During his January 2025 appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience, Mel Gibson discussed the historical case for the resurrection in relation to his upcoming film, The Resurrection of the Christ.

Gibson argued that the Gospel accounts should be taken seriously, pointing in particular to the earliest witnesses who, according to Christian tradition, endured persecution and violent deaths rather than recant their testimony.

Gibson summed up his argument with a line that’s been memed and quoted across the internet: “No one dies for a lie.”

The claim is true, but it has also prompted an obvious objection that’s almost always raised in the comments section: If no one dies for a lie, then why do people so often die for false causes? What about suicide bombers, political assassins, militants and religious extremists who willingly sacrifice themselves for beliefs that are demonstrably false?

At first, that sounds like a pretty strong objection. However, it fundamentally misses the point. Here’s why:

There is a profound difference between dying for something that is false and dying for something you know to be false. People have obviously died throughout history for beliefs that were wrong. The question is whether someone would willingly endure persecution and death for a story they personally knew they had invented.

And this is what makes the Apostles’ testimony so compelling.

They weren’t simply repeating something they had heard from somebody else. They claimed to have personally seen the risen Christ. Their entire message rested on something they said they had witnessed themselves.

According to Christian tradition, Peter was crucified in Rome, Andrew was crucified in Greece, James was executed in Jerusalem, Thomas was killed by a spear in India, Philip was crucified in Hierapolis, Bartholomew was martyred in Armenia, Matthew was martyred in Africa, James the Less was killed in Jerusalem, Thaddaeus was martyred in Armenia or Persia, Simon the Zealot was martyred in Persia, and Matthias, who replaced Judas Iscariot, was also martyred.

Of course, none of this means that people cannot die for something that is false. Islamic militants, for example, may genuinely believe the religious claims for which they are willing to die. Their willingness to die demonstrates the sincerity of their belief. It does not demonstrate that the belief itself is true.

That is the distinction that matters here.

An Islamic terrorist is dying for something he believes to be true, but which he has received from others. He can be sincerely mistaken. The Apostles were claiming something very different. They claimed to have personally seen, heard and encountered the risen Christ.

If they had deliberately invented the resurrection, they would have known it was invented.

That makes their situation fundamentally different. They weren’t defending a belief they had inherited or repeating a story they had been told. They were claiming to be eyewitnesses to the central event they proclaimed.

So the argument is not, “Nobody ever dies for something false.” History obviously disproves that.

The argument is that people may die for a lie they sincerely believe, but why would multiple people willingly endure persecution and death for a testimony they personally knew was fabricated? What would they have to gain in their death?

The Apostles’ deaths do not, by themselves, prove the resurrection. But they do present a serious problem for the idea that the resurrection was simply a deliberate invention by its earliest witnesses.

It reminds me of something Charles Colson once said about the 1974 Watergate scandal. Colson was named one of the “Watergate Seven,” and pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to discredit Pentagon analyst Daniel Ellsberg, who had leaked the top-secret Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in an effort to expose the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

A year before his imprisonment, while he was still under investigation and facing arrest, Colson’s close friend, Thomas L. Phillips, gave him a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. Colson devoured the book and soon after became a Christian.

Colson, who was derided by the media at the time for converting to Christianity just prior to his trial, went on to serve seven months of his one-to-three-year sentence. But his newfound faith was no trivial ploy to reduce his punishment.

Upon his release, Colson went on to create Prison Fellowship Ministries, an organisation dedicated to ministering to inmates, former prisoners, and their families. He also established the Christian teaching and resource organisation, The Colson Centre.

In 1982, on Easter Sunday, Colson delivered a sermon to a group of prison inmates. One of the prisoners later recalled the atmosphere as Colson preached. The prisoners were “spellbound,” he said.

In his message, Colson spoke a little about his own experience meeting Christ and admitted that his involvement in the Watergate scandal played a crucial part in convincing him of the truth of the resurrection.

Colson explained:

I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me.

How?

Because twelve men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.

Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison.

They would not have endured that if it weren’t true.

Watergate embroiled twelve of the most powerful men in the world and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks.

You’re telling me twelve apostles could keep a lie for 40 years?

Absolutely impossible.

So, the question is not merely, “Did they die for what they believed?” It is: “Did they have firsthand knowledge that what they were proclaiming was true or false?”

That’s the distinction the objection fails to address.

The family of a Palestinian-American man remain holed up in his West Bank home for more than a week, after Israeli settlers laid siege to the house and the Israeli army then turned it into a closed military area.

President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner is trying to move Gaza talks forward. He met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a day after meeting with Hamas, but key disagreements remain.

Alicia Silverstone just dropped a nuclear bomb in Hollywood’s lap… and all hell is breaking loose. She released the hospital bed confession where Courtney Love admits she’s been addicted for years to the “pure liquid [...]

The post Courtney Love Confesses on Deathbed: ‘I Ate Dozens of Kids to Join Illuminati – Now I’m Dying of Kuru’ appeared first on The People's Voice.

A 35-year-old Israeli “tourist” was arrested in Crete on Saturday on suspicion of igniting a wildfire despite being warned that against lighting any kind of fire in the area due to the extremely high fire [...]

The post Greek Authorities Arrest Military-Aged Israeli ‘Tourist’ for Arson as Wildfires Rage Out of Control appeared first on The People's Voice.

A Hollywood actor and producer has been arrested and charged for allegedly using casting calls for acting roles to sexually abuse underage girls. The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office arrested Shane Ryan Gledhill, 46, on [...]

The post Hollywood Actor and Producer Cuffed in Pedophilia Sting—Child Exploitation & Predatory Assault Charges Filed appeared first on The People's Voice.

More than two dozen Texas families are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their challenge to a state law that requires public schools to post a Protestant version of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. The request, filed today, urges the court to protect students’ and parents’ religious freedom by blocking Texas Senate Bill 10, ensuring that families — not politicians — have the right to decide what role religion plays in their lives.

The Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Baha'i, Unitarian Universalist, and nonreligious families challenging the Texas law attend 22 school districts across the state and are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the ACLU, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the Freedom From Religion Foundation, with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP serving as pro bono counsel. Today’s petition seeks review of lower court rulings in two separate but similar cases: Nathan v. Alamo Heights Independent School District and Cribbs Ringer v. Comal Independent School District.

Under S.B. 10, Texas public schools must permanently display a state-mandated version of the Ten Commandments, drawn from the Protestant King James Bible, in a “conspicuous” place in each classroom, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The families challenging S.B. 10 object to the law because the displays will pressure children to conform to the state’s favored religious beliefs and interfere with parents’ right to guide their children’s religious instruction.

