been taught to question, polarity isn’t just easier—it’s the only path you can see. And this, needless to say, is largely, if not entirely, the work of the agenda, whose sole intention is to control the masses.

That said, the agenda exploits what’s mostly already there: a collective laziness of mind, a fear of ambiguity, and a desperate need to belong. The shepherds don’t create the sheep; they just build better fences. Those of us who use our critical thinking see the gates and seek ways out of the herd. Most don’t even look.

According to Trump, his big achievement a week ago when he announced the trade truce with China, was getting Beijing to agree to remove export limitations on rare earth minerals, which as most now know are so critical for US companies to make everything from cell phones, to cars, and military equipment. And yet, as discussed on a few occasions this week, it feels like the cracks in this latest trade deal are already starting to show, whether it is Beijing ordering Trump what he can’t talk about, or quietly ring-fencing its domestic data center by banning US AI chips.

And now, it appears that while China granted Trump a 1 year reprieve on rare earths, it is quietly tightening the export noose on other, just as important minerals.

According to the Global Times, China has introduced new export controls on silver, antimony, and tungsten.

In the statement published on the MOFCOM’s website last Thursday, the export controls are for the 2026-27 period, and have the stated aim of “stepping up the protection of resources and the environment.“

The Global Times continues:

The document was proposed by the Department of Foreign Trade of MOFCOM, based on the regulations outlined by the Foreign Trade Law of and the Regulations on the Administration of Import and Export of Goods. It aims to protect resources and the environment and enhance the export management of rare metals, said the MOFCOM.

Which is amusing: the only reason why China is currently the world leader in global rare earth refining – which is an extremely polluting and toxic process – is precisely because China has absolutely no regard for the environment; that’s because it has a huge land mass which is expendable, and it can use and abuse as it sees fit, and has millions of workers which are just as expendable.

Take the world’s largest rare earth processing mine, Bayan Obo, which is located in the barren Inner Mongolia region, and which has generated over 70,000 tons of radioactive thorium as toxic byproducts from years of REE processing.

As the Harvard International Review wrote recently, “China was only able to establish such [Rare Earth] dominance over the REE industry in large part because of lax environmental regulations. Low cost, high pollution methods enabled China to outpace competitors and create a strong foothold in the international REE market. This market is now booming: China spiked its outputs for the first half of 2021 by more than 27 percent, hitting record levels of REE extraction as demand increases.

The most infamous mine in China is Bayan-Obo, the largest REE mine in the world. Even more infamous than the mine itself is the tailing pond it has produced: there are over 70,000 tons of radioactive thorium stored in the area. This has become a larger issue recently because the tailing pond lacks proper lining. As a result, its contents have been seeping into groundwater and will eventually hit the Yellow River, a key source of drinking water. Currently, the sludge is moving at a pace of 20-30 meters per year, a dangerously rapid rate.

So no, China’s stated purpose of limiting exports because it is suddenly worried about the environment is bullshit. What isn’t, however, is that Beijing has strategically realized that while it can give Trump some RREs, it will limit access to other products which are just as important across supply chains, thus exposing yet another near-shorting choke point. 

As the Global Times notes, “China’s exports of tungsten products – excluding cemented carbide tools and tungsten halogen lamps – totaled 12,000 tons from January to September of this year, representing a year-on-year decrease of 13.75 percent compared with the same period in 2024… The material can be used for manufacturing light filaments and optical instruments. As a major exporter of rare metals China produced more than 80 percent of global tungsten supply in 2023, according to data from the United States Geological Survey, the Reuters reported.”

And so the game of export whack-a-mole in the second World Trade War continues: today the US is getting rare earths (at least until Trump has another Truth Social meltdown), but just got stopped out on other, just as important materials. This export control rotation will continue until the day the US is self-sufficient, which however due to the abovementioned environmental limitations, will take a very long time unless somehow the US govt funnels enough money in domestic producers (and allows them to dump the toxic by products anywhere – who knows maybe Elon can blast them off into space) to short circuit the process.

