Johnny Depp has nothing left to lose. No studio. No agents. No filters. And now he’s doing what no one in Hollywood has ever dared. He’s naming names. The man he’s exposing? Tom Hanks. According [...]
The post Johnny Depp Reveals Freddy Krueger Was Based on Tom Hanks: ‘America’s Most Prolific Child Killer’ appeared first on The People's Voice.
The world’s elderly population has overtaken the number of young children for the first time in human history, according to a new US Census Bureau report. Western nations, including the United States and European states, [...]
The post ‘The Great Culling’: Global Elderly Population Overtakes Children In Historic Shift as ‘Depopulation Timeline’ Accelerates appeared first on The People's Voice.
Palantir is launching a constellation of thousands of AI-powered spy satellites in October—and its Israeli-linked architects are building the prison planet infrastructure to police Americans from space and “predict” your future crimes. Investigative journalist Whitney [...]
The post Palantir and Israel Are Launching Thousands of Pre-Crime Satellites to Police Americans From Space appeared first on The People's Voice.
Venus appears pale yellow in visible light, but ultraviolet images reveal dramatic dark and bright patterns moving with the planet’s upper sulfuric acid clouds. Scientists have known about these markings for roughly a century, yet the chemical identity of the material responsible—the “unknown absorber”—remains unresolved. An international research team has now placed new quantitative constraints […]
PrepareForChange.net | Derek Knauss
Western media, by employing double standards, censorship, deceptive language, amplifying Israeli lies and dehumanizing Palestinians, facilitates the genocide in Gaza.
Chris Hedges | substack.com/@chrishedges
The Western media manufactures consent for genocide. It normalizes Israel’s decades-long military occupation and apartheid. It erases Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. It perpetuates the fallacy of Israeli victimhood. It betrays, discredits and demonizes the work of Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza, at least 220 of whom have been killed by Israel between Oct. 7, 2023, and August 2025. It supinely accepts draconian Israeli censorship. It acquiesces with tepid letters of protest at Israel’s refusal to allow foreign reporters in Gaza — an effort by Israel to mask its war crimes. It amplifiesIsraeli lies, from beheaded babies to widespread sexual assaultof Israeli women on Oct. 7, to obfuscate the truth.
When writing about Gaza, verbs are in the passive tense. There is no subject. No one is accountable. Genocide, it seems, is an act of God. No different from an earthquake or tsunami. Clichés and opaque adjectives such as the “cycle of violence” or “clashes” distort and falsify reality.
“If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” George Orwell warned.
Terms such as “genocide,” “atrocity,” “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territories” magically disappear from media reports on Palestinians, whose resistance is routinely described as “savage” and “barbaric.” New York Times reporters are instructed by editors to avoid terms such as “Palestine,” “genocide,” “carnage,” “refugee camp,” “slaughter” and “massacre,” when referencing Palestinians.
The media slavishly regurgitates what Israel feeds it. Saturation bombing becomes “surgical air strikes.” Israel’s weaponization of famine becomes a “food shortage.” The killing of unarmed civilians — including children — becomes “clashes.” The hilltop fortress-like compounds of Jewish colonists becomes“neighborhoods.” Extrajudicial assassination of a journalist or a doctor becomes “died.”
Genocide, referred to as the “Israel-Hamas war” is justified as “self-defense,” part of the mantra of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” When schools, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, mosques, churches and other civilian targets are obliterated, they are labeled “Hamas command centers” or targeted because Hamas is “using civilians as human shields” — something Israel does routinely, when the army binds detained Palestinians and forces them to enter potentially booby-trapped buildings and tunnelsahead of Israeli troops.
When Israelis are held by Hamas, they are “hostages,” even if they serve in the military. When Palestinians — including children — are held without charges or trial and disappeared into Israeli detention centers, where torture is “widespread” and “systematic,” they are “prisoners.”