Today’s Supreme Court filing, a joint petition for a writ of certiorari in both cases, follows an April decision by the en banc U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit allowing the state-selected version of the Ten Commandments to go up in the plaintiffs’ classrooms. By a narrowly decided vote, the 5th Circuit ruled that S.B. 10 does not violate either the Establishment or Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment — despite a 1980 Supreme Court case striking down a nearly identical Kentucky law.

“As a rabbi and parent, forcing a Christian version of the Ten Commandments on children in every classroom is particularly upsetting,” said plaintiff Rabbi Joshua Fixler (he/him) of Houston. “I am not only worried about my own kids, but I’m deeply concerned about all the children in my congregation. These displays put children in the position of having to defend themselves and their families’ religious beliefs against a government mandate that makes them feel different and separate from their classmates.”

“Texas politicians shouldn’t have a seat at the table in deciding how our children receive their religious education. That decision belongs to our family,” said plaintiffs Rebekah (she/her) and Ted Lowe (he/him), an Austin-based interfaith couple who are raising their children in the Christian and Jewish traditions. “This law puts one version of religious beliefs above all others in our public schools and sends a message to our children that what we teach them about religion at home is somehow wrong.”

“By requiring displays of religious doctrine in every classroom, the state is interfering with our family’s decisions about how our children engage with religion,” said plaintiff Nichole Manning (she/her), a Dallas-area atheist who is raising her children in a nonreligious tradition that gives them the space and autonomy to develop their own beliefs about religion. “As a parent, I intentionally choose to have my children attend public school because I prefer an educational environment without any religious affiliation. In a diverse public school environment, all students should be treated with equal respect, regardless of their religious beliefs, or lack thereof.”

“The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected this kind of government-imposed religion before, and it should do so again,” said Chloe Kempf (she/her), staff attorney at the ACLU of Texas. “Having these posters in Texas classrooms puts students at risk of bullying, stigmatization, and religious coercion. Our nation’s bedrock principle of separating church and state means that families and faith communities — not politicians — get to decide what role religion plays in children’s lives. Texas students deserve public schools that welcome them for who they are, respect their religious or nonreligious backgrounds, and give them the high-quality education they need to build their futures.”

“Fifty years ago, the ACLU won a Supreme Court victory against a nearly identical Kentucky law — and we aim to do it again,” said Cecillia Wang (she/her), national legal director of the ACLU. “In our country, no legislature can force its preferred scripture on public school students and families.”

“Families – not politicians or public school officials – get to decide how, if, and when children engage with religion,” said Rachel Laser (she/her), president and CEO of Americans United. “We urge the Supreme Court to make clear that these Ten Commandments mandates violate students’ and families’ religious freedom as promised by the U.S. Constitution. With ever more states attempting to force one version of religion into public school classrooms, our nation must recommit to our foundational promise of church-state separation, the lynchpin of religious liberty.”

“This case concerns decisions about personal belief and religious instruction, and whether under our Constitution they remain with families and faith communities or are commandeered by the state,” said Jon Youngwood (he/him), global co-chair of the Litigation Department at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP. “The First Amendment has long protected the freedom of individuals to determine for themselves how they engage with spirituality and religion. Those protections are especially important in the public-school setting.”

“The First Commandment, dictating which god must be worshipped, is the antithesis of our First Amendment,” said Annie Laurie Gaylor (she/her), co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. “It is not the government’s role to daily expose young children to a coercive display of one religion’s set of religious edicts in our public schools. Our public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize.”

The Lowe and Fixler families share more about how they will be impacted by these Ten Commandments displays and why they oppose them in newly released, heartfelt videos that can be viewed here; transcripts are available here.

Access the U.S. Supreme Court certiorari filing here: https://www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/2026/08/10C-SCOTUS-Petition.pdf

A new investigation by Public Citizen reveals that 57 individuals within the Trump administration, excluding President Trump, are individually worth as much as $100 million, eight of whom are billionaires. The analysis underscores the growing economic divide between the average American worker, who earns $65,000 a year, and the politically-connected individuals who hold the power to address the economic strain facing the general populace.

Of the 57 ultra-wealthy individuals identified, 31 have personal assets exceeding $100 million, while the remainder have assets reaching $100 million. Forty of them are running federal agencies and institutions, including the Department of Commerce, Treasure and Education, as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, NASA, Social Security Administration and Office of Personnel Management. The other 17 are serving as U.S. ambassadors.

The concentration of wealth is striking compared with previous administrations:

• Donald Trump: 57 individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including eight billionaires, excluding Trump.
• Joe Biden: Five individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including two individuals whose assets reached $1 billion or more.
• George W. Bush: Five individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including one billionaire.
• Barack Obama: Three individuals with assets of $100 million or more, including one billionaire.

“It is deeply concerning to see people with extraordinary wealth controlling the levers of power in our government,” said Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen. “The Trump administration is putting an unprecedented number of multi-millionaires and billionaires in charge of institutions that are supposed to serve all Americans. When the people holding the reins of government are drawn overwhelmingly from the ranks of the ultra-rich, it leads to misplaced incentives and corruption, and begs the question whose interests they are truly serving.”

“The breadth and depth of the economic divide we quantified in this report, identifying 57 ultra-millionaires in key positions in our government and leading at least ten critical federal agencies, should be deeply troubling to anyone concerned about the welfare of our democracy,” said Douglas Pasternak, Public Citizen researcher. “These individuals have sweeping financial conflicts and are more likely to govern based on their own personal monetary interests than the vital interests of the American public.”

Public Citizen’s analysis comes amid growing concerns about the influence of wealthy donors and corporate interests in the Trump administration and the corruption that this is contributing to. While financial success should not disqualify anyone from public service, the unprecedented concentration of extreme wealth among administration officials warrants scrutiny. This is especially true when wealthy political supporters are rewarded with positions overseeing institutions responsible for regulating markets, distributing public resources, and protecting the public interest.

Read more about Trump’s wealthy administration here.

How are hip hop and Black Liberation connected? In this special Black August edition of Rattling the Bars, former political prisoner and Black Panther Mansa Musa sits down with artist, producer, and “Panther Cub” Mopreme Shakur on the rooftop of a hotel in the nation’s capital. Together, they explore Shakur’s memoir, This Thug’s Life, tracing the trajectory from the rise and fall of Black Power to the birth of hip hop through the eyes of the son of a Panther and the stepbrother of a legend.