Until then, go long stocks of domestic miners that specialize in extracting and producing anything and everything that China feels like no longer exporting to the US.

Authored by Guy Birchall via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Japan deployed troops to the north of the country on Nov. 5 to help control bears in the area, after local authorities said they were struggling to cope with an unprecedented wave of attacks.

Soldiers from the Japanese Ground Self-Defense Force (GSDF) have been sent to the area to work alongside local hunters to help bring the animals under control, according to news outlet The Asahi Shimbun.

The troops, however, will not be allowed to use firearms in the operation but will be restricted to bear-repellent spray for deterrence and protection, and will assist in setting box traps, conducting patrols, transporting hunters, moving captured or culled bears, and collecting information.

The operation began in Kazuno, a city in Akita Prefecture in the far north of the main island of Honshu.

Kazuno has seen a sharp uptick in bear sightings in recent weeks, with residents urged to avoid the thick woods surrounding the settlement and stay indoors after dark to keep clear of the bears foraging near homes.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi also told the Japanese parliament that the government will decide on emergency measures to address bear-related issues by the middle of the month.

“We will implement necessary measures in a timely manner without waiting for the final decision to be made,” she said, according to Japanese news agency Jiji.

Since April, Japan has seen more than 100 bear attacks with a record 13 people killed across the country in the same time period, according to the Ministry of the Environment.

Two-thirds of those deaths were in Akita Prefecture and the neighboring Iwate Prefecture.

In Akita, authorities say bear sightings have jumped sixfold this year to more than 8,000, and attacks are on track to set a new record, prompting its governor to request help from the Self-Defense Forces last week.

After Kazuno, a town of around 30,000 people known for its hot springs and scenery, the GDSF soldiers will move on to Odate and Kitaakita under an agreement that lasts until the end of the month, according to news outlet NHK.

Rising bear numbers, shifts in natural food sources, and depopulation of rural areas are increasingly bringing people into contact with bears. Meanwhile, the hunters, many of whom are aging, on whom authorities used to rely to deal with the problem, have found themselves overwhelmed this year.

In recent weeks, bears have attacked customers inside a supermarket, a tourist walking to a bus stop near a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a worker at a hot spring resort.

Bear attacks usually peak in October and November, as the animals search for food before entering hibernation.

Japanese black bears, common across most of the country, can weigh up to 265 pounds, while the brown bears on the northern island of Hokkaido can weigh more than 1,300 pounds, according to Bear Conservation.

In September, the government relaxed gun rules to make it easier for hunters to shoot bears in urban areas.

The law change now allows municipal authorities to ask licensed hunters to cull or capture bears, provided they ensure the safety of affected communities by restricting traffic and evacuating residents in cooperation with police.

Previously, the law banned hunters from shooting the animals in densely populated areas, except when they were ordered to do so by police due to a threat to life, the Japan Times reports.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Elon Musk told Joe Rogan, during his latest podcast appearance, that given unlimited powers (which he doubts is possible in our supposedly democratic regime), he could “cut the federal budget in half.. and get more done.”

Reflecting on his disappointing efforts at DOGE (which he notes were stalled by both the left and the right not wanting to end the grift), Musk notes the authoritarian nature of an end-game solution to the US government’s spending problems make it nearly impossible, but he argues that many U.S. government departments are wasteful and counterproductive, citing the Department of Education as a prime example.

Created in the late 1970s, he said, educational outcomes have worsened ever since – proving that centralization often destroys competition and results.

As ‘Camus’ noted on X, Musk questioned why, when America first thrived with just a few departments – State, Treasury, War, and Justice – we now need an enormous federal apparatus that employs millions in roles “that add no real value.”

Referring to a famous Milton Friedman anecdote, Musk mocked the idea that keeping unproductive jobs alive somehow benefits society.

“If you want job creation for its own sake,” he joked, “have people dig with teaspoons instead of shovels.”

His core philosophy was clear: true progress comes from productivity, innovation, and useful work – not bureaucracy.

Watch the brief interchange here…

Elon Musk on the Joe Rogan Podcast: “Cut the federal budget in half—and get more done.”