Missile attacks on tent cities or hospitals are blamed on Palestinian armed groups firing errant rockets. If Israel acknowledges the attacks — which very rarely happens — they are described as a “tragic mistake.”
Civil institutions in Gaza are characterized as “Hamas-run” to cast doubt on the veracity of what they report. The New York Times routinely qualifies announcements from the Gaza Health Ministry by noting it “does not distinguish between civilians and combatants,” masking the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.
The result is some of the most convoluted writing in the history of journalism, including the Nov. 5, 2023 New York Times headline that reads: “Explosions Gazans Say Was Airstrike Leaves Many Casualties in Dense Neighborhood.”
“When Middle East Eye journalists Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, along with Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, and freelancers Moaz Abu Taha, and Mariam Dagga — who had worked with several media outlets, including the Associated Press — were killed in a “double tap” strike — designed to kill first responders arriving to treat casualties from initial strikes — at Nasser Medical Complex, how did Western news agencies respond?” I asked in my column The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists.
“Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted what it says was a Hamas camera,” the Associated Press reported.
“IDF claims hospital strike was aimed at Hamas camera,” announced CNN.
The camera belonged to Reuters, which said Israel was “fully aware” the news agency was filming from the hospital.
“When Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif and three other journalists were killed on Aug. 10 in their media tent near Al Shifa Hospital, how was it reported in the Western press?” I asked.
“Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist It Says Was Hamas Leader,” Reuters titled its story, despite the fact al-Sharif was part of a Reuters team that won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize.
The German newspaper Bild, published a front page story headlined: “Terrorist disguised as a journalist killed in Gaza.”
“The linguistic gymnastics employed by the media went as far as redefining words, making them meaningless,” writes Assal Rad in “Don’t Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide:”
Mainstream media failed to describe Israel’s repeated breaches of the ceasefire with the language of violation. Instead, the coverage followed the same patterns of rationalizing Israel’s attacks and uncritically parroting Israel’s claims to justify its actions. As Palestinians continued to be killed — during a ‘ceasefire’ — and the flow of aid did not reach the level of need or what was agreed to, Western media framed these flagrant violations as ‘tests’ or ‘challenges’ to a ‘shaky ceasefire.’ As leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International warned that the genocide was, in fact, not over, legacy media continued to frame it as a war with a ‘fragile ceasefire.’
Words matter. Words justify actions. If there is no genocide, if Israel is defending itself in a war, the U.S. and Israel’s European allies have the right to provide tens of billions of dollars in military aid. If this is a war begun by Hamas on Oct. 7 then it is possible to lament the obliteration of Gaza and mass slaughter by Israel as the regrettable result of the Hamas attack.
This corruption of language is designed, as Orwell noted, to defend the indefensible:
Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.
Adam Johnson in “How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza,” examined over 12,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, Axios, USA Today, and The Associated Press, along with 5,000 TV segments aired on CNN and MSNBC. His carefully researched book is a damning indictment of the “liberal” media’s justification of the genocide.
CNN and The New York Times instructed their editors and journalists that attacks could only be attributed to Israel afterconfirmation from the IDF and GPS coordinates. Johnson quotes a source at CNN:
Whether it’s in the newsroom or in the field, we couldn’t credit anything to Israel unless we were held to this impossibly high bar of having to call it an “explosion,” until we geolocated the site of the explosion, sent the coordinates to the Israelis and asked them for comment.
You can see an interview with Johnson about his book at The Electronic Intifada here.
CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submittheir work for review to the network’s Jerusalem bureau prior to airing. The CNN bureau, like all news bureaus in Israel, is required to abide by restrictions imposed by Israeli military censors.
The very few Palestinians who appear on CNN and other legacy media outlets, are routinely asked — usually before they are even permitted on air — if they “condemn” Hamas. Guests who express even tepid criticism of Israel are asked whether Israel “has a right to exist.”
No one is ever asked if they condemn Zionism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide or Israel’s 100 year war on Palestine. Nor are they asked if the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves — which under international law they do, including with weapons.