Additional links/info:

• Mopreme Shakur, Penguin Random House, This Thug’s Life: An Unapologetically Black Story

Credits:

• Producer / Videographer / Editor: Cameron Granadino

Hollywood actress star Hayden Panettiere, who recently exposed elite pedophilia in the Hollywood system, was found dead this weekend at the age of 36. The former child star’s representative announced her death on Sunday. “It [...]

The post Hollywood Actress Hayden Panettiere Found Dead After Exposing Satanic Pedophilia: “They’re ALL Child Rapists” appeared first on The People's Voice.

Elites Are Claiming The World's Water Supply & Plan To Trade It

Tyler Durden | zerohedge.com

Patti Johnson | glorytogodstudio.com

Yep, you heard me right. This is not a joke or exaggeration. The facts are out there for all to see. I wrote about the tokenization of nature in my article “From Blockchain to Ball and Chain: Are We Being Borged?”

This article will deal primarily with the tokenization of the world’s water supply.

Tokenization: Turning Life Itself into a Tradeable Chip

For those who do not understand tokenization, here is a short and simple explanation: Tokenization means turning something real, like a share of water rights, a measured volume of water from a river or aquifer, or even credits for water that was “saved” or recycled, into a digital token (a unique digital certificate) that lives on a blockchain.

A blockchain is simply a shared digital notebook that many computers keep identical copies of at the same time, so the records of who owns what cannot be secretly changed by any one person or company.

That token can then be bought, sold, or traded on markets the same way people trade stocks or other assets. Instead of water simply belonging to the land, the local community, or the people who rely on it, it becomes a financial product that large investors, corporations, and institutions can own fractions of and exchange for profit. The right to use, claim, offset, or trade that water becomes the commodity.

Offset means making up for the water you use by helping save or restore the same amount somewhere else. A farmer switches to drip irrigation, a project restores a wetland, or a company reuses treated wastewater. That saved or restored water is measured and turned into credit. You buy or claim the credit. On paper your water use is balanced.

How Dare They Profit from Stealing Our Water

How dare they make money off this corrupt plan to steal, control, measure and meter the world’s water supply. Yes, I sound like Greta. The irony is thick: the same girl who made “How dare you” famous has been thoroughly programmed to cheer for Agenda 2030 and the very control grid she should be screaming against. Since she refuses to use her catchphrase where it actually belongs, then I will.

Water is the foundation of life itself. Every human, every animal, every plant depends on it. Yet the same elites who lecture the public about scarcity and climate are building the machinery to turn every last drop into a tradable asset they can profit from while ordinary people face rationing and surveillance.

This is exactly the process already described and promoted in official reports. Goldman Sachs itself published “Securing and Financing the Future of Water” in 2026, openly stating that tokenization can turn water rights into traceable tokens that track use across markets and deliver credits for companies that conserve or recycle water through connections to flow meters. Read it yourself: https://www.goldmansachs.com/insights/articles/securing-and-financing-the-future-of-water

The United Nations has declared the world has entered an era of “Global Water Bankruptcy.” Their report argues that the old system of local rights is finished and that new enforceable limits, transparent accounting, and centralized management are required. See the official collection: https://unu.edu/inweh/collection/global-water-bankruptcy

The Mapping Machines Are Already Flying Over Your Head

Look at how they are already doing it.

Across the United States, helicopters now fly low over farms and aquifers towing giant electromagnetic loops that map the groundwater beneath our feet like an MRI of the earth. California’s Department of Water Resources runs statewide Airborne Electromagnetic Surveys for exactly this purpose. Click here to read how the water mapping technology works: https://water.ca.gov/programs/sgma/aem

More detail and images of the surveys: https://water.ca.gov/News/News-Releases/2024/Mar-24/Understanding-the-Underground-DWR-Completes-First-Phase-of-Innovative-Groundwater-Mapping-Program

USGS examples of the same helicopter-based technology used for aquifer mapping: https://www.usgs.gov/news/state-news-release/media-alert-low-level-helicopter-flights-image-geology-over-wyoming-and

These surveys create detailed maps of every major water source so that usage can later be tracked and limited.

The The All-Seeing Eye of Oracle Returns: Now It Watches Every Drop You Use

Oracle Utilities already processes data from more than 100 million meters worldwide with AI systems that detect irrigation, leaks, and individual household use in real time. Their customer platform is designed for exactly this level of precise control: https://www.oracle.com/utilities/customer-platform/

Larry Ellison didn’t just dream of a panopticon. He said the quiet part out loud: “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” That wasn’t a warning. That was a sales pitch from the man who still owns roughly 40% of Oracle, the company now quietly embedding itself into the pipes that deliver the most basic resource on Earth: water.

Once you own the real-time ledger of every drop that enters every home, every farm, every factory, you don’t need jackboots. You just need a dashboard. Throttle the water, and compliance follows. The same technocratic elite that spent decades consolidating data, finance, and surveillance is now moving on the last ungoverned commons, water itself, under the soothing branding of “customer platforms” and “smart utilities.”

And Ellison isn’t some lone eccentric billionaire operating in a vacuum. He’s a Trump donor who poured roughly $45 million into supporting the 2024 campaign and has since enjoyed the kind of access that turns political proximity into regulatory profit. The same circle that lectures about freedom while building the tools to score, monitor, and ration everyday life now has one of its most unapologetic surveillance advocates sitting in their inner circle.

The water meters are just the latest sensor in a system that already knows when you open the fridge, when and where you drive, when you yawn, drink, text or speak and soon, how long you shower and how many times you flush your toilet.

This is not innovation. This is the elite’s operating system for managed scarcity and behavioral compliance, dressed up as progress and sold by a man who openly celebrated the idea that constant recording would keep the public “on their best behavior.” Oracle isn’t managing utilities. It’s helping construct the choke points. What’s next Larry? Are you going to regulate and tokenize oxygen?

The infrastructure for control is already being paired with the financial machinery. Chainlink, a decentralized oracle network that feeds real-world data such as meter readings and conservation verification into blockchain systems, has published detailed guides on digitizing water rights and conservation credits into tokens so companies can buy offsets just like carbon credits: https://chain.link/article/tokenized-water-rights-credits

In Dubai, the DMCC (Dubai Multi Commodities Centre), a government-backed free zone and major international trading hub, has signed agreements to launch the world’s first digital token backed by verified freshwater reserves, positioning water itself as a tradable commodity on global markets: https://mediaoffice.ae/en/news/2025/june/17-06/dmcc-signs-strategic-mou

They Already Seized the Food and Are Playing God with the Weather

The elites have been systematically taking control of the world’s food supply for years. Bill Gates, through Cascade Investment, has become the largest private owner of U.S. farmland, holding hundreds of thousands of acres across nearly twenty states. At the same time, major asset managers like BlackRock hold massive stakes in the dominant agribusiness corporations that control seeds, fertilizers, processing, and distribution.