Elon Musk argued that many U.S. government departments are wasteful and counterproductive, citing the Department of Education as a prime example. Created in the late 1970s, he said,… pic.twitter.com/rmiTvKtUA6

— Camus (@newstart_2024) November 5, 2025

Source: Camus

Authored by Chandra Philip via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Incidents of family violence against Canadian seniors has hit a record high, according to data from Statistics Canada.

The recently released StatCan report found that the number of seniors mistreated by a family member has risen 49 percent since 2018. StatCan analyzed police-reported incidents of family violence nationwide for the study.

Seniors were most often victimized by a child (36 percent) or spouse (28 percent), the report found, while 25 percent were victimized by another family member, with 11 percent identifying the perpetrator as a sibling.

A total of 7,622 incidents of senior family violence were reported to police in 2024.

StatCan noted there has been a 4 percent increase in family violence against seniors since 2023, which was considered the highest recorded rate at the time.

Seventy-two percent of senior victims said they were victims of a physical assault by a family member in 2024, while 17 percent said they were a victim of threats.

The number of family violence cases for senior women was slightly higher than than of senior men, with 104 female victims per 100,000 people and 92 males per 100,000 people.

StatCan said women 65 years and older were most often mistreated by their child (34 percent) or spouse (32 percent), while 39 percent of senior men said they were victimized by their child and 21 percent reported being mistreated by a spouse.

Overall, the rate of family violence increased by 17 percent between 2018 and 2024, according to StatCan. The report also said that cases of intimate partner violence increased by 14 percent during the same time period.

Police services in Canada said there were 349 victims of family violence per 100,000 population in 2024, StatCan noted.

The StatCan report also noted an increase in intimate partner violence among victims aged 12 or older—a number that grew 14 percent.

The rise was larger for men and boys, who saw a 21 percent increase, compared to women and girls, who saw a 16 percent increase.

StatCan said there were 25,938 child and youth victims of police-reported family violence in 2024, a rate of 345 victims per 100,000 population aged 17 and younger.

The report said that 30 percent of children were mistreated by a family member.

The rate of family violence against children has increased 26 percent since 2018, with most being victimized by a parent (61 percent), while 15 percent were victimized by a sibling and 24 percent by another family member.

The majority children and youth (57 percent) were victims of physical assault, while 33 percent of child and youth were victims of sexual assault.

Sydney Sweeney, who may or may not have ‘perfect titties‘ (she does), has hinted at getting in the ring for a charity boxing match.

The 28-year-old actress has packed on 35 pounds to play world champion boxer Christy Martin in a new sports biopic out Nov. 7, and tells SportsCasting that she may put on the gloves for real.

“There was a moment in the middle of filming where I was like, ‘Should I give it all up and fight because I love this,” she said, adding that Martin, 57, offered to sign her up. 

“So, this isn’t as hypothetical as you actually think it is,” Sweeney continued. “I’d totally do a charity bout, that’d be so sick!”

When asked who she’d fight, the actress said: “It’s a surprise, you’ll have to wait, I’m serious … “You gotta stay tuned for the pay-per-view and you’ll see it.”

Martin, who Sweeney plays, served as a consultant on the biographical film. Other cast members include actors Ben Foster, Merritt Wever, and Katy O’Brian.

The former pro boxer was a trailblazer in women’s boxing – earning the WBC female super walterweight title in 2009, before she survived an attempted murder at the hands of her ex-husband, James Martin – who was found guilty of second-degree murder with a firearm in 2012 and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He died in November of last year while serving out his sentence at Graceville Correctional Facility in Florida. 

“Christy, your story has completely changed me, and as we get closer to sharing this film with the world, I wanted to share something,” Sweeney posted on Instagram over the weekend.

“One of the first things I watched when I got this role was this video. Her powerful testimony at her ex-husband’s hearing. The man who tried to kill her. I hope this film helps so many others.”