Our domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, “prisoners of the language of power.” They dutifully parrot the official lexicon. This makes them not only propagandists, but accomplices to genocide.
Those who protest the genocide, including students on university campuses — many of whom are Jewish — are smeared as “Hamas supporters” and “antisemites.” Journalists ferret out Zionist students, usually found esconced in campus Hillel houses, who claim to be “fearful for their safety,” because of the protests. The media pays little attention to the rise in anti-Muslimbigotry or the repression meted out to student protestors, which includes not only police brutality and 3,000 detainments and arrests, but suspensions, probations, expulsions, withholding of diplomas and the firing of sympathetic faculty.
Slogans which call for Palestinian liberation — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” — along with the Palestinian flag, have been criminalized.
The message is clear: Jewish lives matter. Palestinian lives do not.
“The reports of UN agencies, of respected human rights monitors, of medical journals, and of professional medical personnel, are generally treated with respect and given prominence in the mainstream media,” writes the historian Rashid Khalidi in the introduction to Robin Anderson’s book, “The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza:”
Not in this war: instead, if such sources are cited at all, equal media treatment is given to the outrageous slanders and calumnies against these organizations and individuals, smears that are produced in profusion by Israel’s legion of professional propagandists and its myriad of defenders in the US. Besides smearing critics of Israel’s genocide as supporters of Hamas or terrorist sympathizers, the main weapon in their arsenal of defamation is their systematic and outrageous misuse of the deadly accusation of antisemitism.
The massive defections of readers and viewers from mainstream media to social media platforms that do not filter news through the Israel lobby, the U.S. government or corporations, are a stark indicator of the media’s bankruptcy. The response to these defections has been “platformicide” — the use of algorithms, shadow banning, restriction of live streaming capabilities and the closing of accounts by social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok, to dramatically reduce the reach of reporting on Palestine.
This censorship is part of a coordinated effort to hide the horror of the genocide from the public.
By constantly referencing Oct. 7, the Western media decontextualizes the genocide. It ignores Israel’s 19-year siege of Gaza. Oct. 7 is characterized in the Western media as “unprovoked.” Israel’s massacres of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in the winter of 2008 and 2009, along with its attacks on Gaza in 2012, 2014 and during the Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019 are ignored.
The 1948 Nakba — when European Zionists seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, violently expelled 750,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages and killed 15,000 Palestinians — is rarely referenced. Seventy percent of those driven from their homes in 1948 were forced into Gaza.
The Zionist project is predicated on fostering historical amnesia.
“Once Hamas was established as a brutal, terrorist group whose members gleefully tortured, dismembered, and beheaded babies without conscience, no further explanation was needed,” writes Anderson in her book. “The media simply avoided reporting Israel’s history of violence and as a result, establishment media also avoided the conditions of everyday life for Palestinians.”
The fiction that there is currently a ceasefire in Gaza — Israel has killed at least 1,286 Palestinians and injured 4,257 since it supposedly went into effect — has become the excuse used by Western media to turn its back on Gaza. This genocide denial has characterized the coverage since its inception. It masks not only Israel’s crimes, but Israel’s stated intention to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza. It effectively neuters international law. And it makes a mockery of the profession of journalism.
When the last act of ethnic cleansing happens, Western media will, I am sure, continue to bombard us with Israeli agitprop, euphemisms and clichés.
It will justify the genocide until the end.
Original Article: https://prepareforchange.net/2026/09/05/how-the-media-sells-genocide/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-the-media-sells-genocide
The Great Reset | An AI Initiated False Flag Attack Could Be Used to Engineer a Global Crash to Bring About a Digital Future
John Gideon Hartnett | BibleScienceForum.com
The Great Reset, financial and everything else, is being discussed everywhere now on social media. How will the US government get itself out of bankruptcy that it now definitely is in? How will they convince the public to continue to buy its ever blooming debt in the form of Treasury bonds? How will they get us all onto the digital blockchain as the US dollar and all other currencies based on it die? Will they crash the dollar, close the banks, and confiscate your money before re-opening the banks offering you only digital tokens linked to US Treasuries and force you to use them in all commerce?