Simultaneously, cloud seeding programs and solar geoengineering research, backed by Silicon Valley money and governments, are rapidly expanding. These efforts claim to manage rainfall and cool the planet, yet they place the power to influence weather patterns in the hands of the very institutions already pushing centralized control over water and food.

In other words, they are running the classic Hegelian dialectic to consolidate power:

1. Create the droughts through weather geoengineering/modification
2. Declare an emergency and frighten the public.
3. Arrive with the “solution,” water tokenization that will supposedly save the planet but in reality just make them richer.

The pattern is unmistakable. Connect the dots. First, they buy the land that grows the food. Then they experiment with altering the weather that waters the crops. Now they are mapping, metering, and tokenizing the water itself so that every drop can be tracked, rationed, and sold.

This Is Not Theory. This Is the Takeover in Progress. Technocracy 101

They tell us water is too important to leave in local hands. They declare bankruptcy on systems that have sustained communities for generations. Then they create the digital and physical infrastructure to measure every use, enforce every limit, and profit from every token. The shared nature of water is being rewritten into a system of permission slips owned by the elite few who say that they, the experts, the financiers, the scientists, know best how to manage nature and humanity. It is all part and parcel of the plan of Technocracy Inc.

And make no mistake, this entire scheme sits squarely inside the United Nations Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals. SDG 6 pretends to be about “clean water and sanitation for all,” yet the real machinery being built is the global accounting, metering, and financialization of every drop. The same institutions that wrote the goals now promote water “bankruptcy,” enforceable limits, transparent tracking, and market-based solutions that turn a basic necessity of life into a tradable asset class. What is sold to the public as sustainability and equity is in practice the transfer of control from communities and nations to the very financial and bureaucratic elites who drafted the blueprint. Agenda 2030 is the framework being used to justify seizing, measuring, and selling the world’s water under the banner of saving it.

This is the plan. It is already in motion. And the people pushing it expect the public to accept it as inevitable.

It is NOT inevitable.

Resistance is NOT futile.

Expose the plan. Shout if from the rooftops, news sites, podcasts and council meetings.

Don’t let the elites complete their takeover plan. They have the money but we have the numbers.

Source: https://glorytogodstudio.com/commentary/tokenization-of-h%e2%82%82o-whats-next-o%e2%82%82/

Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/tokenization-h2o-elites-are-claiming-worlds-water-supply-plan-trade-it

Original Article: Truth Warrior Suggested

Are We Being Borg'd?

Tyler Durden | ZeroHedge.com

Patti Johnson | TheBurningPlatform.com

Tokenized Tyranny: How Elites Are Digitizing Our World for Total Control

I’ve followed investigative journalist Whitney Webb’s work for years, and her once-distant warnings now feel eerily prophetic as they unfold in real time. What she has consistently exposed, the systematic digitization and commodification of everything from natural ecosystems to human life itself, is no longer speculative theory. It’s happening before our eyes.

When I first encountered Whitney’s reporting, I found it hard to believe. Could this level of control and financialization truly be underway? It seemed too dystopian, too extreme. Yet after digging deeper the evidence was undeniable. What she described was not exaggeration. It was an accurate and meticulously documented reality.

The tokenization of nature and humanity represents a deliberate strategy by the world’s most powerful financial institutions. Figures like BlackRock’s Chairman and CEO Larry Fink have openly championed turning the planet’s resources, and increasingly aspects of human existence, into fractionalized, tradable digital assets on blockchain-based ledgers. This creates new avenues for elite profit and unprecedented surveillance and control.

With Fink now serving as Interim Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees (alongside André Hoffmann), the technocratic elite have gained an ideal global platform to accelerate this agenda. What better forum than the WEF to mainstream and fast-track “total control” from cradle to grave.

The process begins with assigning unique digital identifiers to virtually everything: land, water, forests, carbon credits, even personal behaviors and biological data. These are then logged on universal ledgers, where ownership is sliced into tradable fractions, much like stocks. But this goes far beyond traditional finance. It encompasses the Earth’s finite resources and, ultimately, the very essence of human life, all reduced to programmable, monetizable units in a centralized system of power.

This is tokenized tyranny in action: a quiet revolution that could redefine ownership, freedom, and existence itself..

Nature on the Chopping Block: From Forests to Fractional Shares

For nature, tokenization means chopping up wild places like the Amazon rainforest into digital securities. Each token represents a piece of land or ecosystem service such as clean air or biodiversity. Companies like O.N.E. Amazon, which is tied to U.S. intelligence and crypto investors, plan to issue these tokens backed by preservation deals. They cap the supply to make them scarce like digital gold. They install massive sensor networks and satellites to monitor every hectare in real time and collect data on everything from tree growth to animal movements. The data feeds into AI systems that manage the assets:

Each initiative will be structured under a transparent, science-based framework ensuring traceability, accountability, and full respect for Panama’s sovereignty. Future projects may also explore nature-backed digital instruments as mechanisms to channel private investment into measurable conservation outcomes.

Juan Carlos Navarro, Minister of Environment of Panama, stated: “As part of the partnership, O.N.E Amazon will pilot its proprietary Internet of Forests (IoF™️), an advanced monitoring system powered by satellites, LiDAR, and ground sensors, to provide real-time ecological intelligence that supports environmental governance and transparency.”

“O.N.E Amazon was created to align global capital with the conservation of our planet’s most valuable ecosystems. Together with Panama, we aim to demonstrate how innovation, transparency, and shared purpose can turn conservation into a true economic opportunity, one that benefits both nature and people. O.N.E Amazon is more than a financial instrument, it is a new contract between humanity, capital markets, and nature. When innovation meets purpose, markets become engines of regeneration,” said Rodrigo Veloso, Founder and CEO of O.N.E Amazon.

Panama and O.N.E Amazon Sign a Letter of Intent to Protect the Darién Region and Pioneer New Models of Conservation Finance

Whitney calls this tokenization of nature “borgifying” the environment (Remember Star Trek and the Borg). It turns planet earth into a controllable grid.

Involved parties include former BlackRock executives, Trump administration figures, and firms linked to stablecoins like Tether. They push this under the banner of sustainability while securing profits through inequitable deals with indigenous groups. Those groups get minimal shares and lose autonomy over their lands.