Sweeney has also starred in the following photo shoots and public displays of sexyness, which we’re posting in the name of good journalism: 

Perfect titties confirmed

We’ll give you a few minutes alone… 

Air traffic at 40 major US airports will be cut by 10% starting Friday as travelers continue to face flight disruptions due to a spike in air traffic controller absences during what is now the longest government shutdown on record. 

During a Wednesday press briefing alongside the leader of the Federal Aviation Administration, Bryan Bedford, US transportation secretary Sean Duffy said that the Federal Aviation Administration would begin reducing flights later this week to keep air travel safe as it contends with shutdown pain on top of a nationwide shortfall of about 2,000 air traffic controllers. 

The names of the 40 affected airports would be released on Thursday, FAA head Bryan Bedford said at the press conference with Duffy, who said the decision would be data-based. 

“The data will dictate what we do,” Duffy said. “If the data goes in the wrong direction, could you see additional restrictions? Yes.”

“This is not based on what airlines have more flights out of what location. This is about, ‘Where’s the pressure, and how do we alleviate the pressure?’” Duffy said. 

Duffy said the cuts were necessary to maintain air travel safety. Cuts to international flights hadn’t been discussed, although unless the shutdown situation changes, those too are likely. Bedford added that he sees the FAA restricting space launches as well. 

Airlines were expected to advise customers of changes to scheduled flights after Thursday’s announcement.

The transportation secretary added that steps had already been taken to shore up its workforce — including offering cash bonuses to incentivise retirement-age controllers to continue working, and “surging” trainees at its academy.

“The shutdown is having an impact on our ability to maintain those numbers and dent that 2,000 shortage that we have,” he added.

The FAA has been forced to slow traffic at many airports in recent days due to rising controller staffing shortages since the government shutdown began on Oct. 1. Air traffic controllers continue to work without pay.

Millions of passengers have grappled with flight cancellations and delays related to staffing since the shutdown started, Airlines for America, a trade group, said. 

Yesterday we said that with Beijing giving Trump a list of 4 “red lines” he should note cross (including i) Taiwan, ii) democracy and human rights, iii) China’s political system, and iv) development rights), the countdown to the end of the trade truce has started because there is no more certain way to get Trump to do something than to tell him he shouldn’t. 

And in a move that will only accelerate Trump’s anger, the Chinese government issued guidance requiring new data centre projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically-made artificial intelligence chips, Reuters reported.

In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities ordered such data centres that are less than 30% complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage will be decided on a case-by-case basis, the Reuters sources said.

Some projects have already been suspended before breaking ground as a result of the directive, including a facility in a northwestern province that had planned to deploy Nvidia chips, one of the sources said. The project, being developed by a private technology company that received state funding, has been put on hold, the source said.

The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a pause in trade hostilities between Washington and Beijing, and achieve its quest for AI chip self-sufficiency.

China’s access to advanced AI chips, including those made by Nvidia has been a key point of friction with the U.S., as the two wrestle for dominance in high-end computing power and AI. Trump said in an interview aired on Sunday following talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week that Washington will “let them deal with Nvidia but not in terms of the most advanced” chips.

Beijing’s response: if you limit technology, we will come up with our own. 

The move by Beijing, would dash Nvidia’s hopes of regaining Chinese market share, while giving local rivals, including Huawei, yet another opportunity to secure more chip sales. Besides Nvidia, other foreign chipmakers that sell data centre chips to China include AMD and Intel. 

It remains unclear whether the guidance applies nationwide or only to certain provinces, although it is likely the case that this will soon become the norm unless something changes. The sources did not identify which Chinese regulatory bodies had issued the order. 

Unlike in the US where corporations are funding data center buildout – either through cash flow, equity or debt – AI data center projects in China have drawn over $100 billion in state funding since 2021, according to a Reuters review of government tenders. Most data centers in China have received some form of state funding to aid their construction, but it is not immediately clear how many projects are subject to the new guidance.

Beijing has long been irked by Washington’s export controls aimed at impeding China’s tech progress and has taken a series of measures, including retaliatory moves, to wean itself off US technology. In response, the US has been aggressively ramping up Industrial Policy to boost domestic rare earth mining and refining to ween itself off reliance on Chinese rare earth production. The latest trade truce gives Trump about a year to come up with a viable alternative and a domestic rare earth industry which has seen substantial, but still mostly insignificant, funding from the US. 