Below I sample two well informed pieces that may give you insight if the US can pull it off under the Trump dynasty. And there are only 2 years left of that as far as we now know.
Listen to this podcaster Andrei Jikh.
And read this post of how the Trump dynasty may have engineered it all and the Trump family gets the lion’s share in the “art of the deal”
The following is from The Leah Files on substack.com:
If I were president and I wanted to tank the dollar and get rich off it, here is exactly what I would do.
I would hire a Treasury Secretary who already made $3.5 billion crashing another country’s currency. I would put my guy in charge of the agency that approves bank charters. I would install a crypto czar with $200M in crypto holdings and give him an ethics waiver so nobody could challenge it.
Then I would sign an executive order banning the government from ever creating a digital dollar so there was no competition.
Then I would have my family launch their own private digital dollar. My family takes 75% of net profits. I would grow it to $4.6 billion in circulation and route a $2 billion Abu Dhabi sovereign fund deal through it to prove it works.
Then I would get Congress to pass a law requiring every stablecoin in the country to hold short-term Treasury bills. Now every dollar of my digital currency is a forced buyer of government debt. Brookings projects $2.3 trillion in captive demand by 2030.
Then I would have my OCC guy grant my family’s company a federal bank charter. Now I can issue my digital dollar with federal authority.
Then I would have my Treasury Secretary weaken the actual dollar. Bond buybacks that suppress yields but tank the currency. Build a $950 billion war chest for more. Let the debt hit $40 trillion. Dollar index drops to 99. Gold goes to highest point ever.
Then I would kill the Corporate Transparency Act and delete the FinCEN beneficial ownership database. That was the one law that required every shell company in America to report who actually owns it. Without it, nobody can trace who is buying my stablecoin, who is routing money through it, or where the profits land.
Then I would let the loop run. Weaker dollar drives demand for “stable” digital alternatives. The law I passed forces those alternatives to buy T-bills. That funds the government’s debt. My family takes profit on every transaction. Foreign central banks walking away from Treasuries get replaced by legally mandated stablecoin reserves my family controls.
Then I would use sanctions to start cutting countries off from the dollar system entirely. And when those countries need a new way to transact in dollars, the only federally chartered private digital dollar in existence is mine. They can buy it through shell companies nobody can trace because I deleted the ownership database.
I just built a toll booth on the global financial system. I take a cut every time someone uses the dollar. And I made it so nobody can see who is paying.
And every single step I just described has already happened.
So what does that mean for you and I?
The reason the United States can borrow at low rates and keep your mortgage and your car payment and your import prices stable is because foreign central banks hold trillions in dollar reserves. That system has always been public. The benefit went to everyone. Lower borrowing costs, cheaper goods , and the single biggest economic advantage any country has ever had.
What I just described is the privatization of that function. The entity buying the debt is no longer a central bank acting in the public interest. It is a private company taking 75% of net profits for one family. The reserve function used to generate a public benefit. Now it generates a private fee.
Your purchasing power shrinks every time the dollar weakens. Your 401k buys less in real terms. Everything you import costs more. And every time the dollar drops, demand for the private digital alternative goes up. The one the president’s family owns. The one that by law must buy government debt.
You absorb the cost of a weakening dollar. His family collects the profit. That is the trade.
The enforcement mechanism to stop a sitting president from doing this? There isn’t one. Former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter says it would be a violation for literally any other federal employee, but not the president.
Nobody voted for this. No one was asked. There was no debate. There is no enforcement mechanism. There is no one investigating it. The Senate tried and it was blocked.
This is the largest conflict of interest in American history happening in broad daylight while everyone argues about something else.