Greenwashing in Action: Tokenized Nature Happening Now

This is already unfolding through initiatives like Natural Asset Companies (NACs), backed by the Intrinsic Exchange Group and the Rockefeller Foundation. They aim to list ecosystems on stock exchanges as new asset classes. This assigns financial value to untouched nature and creates markets for trading shares in forests or rivers. Clean Air and Water Are Worth Money as ‘Natural Asset’ Companies Attract Cash

The WEF (World Economic Forum) is involved in turning nature into a commodity for investors to profit:

 Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to returns and outcomes is out now! This insight report by World Economic Forum and McKinsey & Company provides a practical framework for investors to unlock capital for nature. Key takeaways: A portfolio approach is essential: 10 priority solutions can offer investors and issuers pathways to investable returns and nature outcomes at scale. Model transactions need to be replicated: Over 20 examples of existing transactions show that success in nature finance isn’t just theory — but needs replication. Markets can’t solve nature loss alone: Traditional finance has a central role, but needs enabling policies, robust data, better de-risking mechanisms, and shifting norms to recognize nature’s full value.

Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes | World Economic Forum

Another example is Estonia’s Single Earth, which tokenizes forests, swamps, and biodiversity to back its MERIT token. It allows companies to buy fractional ownership for carbon offsets while claiming to make nature the new gold:

“Single.Earth closes the $700 billion nature financing gap by channeling ESG (Environmental Social Governance)-driven company funds to high-impact landowners, while assessing ecological data for maximum impact globally.

Bridging Nature and Finance, Climate and Biodiversity, Corporate Sustainability through Nature Financing Enterprises buy tokens to balance their impact on nature and boost ESG scores, securing a greener financial future.”

In the Central African Republic, the Sango Project is tokenizing land, timber, and diamond reserves to attract investors. It turns national resources into blockchain assets. Even traditional commodities are involved, with platforms tokenizing oil and gas reserves or renewable energy sources:

“The Central African Republic (CAR) has extended its Sango blockchain project to tokenization of its land and natural resources. The country, one of the poorest and most crypto-friendly in the world, is also one of the most active in crypto innovation.”

Central African Republic expands Sango project to land, resource tokenization

In 2023 Australia’s National Australia Bank issued a green stablecoin tied to verified agricultural assets and carbon credits. Their tokenized farms could soon serve as loan collateral. National Australia Bank eyeing a ‘green’ stablecoin – Ledger Insights – blockchain for enterprise

Eco-Dystopia Ahead: When Nature Becomes a Profit Machine

In a future society under this system, nature becomes a Wall Street product where investors buy fractions of forests or rivers without ever setting foot there. Any “conservation” is dictated by profit motives rather than ecological needs. Entire regions could be locked into debt-like swaps where countries trade resource rights for loans. This leads to foreign-owned wind farms or bioenergy plants that displace locals.

Whitney explains that this creates a tokenized world where natural disasters or climate events can spike token values. It encourages exploitation disguised as green finance. Ecosystems are managed by algorithms that prioritize financial returns over life itself.  In the guise of saving ecosystems, they are tokenizing the world and making profit from their exploitation of planet earth.

Humans as Assets: The Financialization of Flesh and Blood

When it comes to human resources, Whitney extends tokenization to the financialization of people themselves. Human potential, data, and behaviors are tokenized into investable assets. This builds on impact investing where elites bet on social outcomes like reducing poverty or improving education through human capital bonds. It turns individuals into data points on a ledger.

Personal information, health records, DNA, and even daily actions get digitized and fractionalized and linked to digital IDs and programmable currencies that track and control spending. It all connects to broader agendas from groups like the World Economic Forum. Humans are seen as resources to be optimized. Blockchain ensures every aspect of life from skills to biometrics becomes a tradeable commodity.

From Blockchain to Ball and Chain

Blockchain is often sold as a liberating technology. It’s sold as a super-secure, shared digital notebook where transactions get recorded in unbreakable blocks that form a chain. These spread across thousands of computers worldwide so no single boss can tamper with it. It promises privacy and freedom from banks or governments. But from my skeptical angle, like the one Whitney Webb takes, it’s actually shaping up to be a high-tech ball and chain designed to track and control every aspect of our lives. This happens despite those privacy boasts. While blockchain claims to be decentralized and anonymous, most versions, like Bitcoin’s, create a permanent, public ledger where every transaction is traceable forever. This makes it easy for powerful entities from governments to corporations to follow your money trail. They link it to your identity through exchanges or data leaks. They can build detailed profiles on your habits, associations, and whereabouts.

Elites are co-opting this tech. They push for things like central bank digital currencies built on blockchain that tie your finances to digital IDs with biometrics. This turns everyday spending into a surveilled activity. In the future non-compliant behavior like buying the “wrong” things or associating with certain people could get you flagged, frozen out, or punished.  This could mean a world where your blockchain-tracked data feeds into AI systems that predict, manipulate, reward or punish your actions.

The ultimate goal is to enforce rules through programmable money. The programmable money can expire, restrict purchases, and track everything you purchase automatically. This is being pushed under the guise of security and efficiency.  Critics on X say that because blockchains are so public and open, it’s easy for others to watch everything you do and even jump ahead of your trades to make quick money off you.

They argue that without true privacy, decentralization just hands control to the most resourced spies. This echoes Webb’s expose on how Bitcoin’s traceability makes it a tool for destroying real financial privacy in favor of elite-controlled systems.

The Blockchain Enabler: Fueling Human Tokenization at Scale

This blockchain backbone is exactly what’s needed to make the tokenization of human resources possible on a massive scale. Without it, you couldn’t reliably slice up and trade fractions of someone’s skills, behaviors, or biometric data. Blockchain provides the immutable ledger that records every tokenized “share” of human capital.

Whether it’s your work output, health metrics, or social compliance, it links them permanently to your digital ID so the elites can monitor, value, and manipulate them in real time. It turns abstract human potential into concrete, programmable assets that can be bought, sold, or penalized without escape.

Human Commodification Unfolding: From Bonds to Biometrics

It seems truly unbelievable and dystopian but real-world implementations are creeping in through programs like social impact bonds.

There investors fund initiatives such as prisoner rehabilitation or early childhood education.

They profit if metrics like reduced recidivism are met. https://socialfinance.org/social-impact-bonds/

Byte by Byte Humans are Being Tokenized

The World Bank’s Human Capital Project measures countries’ human potential as economic assets:

“The Human Capital Project (HCP) is a global initiative launched by the World Bank to inspire and inform investments in human capital”

It paves the way for tokenized investments in workforce development. In refugee aid, organizations use blockchain combined with biometric IDs like iris scans or fingerprints to deliver and track assistance. This is how they implement the plan byte by byte as seen in UN pilots from the World Food Programme’s Building Blocks project in Jordan, where refugees scan their eyes to buy food with aid stored on a blockchain ledger. Or UNHCR’s efforts in Ukraine distributing programmable stablecoin cash directly to digital wallets. These systems make aid traceable and “efficient.” But I see them turning vulnerable people into monitored data commodities under the guise of inclusion and empowerment.