The US justified its restrictions by alleging the Chinese military would use the chips to increase its capabilities. China has discouraged local tech giants from purchasing advanced Nvidia chips over security concerns this year, while showing off a new data centre powered solely by domestic AI chips.

And in 2023, Beijing banned the use of Micron’sproducts in its critical infrastructure, which paved the way for a decision this year by the largest U.S. memory chipmaker to exit the server chip market in China, Reuters reported last month.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has repeatedly lobbied Trump and his cabinet to allow the sale of more AI chips to China, arguing that keeping its superpower rival’s AI industry dependent on U.S. hardware was good for America’s interests.
Its current share of the Chinese AI chip market is zero, compared to 95% in 2022, according to the company.

Excluding foreign chipmakers like Nvidia from big state projects would eliminate a significant portion of their China revenue, even as a deal is agreed to allow the resumption of advanced chip sales to China. The new guidance on data centres covers Nvidia’s H20 chips, the most advanced AI chip the U.S. firm is allowed to sell to China, but also more powerful processors such as the B200 and H200, the sources said.

While the B200 and H200 are barred from being shipped to China by U.S. export controls, they remain widely available in China through grey-market channels.

Of course, the obvious next question is does China have the technology to actually achieve parity with the US.

With the latest directive, the Chinese government is carving out even more market share for domestic chipmakers. China has a range of AI chip companies, from the most prominent, Huawei Technologies, to smaller players such as Shanghai-listed Cambricon and startups including MetaX, Moore Threads, and Enflame.

While products from these Chinese companies already rival some of Nvidia’s offerings, they have struggled to crack the market. Developers used to Nvidia’s reliable software ecosystem have been reluctant to adopt domestic alternatives.

Lastly, while the move would help boost sales of domestically developed chips, it also risks widening the U.S.-China gap in AI computing power. U.S. tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, and OpenAI have spent or allocated hundreds of billions of dollars to build data centres powered by Nvidia’s most advanced chips. Meanwhile, leading Chinese chip manufacturers like SMIC are facing supply constraints due to U.S. sanctions on semiconductor manufacturing equipment that have hit advanced chip production capacity.

In the end, the most likely endgame is one where both Beijing and DC directly fund their domestic AI industries to win the next “arms race” which will be who gets to AGI first, as the cost for not getting there first will be existentially staggering. As such, we expect a substantial spending spree from the US government to fund even more progress as Trump seeks to expand the tech gap with China, which in turn will further blow out the US budget deficit and lead to an even faster growth in the US federal debt in coming years. 

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

In Shakespeare’s Richard III, Queen Elizabeth — whose husband King Edward IV was overthrown and her twins taken to the Tower — asks the older Queen Margaret (widow of the murdered King Henry VI) to “teach me how to curse mine enemies.” The Queen responds that it is easy: “Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, And he that slew them fouler than he is.”

The lesson: The key to hate is to decouple it entirely from reason and reality. Only then can you hate completely without restraint or regret.

It seems that the left has learned how to hate. Hateful speech is in vogue as Democratic leaders ramp up violent rhetoric and political violence rises. The key is to get voters to hate your opponent so much that they forget how much they dislike you.

The irony is crushing. For years, liberals have sought to criminalize hate speech while expanding the range of viewpoints considered to fall within this category. Democratic leaders, from senators to former presidential candidates, have falsely claimed that hate speech is not protected under the First Amendment.

In “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I write about rage and the uncomfortable fact: “What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility.” Rage is addictive, and it is contagious.

What rage-addicts cannot tolerate are those who cling to residual impulses of decency or humanity. In an age of rage, reason is viewed as a reactionary tendency.

This week, Bravo star and liberal podcast host Jennifer Welch praised footage of a “No Kings” protester celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk, holding her up as an example for all liberals.