So what do you do? Share this. Make it impossible to ignore. Send it to your representative, your senator, every journalist you follow. We make them answer for it. Because the only thing protecting this scheme right now is the fact that not enough people understand it yet.
From this you can easily see how a “mark of the beast” digital control prison can be implemented. No walls are needed if the centralised oligarchs have control of all credit. We become serfs in their new system slaving away to pay down the global debt that runs into many tens of trillions of dollars.
Resist it! Do not comply! I for one will not comply!
Gary D. Barnett | garydbarnett.com
“People conspire, that’s not a theory.” ~ Michael Palmero
Never has such an asinine term had such an impact against truth as the use of the thought-destroying phrase “conspiracy theory.” While bought and paid for Statist ‘fact-checkers’ would attempt to hold harmless the government’s role in this fraudulent word coup, especially the CIA; that criminal and covert operation that was directly responsible for fully weaponizing this damning term, knew exactly what they were doing. This happened in the 60s in order to stop anyone from questioning the narrative or seeking the truth about those who conspired and murdered JFK. The Warren Commission was a fraud, and a coverup that required psychological conditioning of the indoctrinated ‘public,’ hence, the usage of this term was successfully exploited. The deceitful use of the phrase ‘conspiracy theorist’ has been a propagandized lie-supporting tactic for the past 50 plus years, especially since the 9/11 false flag conspiracy.
‘Conspiracy theory’ is a term that strikes fear and anxiety in the hearts of most every public figure, particularly journalists and academics. (Now, writers, podcasters, whistleblowers, and truth-tellers) Since the 1960s the label has become a disciplinary device that has been overwhelmingly effective in defining certain events as off limits to inquiry or debate. Especially in the United States, raising legitimate questions about dubious official narratives destined to inform public opinion (and thereby public policy) is a major thought crime that must be cauterized from the public psyche at all costs… CIA Document 1035-960 played a definitive role in making the ‘conspiracy theory’ term a weapon to be wielded against almost any individual or group calling the government’s increasingly clandestine programs and activities into question. – From CIA Document 1035-960
“We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” ~ William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s first CIA Director
This is so obviously ad hominem that it should be laughable, but considering its long-term effectiveness, one must understand the power of psychological manipulation of the weak, indoctrinated, and moldable minds of simpleton Americans. As a matter of fact, name-calling as a form of silencing, which is the exclusive motive of the term ‘conspiracy theory,’ even by the narcissistic moron Trump in the White House, is now a common form of what I refer to as openly gross and manipulative brainwashing.
The word ‘conspire,’ the root of conspiracy, means to aspire or plan maliciously, agree together (2 or more people) to commit a criminal or reprehensible act; to agree, unite, plot, literally to breathe together. Theory from Latin and Greek means conception, perception, contemplation, speculation. In reality, these two terms, while independently sound, do not go together in the sense in which they are viewed today. The term ‘conspiracy theory’ as a concept, is contradictory, because it is used strictly as a weapon against speech. It relies on the ability to promote the refusal to question, to debate, to argue, or vet out the truth. It is a plotted condemnation effect, this a conspiracy in and of itself, which destroys the validity of this manufactured and bastardized response.
Real conspiracy abounds everywhere and constantly, especially where any ruling class, government, controlled or fake alternative media, or criminal behavior is apparent. What this boils down to is only name-calling; to dismiss, to shun, to marginalize, to silence, to condemn, to embarrass, to disallow questioning, to destroy free thought and speech, and to stop all intellectual curiosity, it is painfully obvious that the use of this term is entirely dishonest.
To address this honestly, would be to properly describe the use of the term ‘conspiracy theory,’ as nothing more than aggression and opposition to any and all rebellion of the individual, and an affront to anyone who questions tyranny, illegitimate false authority, (which is all authority) and anyone questioning or objecting to any abusive government or rule. Basically, any who desire real freedom are hated and feared by those in power, and those non-thinking fools who use this term in order to silence the truth.