Your Skills as Tradeable Tokens

Companies are experimenting with turning workers’ skills and performance into digital tokens on blockchain platforms. They break down things like work history, credentials, or gig results into small tradable pieces. This mostly targets gig workers: drivers, delivery people, freelancers who do temporary jobs through apps. Platforms verify and tokenize these, letting people buy, sell, or trade tiny fractions of a worker’s “value” (fractionalized trading: like slicing someone’s skills into shares anyone can own and trade, similar to buying a piece of a stock). It turns personal labor into digital assets that can be bought and sold.

I know this sounds wild and hard to believe for most folks. I didn’t buy it either until I dug into the research myself. It’s all part of a larger agenda to digitize and control everything, your job and skills, your land, even nature under a single digital system run by a tiny elite of powerful companies and tech oligarchs. Critics call this endgame a form of fascist dictatorship known as technocracy, where “experts” and algorithms dictate life instead of democratic choice.

For a real-world example happening today, check out platforms like LaborX (part of Chrono.tech), a blockchain-based freelance marketplace where gig workers’ skills and work history are verified on-chain, and payments/rewards can involve tradable tokens tied to performance bringing tokenized labor closer to reality in the gig economy: https://laborx.com/

Another related case is project tokenization ideas for gig workers, as explored here: https://medium.com/@tradefin101/project-tokenization-for-gig-workers-revolutionizing-the-gig-economy-with-blockchain-20359a1ffcfd. These show early steps toward fractionalizing and trading aspects of human capital.

The Ultimate Warning: A Tokenized Hellscape Awaits

In my depiction of a tokenized future, society looks like a giant database where people own nothing tangible, as the WEF slogan suggests. The WEF idea of happiness is enforced through surveillance. Everyone carries a digital ID that opens access to jobs, services, or even basic rights. Tokens represent shares in human capital markets that reward or punish based on compliance.

Governments and corporations use this to engineer behaviors like tying aid to biometric scans or tokenizing refugee programs for “inclusion.” But it really cements a system of digital serfdom. I see this leading to a loss of freedom where the elite overlords hold all the tokens. They manipulate markets to siphon wealth while the masses are reduced to monitored data streams in a hyper-financialized digital prison.

Technocracy Tokenopoly

The world’s billionaire elite, already far beyond any need for more wealth, now crave absolute power and control. They are quietly fulfilling the 1930s vision of the Technocracy movement led by Howard Scott and Technocracy Incorporated which declared that scientists, engineers, and technical experts should replace democratic governments and elected leaders. They viewed traditional republics and ordinary citizens as too irrational and uninformed to govern effectively, insisting only a data-driven, expert-ruled system could rationally manage resources and society for maximum efficiency.

Today this technocratic ideal unfolds through the tokenization of everything: rainforests, rivers, biodiversity, human labor, skills, behaviors, and data all turned into tradable blockchain assets under the guise of sustainability and inclusion. Earth and humanity become pieces in a high-stakes game, satirized in Tokenopoly, where players buy and sell properties like the Amazon Rainforest, Nile River, Niagara Falls, CAR resources, Human Labor, and Biodiversity Credits, with cards commanding “Collect 100 Tokens” or “Go Directly to Digital Wallet.” Using AI, surveillance grids, programmable money, and immutable ledgers, the elite claim dominance and enforce compliance, building the tokenized, borgified system of digital serfdom

To pull off this nightmare, elites and tech oligarchs are racing to build AI data centers at breakneck speed devouring massive amounts of fresh water and energy just to hoard every scrap of our tokenized data. They can’t build them fast enough, but that desperation is our opening. People are waking up to their plan as their electric bills go sky high and their fresh water is drained by the data centers.  People are starting to speak out.

Could their pride be their downfall?

How supremely arrogant of these self-anointed digital overlords to imagine they hold proprietary title over nature itself and over human beings, treating both as resources to be patented, monetized, and managed. How breathtakingly hubristic for them to insist that scientists, engineers, and technocratic elites are better suited to govern than the democratic process, elected representatives, and the will of the people.

Proverbs 16:18 – Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Expose their plan before it’s too late. 

Don’t let them Borgify us and turn free humans into obedient, trackable nodes in their machine. Don’t let them steal nature and turn it into a commodity for the elite. Get active locally. Resist immediately. Slow their rollout to a crawl. The future isn’t theirs yet. We claim it by saying NO!

Resistance is NOT futile.

We will NOT comply.

Source: https://www.theburningplatform.com/2026/02/21/are-we-being-borged/

Original Article: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/blockchain-ball-and-chain-are-we-being-borgd

Trends of public library book use since the pandemic and the rapid increase in population in NC cities are creating headaches for libraries.

Surging book demand leaves NC libraries struggling with long waitlists, pricey content is a story from Carolina Public Press, an award-winning independent newsroom. Our breakthrough journalism shines a light on the critical overlooked and under-reported issues facing North Carolina’s more than 11 million residents. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

From Yelling Fire to Fighting Words

Donald Jeffries | donaldjeffries.substack.com

I’m a civil libertarian. We’re practically extinct now. There were never very many of us, but there used to be a lot more. Most people simply don’t support your right to say something they disagree with. And therein lies the rub, as the Bard once said. Political correctness, “hate speech,” call it what you want. It destroys liberty.

I have recounted many times the origin of the expression “you can’t yell fire in a crowded theater.” Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes used that phrase to explain why Woodrow Wilson had the right to throw WWI protesters into prison. They weren’t yelling fire, in a theater or otherwise. But the American public of that day and age accepted it. Didn’t offer up a whimper of dissent. In 1942, the Supreme Court, in a 9-0 decision, decided that "insulting or 'fighting words', those that by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace" are among the "well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech the prevention and punishment of which have never been thought to raise any constitutional problem." Now, Americans in 1942 were in full WW2 war fever mode. They were too busy buying bonds and planting Victory Gardens to worry about any “Fighting Words” exception to the First Amendment. We had Nazis to defeat- screw free speech!