In the clip, the elderly woman said, “Charlie Kirk is horrible. Yes. I’m glad he’s not here.” When pressed if she was actually happy that the husband and father of two had been murdered, the woman said “Yes…because he was horrible on the campuses. Horrible person.”

After playing the clip, Welch laughed with joy and declared, “So listen up, Democratic establishment. You can either jump on board with this s—, or we’re coming after you in the same way that we come after MAGA. Period.”

Celebrities like Jamie Lee Curtis certainly got that message. The actress was facing a social and professional meltdown after openly mourning Kirk’s death in a podcast interview. “I disagreed with him on almost every point I ever heard him say,” she said. “But I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died, that he felt connected to his faith, even though his ideas were abhorrent to me.”

It appeared to be a moment of weakness that briefly overrode wokeness. Curtis quickly found herself persona non grata in Hollywood, as an angry liberal mob began to circle her. Curtis quickly saw the light and effectively retracted her fleeting expression of humanity, claiming it had been “mistranslated.” It is said that in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. But that does not apply if you then gouge out your own eye. Now fully and comfortably blinded by her own hand, Curtis is back as a member of good standing in Hollywood.

Internationally, the left has pushed for criminalizing the speech of those with opposing views as hateful and harmful. UNESCO works off a definition of hate speech as including “pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender or other identity factor.” This includes “scapegoating, stereotyping, stigmatization and the use of derogatory language” based on any “identity factor.”

Countries are also “required to prohibit” speech tied to “conspiracy theories, disinformation and denial and distortion of historical events.”

In the past, some leftists have included political criticism or parodies of their leaders as hate speech. For example, when a rodeo clown, Tuffy Gessling, donned a President Barack Obama mask at the Missouri State Fair as part of a skit years ago, the response was calls for his arrest. The President of the Missouri chapter of the NAACP, Mary Radliff, insisted that it constituted criminal hate speech.

But things have changed. The left has now discovered the thrill of uninhibited hate.

Recently, in Chicago, elementary school teacher Lucy Martinez was shown on video reacting to an image of Kirk by mockingly making a gesture akin to being shot in the neck, mimicking how Kirk had been assassinated.

Another educator, Wilbur Wright College Adult Education Manager Moises Bernal, screamed to a crowd that “ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out.” Bernal told the crowd, “You gotta grab a gun!” and “We gotta turn around the guns on this fascist system!”

In academia, hateful speech has long been a way to establish one’s bona fides as a faculty member. By attacking and excluding others, you reaffirm your own protected status.

Faculty have thrilled their colleagues and students by talking about “detonating white people,” abolishing white people,  calling for Republicans to suffer,  strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, and supporting the murder of conservative protesters.

Even school board members have referred to taking faculty “to the slaughterhouse” for questioning diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Last week, Democratic strategist James Carville went on a hate-filled rant, to the delight of his podcast audience. He declared that anyone supporting Trump and the Republicans will be treated like collaborators in World War II who were publicly abused and paraded by mobs.

“You know what we do with collaborators?” he said. “I think these corporations [funding White House renovations] — my fantasy dream is that this nightmare ends in 2029 and I think we ought to have radical things. I think they all ought to have their heads shaven, they should be put in orange pajamas and they should be marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and the public should be invited to spit on them.”

Carville later repeated the call that “The universities, the corporations, the law firms, all of these collaborators should be shaved, pajamaed and spit on.”

For years, Democratic leaders have given their base the license for such blind rage by calling Republicans “Nazis” and claiming that democracy will die unless their opponents are stopped.

The effect has been transformative across the party. In the current race for Virginia Attorney General, Democratic nominee Jay Jones admitted to sending text messages expressing the desire to kill a political opponent, “piss on the grave” of a dead Republican, and kill his children, whom he dismissed as “little fascists,” in their mother’s arms.

There was a time when such a candidate would be denounced by those on the ticket from his party and made a nonentity in politics. Instead, the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Abigail Spanberger (who had previously told her supporters to “Let your rage fuel you”), has refused to withdraw her endorsement. Moreover, the race remains close, with most Democratic voters still planning to cast their ballots for him.