There is a quote that the main thing about ‘conspiracy theory,’ is that ‘conspiracy theorists’ believe in a conspiracy because it is more comforting. What is comical about this ridiculous quote, is that it is exactly backward. Those who accept that conspiracies are a fact of life, those who understand that collusion among others in order to fool or harm, are not looking for comfort, but those who refuse to see any truth, those who yell ‘conspiracy theory’ at every turn in order to stop debate, are the ones actually seeking false “comfort” so that they do not have to face any personal responsibility.
There is another quote misattributed to George Orwell, that states: “In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”This is absolutely correct, but ‘revolutionary’ acts, common dissent, and any disobedience to illegitimate authority, is seen by the hordes of serfs who make up most of this population, a risk to their dependence on the State, so therefore they hide from the truth as if it is their enemy. This leads to this exact discussion, of attacking any who call out the corruption of the ruling class, by simply calling names such as ‘conspiracy theorist’ and hiding their heads deep in the sand so as not to upset their ignorance or expose their cowardice in the face of totalitarian rule and corruption.
There are many terms used as ad hominem ‘arguments’ in order to dissuade conspiracy realists from discussing taboo subjects or calling out obvious conspiracy, unconscionable behavior, tyrannical governance, individual and State evil, exposing false flags, and labeling people in order to box them into a uncomfortable position within society in order to squelch dissent. A few of these that irritate me are the ‘pill’ descriptions, red, white, and black. There is the idiotic Trump MAGA crowd protection method of claiming someone has TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome) as if this is a legitimate or constructive way of discussion. I have been said to be afflicted with this BS more times than I can count. Crazy, insane, mentally unstable, psychotic, tin foil hat wearer, anti-vax, ‘anti-Semitic,’ and of course truthtellers are constantly barraged with a hundred others.
As is already happening, many who call out these real conspiracies by the ruling class and government, among other players, are being singled out, threatened, fined, fired from employment, de-banked, shadow-banned, jailed, or even killed. This is becoming much more prevalent around the world, and is already here in the U.S., especially for high level or sensitive information released or discussed in open forums, or speaking out directly against top position politicians and their exploits. This will only get worse as the one-world governing system goes forward without real resistance.
And yes, I am a conspiracy realist, and yes, real conspiracy is alive and well, especially in this U.S. cultist government cabal. “Of course, all clandestine state-sponsored secret service agencies (like the CIA, MI6 and the Mossad) routinely and shamelessly make use of lies, secrecy, deception and false flag operations in their daily affairs. It is a fact of life for such secret agencies and it is all accomplished in the name of “national security”.
“No matter how paranoid or conspiracy minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you can imagine.” ~ William Blum
Reference link documentary: “Dissent Into Madness”
Image Source: Original meme Ghibli styled by ChatGTP [Edited]
Original Article: https://www.garydbarnett.com/anti-conspiracy-fanatics-psychologically-brainwashed-wards-of-the-state/
(Image credit: Vahid Salemi)
Gary D. Barnett | garydbarnett.com
“No one rules if no one obeys” ~ David Icke
If I was weak, I would ask to be forgiven for my brutal and accusatory candor, but I need not, and desire not, any forgiveness. It is my assumption that telling the truth regardless of any ill will or hurt feelings it may generate, is always literally my only intent. I will never compromise, or soften the truth in order to massage weakness, cowardice, or pathetic victimization attitudes. As anyone who knows or understands me is aware, I am no doomsdayer, nor am I cynical, I am strictly a teller of truth, regardless of how uncomfortable that may be to those who desire to hide, and do nothing to help or save themselves from this heinous State that has consumed and gained control over the minds of this obedient proletariat mass. I will accept no label of the idiotic term ‘black pill,’ as that is intentionally ad hominem, and therefore cheap and offensive to any honest thinking individual.