Think of all that could potentially be construed as “fighting words.” If someone says something bad about your wife, do you have the right to respond with physical violence? This was the Supreme Court kind of validating the Creed of the Hood, forty years before Hollywood started celebrating the “hood.” I don’t have to tell you what can happen if someone “disrespects” your mama. Ghetto culture especially benefits from this flawed decision, which put yet another asterisk on the Bill of Rights. I grew up well after 1942, but we were still taught that “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” And now, emboldened by a Supreme Court decision none of them are even aware of, our ghetto culture uses the “fighting words” exemption to enable angry Blacks to batter hapless Whites, and then attribute it to being assaulted by certain words. Fighting words. Well, if you hear fighting words, what else can you do but fight? Usually starting with a sucker punch.

I abandoned my liberal roots because the Left had already become unduly concerned with policing language, in the late 1970s. When the term “politically correct” was invented, and not met with incredulity, the die was cast. After all, if something is politically correct, that means that society has determined that there are opinions, words, that are politically incorrect. Not permissible in a country supposedly protected by a First Amendment. We should be free to be politically wrong, politically stupid, politically deranged. We should be able to say basically anything we want. Sure, saying something mean and confrontational to a person may result in you being punched. And if you’re injured seriously enough, you may sue that person for losing his cool and injuring you. But no one should ever be able to justify a physical attack based upon anything that someone else said. The Left today thinks otherwise. They declare that words are violence. They support punching “nazis” in the face.

This authoritarian mindset resulted in the creation of cancel culture. Which was all based on words. Words that are protected under the First Amendment. Innocent Whites- and make no mistake- cancel culture, political correctness, and “hate speech” are all tyrannical concepts directed exclusively towards Whites- lost their jobs over things they posted on social media. On their own free time. It doesn’t get much more unconstitutional than that. And this heavy handed policing of speech began to spill over into genuine insanity. Medical students got into trouble for stating the most obvious truth imaginable; that only biological women can give birth. You couldn’t challenge the changing of “pronouns.” You had to take seriously some indoctrinated student who declared that her new “pronouns” were “they/them.” A plural. Don’t even think about what might happen if you “misgendered” one of these mentally ill persons in a land lacking mental institutions. Instead, we have institutionalized “Wokeness.”

But the Right has shown over the past few years, that they have their own version of insane cancel culture. While the Left wants to censor any criticism of any nonwhite, or any non-heterosexual, the Right is trying desperately to make criticism of Israel illegal. Both the Left and the Right want to censor their political opponents. Nobody wants to defend to their dying day the right of someone to say things, even if they find them thoroughly objectionable. That is so eighteenth century. If they had a public referendum to vote yay or nay on the First Amendment, I honestly believe most Americans would vote nay. You can’t just say anything you want! What if it’s racist? What if it’s anti-Semitic? What if it’s sexist? What if it’s homophobic? What if it’s transphobic? Today, what someone says seems to be more important than what they do. We’re policing speech as much as we police conduct. No more speeches about sticks and stones. We’re all ghetto single mothers now; don’t let no one disrespect you!

If a man (and I’m pretty sure it has to be a White man) compliments a woman on some part of her anatomy, or perhaps even how pretty her outfit is, he may be in danger of getting in trouble. For speech. And most people- certainly most women- would agree that he should get in trouble for offending that woman. The word “offended” isn’t in the Constitution. You’re not supposed to have a “right” to not be offended. That seems self-explanatory, but the vast majority of people now believe that there is a protection against being “offended” somewhere in the Bill of Rights. Slander and defamation is one thing, and there have always been laws against them. But who determines what “offended” means? It’s a subjective, not objective term. It cannot be legally quantified, much like “hate,” another favorite term of censorship advocates. It’s based on emotion, not reason. So it’s perfect for today’s “Woke” Left, but also for today’s Zionist Right, which gets “offended” by “hate” directed at Israel.

If there is any group in America 2.0 which still has free speech, it’s our second largest, but most noticeable minority group. I’m glad someone has free speech, but many Blacks use it primarily to bash all White people, and immerse themselves in historical victimization over slavery. They possess a 24/7 persecution complex, and they feel compelled to share it with everyone. The problem with their free speech, however, is that it often results in infringing on the free speech of others. Saying the World’s Most Dangerous Word can result in criminal prosecution now. Ask Shiloh Hendrix. Some words have become sticks and stones in our society. If they offend Blacks. Or the non-Irish. Or transgenders. Or plain old White feminists. But no one else has these “being offended” rights. Least of all, average White males. Rich White males, like all rich people, have unending rights. But, if they get caught saying the wrong thing to the wrong people, they’ll be shuttled off to another high paying position.

It’s a short leap from monitoring and punishing speech to monitoring and punishing thoughts. Literal Thoughtcrime. While Black street criminals have the “right” to call out some hapless White for “looking” at them, some White females have taken to confronting certain hapless White males for “staring” at them. Perhaps staring at the “wrong part” of their body. Sexualizing them. Which is related to thought, if their thoughts are indeed impure. At any rate, that’s an incredibly slippery slope, but no one seems to feel that White men, like everyone else, have a right to look at other people. This includes hyper sensitive Blacks and attractive females. The rationale- which isn’t remotely rational- is that such “looks” can make Black people, or women, feel “uncomfortable.” This is another special right granted only to selected groups. The ones called “marginalized,” but in reality overtly favored. Gay Pride parades and drag brunches make many of us “uncomfortable,” but those feelings don’t matter.

All the “experts” are quick to inform you that some speech is not protected by the First Amendment. As the illustration above shows, this includes “Hate Speech,” which is a modern Orwellian concept that is indistinguishable from Thoughtcrime. The word “hate” can not be found in the Constitution. Hate is a human emotion. We all hate some things, and some people. We have a right to hate, as much as we have a right to love. One person’s “hate” is another’s reasonable disagreement. In fact, we have a right to be genuinely racist, to discriminate against each other. At least in our daily lives, in terms of who we want to associate with. Or to be genuinely anti-Semitic. Or genuinely misogynistic. Or to be repelled by the transgender agenda. We discriminate all the time. Will it become illegal to not like the taste of certain foods? How about collard greens? They are an essential part of “soul” food, after all. That’s probably a form of “hate” that’s not allowed in America 2.0. If someone Black complains, that is.

What if we publicly criticize the “talent” of a Snoop Dogg, or a Queen Latifah? Is that kind of discrimination, of choosing what music to listen to and what television shows to watch, “protected” under the Bill of Rights? What if we insist that the Anti-Defamation League is an unregistered foreign agent, as President Kennedy once did? Can we still say a fat woman is fat, or is “body shaming” not protected speech? Why can’t bald guys get upset if someone points out that they have no hair? Isn’t that “hair shaming?” As I pointed out recently on X, women can be “offended” by “body shaming,” but why can’t men be “offended” by “income shaming?” You know, pointing out that 80 percent of them don’t make enough to meet the ever increasing costs of living? Outrage has become politicized. Christians cannot be “offended” over things they consider blasphemous. But Jews can be “offended” over the mildest criticism of Israel, where they don’t live. Can we even say Tyler Robinson is innocent?