It is a lesson many hope will take hold in the midterm elections. Like Queen Elizabeth, these voters have overcome all inhibitions and can now teach others “how to curse.”

*  *  *

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the bestselling book “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

Though Donald Trump campaigned on pledges to end America’s endless wars and regime change campaigns, the White House has now assembled a list of potential military attacks on Venezuela, with the president and senior officials evaluating the associated risks of each option, the New York Times reported on Tuesday. Those options include the seizure of oil fields or a targeted ousting of President Nicolás Maduro. 

In a parallel undertaking, the Department of Justice is evaluating legal rationales for the various options, with an eye on justifying unilateral action by the president without congressional authorization for the use of military force. According to the Times‘ sources, those rationales would likely center on the allegation that Maduro and top officials are working for Cartel de los Soles, which the administration has imaginatively designated a “narcoterrorist” group. Under that pretext, the DOJ would say Maduro is a fair military target, negating various US prohibitions on assassinations of foreign heads of state.   

Unsurprisingly, one of the leading champions of aggressive action is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a long-time hawk whose selection by Trump caused widespread unease among the president’s non-interventionist supporters. Along with Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller, Marco is pushing for nothing less than Maduro’s ouster, the Times reported. 

Over the past two months, the United States has engaged in 16 airstrikes on boats off Venezuela that the White House claimed were transporting drugs to America. Critics including Sen. Rand Paul say the boats lacked the range to do that. Sixty-seven people have reportedly been killed in the strikes. According to the Times, the range of new military options under consideration include: 

• Airstrikes against military facilities to sap Maduro’s support from the country’s armed forces. Opponents argue that such strikes may instead galvanize the military’s bond with Maduro.   
• Using elite units like Delta Force or SEAL Team 6 to seize or kill Maduro himself
• Tasking counterterrorism forces with seizing oil fields and related infrastructure, along with air fields

🇺🇸🇻🇪 US Senator Rand Paul speaks an unpleasant truth about the US military’s fight against Venezuelan drug trafficking: pic.twitter.com/EOz7qrkp2c

— Маrina Wolf (@volkova_ma57183) November 3, 2025

Trump himself is said to be less gung ho about escalation, with his hesitancy reportedly springing from two concerns: Worries about putting US service-members in peril, and fear of a humiliating failure. His rhetoric about Venezuela has veered back and forth over recent weeks — from hinting in mid-October that US military engagement might advance from blowing up alleged drug traffickers in boats to hitting targets on land, to telling 60 Minutes this week that he doubts the US is on a path to war with Venezuela. “I doubt it,” he told Norah O’Donnell. “I don’t think so, but they’ve been treating us very badly, not only on drugs — they’ve dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn’t want.” 

Last weekend, the Washington Post reported that the Pentagon was amassing forces in the southern Caribbean, comprising 10,000 soldiers and Marines and 6,000 sailors, along with eight Navy ships, a special ops vessel, and an attack submarine. The aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford is en route, along with three more ships. The Marines conducted landing drills on Puerto Rico over the weekend, and engineers are rehabilitating the old Roosevelt Roads naval base there.  

Ready for rapid response: U.S. Marines with the @22nd_MEU conduct training operations in Puerto Rico. U.S. military forces are deployed to the Caribbean in support of the #SOUTHCOM mission, @DeptofWar-directed operations, and @POTUS‘ priorities to disrupt illicit drug trafficking… pic.twitter.com/cxClR61U3X

— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) November 1, 2025

Russia has said it’s closely monitoring the situation in Venezuela, which holds the world’s largest crude oil reserves and is more than twice the size of Iraq. Maduro has reportedly requested military assistance from Moscow. It’s unknown whether Russia — which already has its and full with the war in Ukraine — intends to bolster Venezuela’s defenses. Arming a country within the US sphere of influence could be a fitting counter to the West’s engagement in Ukraine. 

Meanwhile, as the Trump White House contemplates America’s newest regime-change campaign, we’re reminded of what Tom Woods famously said: “No matter who you vote for, you get John McCain.”