As for “obscenity,” it has never been legally defined, because it can’t be legally defined. If it’s merely nudity, then a lot of beautiful works of art that are centuries old would be banned. As the Supreme Court judge said, with typical ‘Murrican wisdom, “I know it when I see it.” I don’t think very many people talk about obscenity any more. Porn is mainstream. A rabbi owns one of the biggest sites- Pornhub. Another holy rabbi, Rabbi Shmuley, who is RFK, Jr’s handler, sells sex toys on the side. With his daughter. That’s how the “chosen” roll. “Ridicule” is perhaps the slipperiest of all these slippery slopes. Again, how do we define it? Clearly, an angry Black or a self- hating White declaring that “all White people should die” is not ridicule. Or “hate.” But saying that “transwomen” (men pretending to be women) shouldn’t play women’s sports is. A Sarah Silverman saying she hopes Jesus comes back so “we can fucking kill him again” is not ridicule or hate. But a gentile merely saying “Jew” can be.

Words can hurt. Good people try not to hurt other’s feelings. But in anger, we sometimes say things we shouldn’t. Why can’t there be an “anger” clause to protect the White non-non-Irish from using “fighting words?” Which can be used against them in a court of law. I hate the word “retard,” because of my very special late niece Denise. It’s become one of the most popular words in America 2.0, which tells you something about the state of the crumbling culture. But I don’t want people prosecuted for saying it. It offends me, but I’m not “marginalized” enough, and definitely not “chosen” enough, for it to matter. Suck it up buttercup. I hate all the gratuitous male nudity onscreen now. I guess you could say I’m “offended” by it. But I enjoyed the female onscreen nudity which used to prevail in America 1.0, so I don’t want to be a hypocrite. That’s what happens in a matriarchy. I “hate” the transgender agenda, but I will always try to treat those troubled souls fairly and decently.

Some free speech is freeer than others. Some “being offended” is more offended than others. Some “uncomfortable” feelings are more uncomfortable than others. We’ve gone full Orwell here. Now, I want to make clear that even the favored groups don’t have full civil liberties. Blacks, for instance, can lose their magical status if they offend the non-Irish. Ask my friend Cynthia McKinney. Jamaal Bowman was a typical entitled Black “representative” in Congress, and even got away with pulling a fire alarm inside recklessly. Black Privilege, I believe it’s called. But he couldn’t get away with being too critical of Israel, and AIPAC saw to it that he was defeated by a pro- Zionist candidate in his primary election. Feminists can get in trouble for “offending” Blacks or the non-Irish. So can the transgenders, I presume. But the non-Irish don’t seem to get in trouble for “offending” anyone. They’re kind of like the Beatles of the Bill of Rights. With some exceptions, they’re fully protected. Unlike the rest of us.

It’s lonely being a civil libertarian in the modern dystopian world. I want to protect the rights, and the speech, of all the Blacks who hate White people. Of all the Jews who hate the inferior Goyim. Of all the women who hate men to show interest in them. Of all the transgenders who are confused and lashing out irrationally. Of all the illegal immigrants whose presence has helped to lower wages and eliminate benefits to poor and working class Americans. Even for the rich elitists who conspire against all of us each and every day. I would want Hillary Clinton to get a fair trial. If any of us is denied our God-given rights, all of us are in jeopardy. One verbal miscalculation away from being “cancelled.” One misinterpreted look from being assaulted. We’re almost at the Minority Report level, so don’t fantasize about committing any crime. The flock cameras and the data centers are coming. Watch your step, and be careful what you say, and who you say it to. You’re being watched, and you aren’t protected.

Original Article: https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/p/free-speech-on-life-support

One of Hong Kong’s most unusual sights is the stone wall tree—a mature tree growing directly out of a masonry retaining wall.

These remarkable trees first appeared during the colonial era when thousands of stone retaining walls were built to stabilize Hong Kong's steep hillsides. Over time, seeds carried by birds and wind became lodged in cracks between the granite blocks. Dust, decaying leaves, and moisture accumulated in these crevices, creating tiny pockets of soil where the seeds could germinate.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Ahead of the White House’s planned cryptocurrency and prediction markets roundtable on Wednesday, The Revolving Door Project released the following statement:

“Donald Trump is not content with the billions of dollars in corrupt crypto wealth he has amassed since winning the 2024 election. On Wednesday, he’ll turn the White House into a hub for his crypto and prediction markets cronies to lean on independent agencies and a gridlocked Congress for a more permissive regulatory environment for these predatory corporations. The event will serve as a reminder to Congress of crypto’s deep ties to the president, and of their willingness to spend unprecedented sums in campaign efforts. But the fusion of Trump and crypto’s interests should not dictate federal law, especially when voters are broadly disgusted by the corrupting influence of these industries.” said RDP senior researcher Henry Burke.

RDP assistant director Timi Iwayemi added, “The cryptocurrency industry is eager to establish a financial system where scams and money laundering flourish. Their prediction market partners envision a society where gambling is venerated as a legitimate investment strategy. Their well-heeled political operation might have brought them significant influence in Washington, but it has come at a cost. Trump’s blatant corruption has eroded public trust, and prediction markets have jeopardized the legitimacy of our markets. This should be a tough pill for lawmakers to swallow. Wednesday’s meeting is a last-ditch effort to bring Congress onside and hand a victory to two of the most brazenly corrupt entities in the country: Trump and the crypto industry. But regulators and legislators should not be cowed. As recent election results have shown, crypto’s millions can only go so far, and voters are tired of their attempts to buy our democracy.”

The Revolving Door Project has been tracking Trump’s corruption closely, as well as the efforts by the crypto and prediction market industries to purchase influence in Washington. Below is a sample of relevant work on the topic:

Who’s in Crypto’s Corner?

Prediction Markets Are Learning From The Addiction Industry

Crypto Bill Offers Potentially Huge Tax Benefits To Trump Family

Why Are Any Democrats Supporting a Bill That Was Championed by the Crypto Industry?

RDP Condemns the Blockchain Association’s Deceitful Letter From “Law Enforcement Officials”

Trump’s ability to set crypto rules makes $TRUMP coin even more problematic

We Can’t Count on Trump’s SEC to Tell Us If He Is Manipulating the Market

Sean Patrick Maloney’s Vanishing Ethics Pledge

How Crypto Is Buying DC One Revolver At A Time