The fate that most of you have voluntarily accepted, is that of a slave, which means that the fault lies with any and all who have willingly allowed this system of rule to exist in any form, with the insane notion that ‘choosing’ a master to lord over you is somehow in your best interest. In this case, government, all government and anyone in it, plays the role of master, so acceptance of this government, voting to instil this government, support for this government and its murderous wars and military, and the failing of securing your own freedom, leaves all the blood on your hands. Without your support, obedience, and compliance of this fraudulent ‘authority,’ it would not exist, and therefore, you would be set free. The long quote below by Étienne de La Boétie in “The Politics of Obedience: The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude,” explains in explicit and exact detail why the people in this country have of their own doing been relegated to eternal servitude:
“Poor, wretched, and stupid peoples, nations determined on your own misfortune and blind to your own good! You let yourselves be deprived before your own eyes of the best part of your revenues; your fields are plundered, your homes robbed, your family heirlooms taken away. You live in such a way that you cannot claim a single thing as our own; and it would seem that you consider yourselves lucky to be loaned your property, your families, and your very lives. All this havoc, this misfortune, this ruin, descends upon you not from alien foes, but from the one enemy whom you yourselves render as powerful as he is, for whom you go bravely to war, for whose greatness you do not refuse to offer your own bodies unto death. … Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow them from you? The feet that trample down your cities, where does he get them if they are not your own? How does he have any power over you except through you? How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation from you? What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves? You sow crops in order that he may ravage them, you install and furnish your homes to give him goods to pillage; you rear your daughters that he may gratify his lust; you bring up your children in order that he may confer upon them the greatest privilege he knows—to be led into his battles, to be delivered to butchery, to be made servants of his greed and the instruments of his vengeance; you yield your bodies unto hard labour in order that he may indulge in his delights and wallow in his filthy pleasures; you weaken yourselves in order to make him stronger and the mightier to hold you in check. From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not be taking action, but merely by willing to be free. Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.”
Let us pause for a moment and reflect on these words of wisdom. The ruling class and its state pawns in government cannot exist, cannot steal your wealth, cannot use and kill your children as fodder for their murderous wars, cannot surveil your every move, cannot steal your land and property, cannot destroy your family, cannot lock you in your own home prisons, and cannot control you unless you willingly allow that to happen. How simple is the solution then, if all you have to do individually and en masse, is to support this abominable government no more. The real rulers you see, those called the “deep state,” can only survive and control you if an accepted government middleman is in place to command and hold dominion over your lives. Without that conduit of assumed ‘authority,’ the ruling class could be banished, and the government made impotent.
This will never happen with any petitioning or collective protest of government. A slave does not petition his master to not be his master. Once a people are under the forceful ruling thumb of government, any petition of same government is in direct contradiction to sanity. Rulers do not give up their power to those it controls due to begging or vote. Political protest, especially violent protest, achieves nothing, and in fact strengthens the state, and causes abominable force, increased surveillance, strengthened bogus ‘laws’ and enforcement, and state violence against the people becomes more accepted by the rest of the timid crowd of cowardly sheep. Holding a sign, chanting, screaming slogans, marching, and harming private property and the liberty of others, cannot and will not bring any relief from tyranny, but it will certainly enhance it as has been evident for generations. When crowds gather, when collectivist swarms are present, all critical thinking ceases to exist. Only individuals retain intellect and control, while herds follow along trying to avoid individual dissent and social condemnation by staying in the crowd.
Everything of value concerning freedom of the individual is based on the concept of self-ownership. “Only you own your own life,” this the core of natural human rights. To give up this personal ownership is an acceptance that “another person has a higher claim to your life than you do.” Your life is yours and yours alone, so to allow any individual or ‘governing’ body to possess claim over you, means your life is not yours. Your life is your property alone, your property therefore, belongs to you alone. No one has any right to your life, and you have no right to another’s life; meaning that no one can delegate a right to rule you, because no one has any right to rule another. This fact alone means that no government claiming any right over any individual is legitimate, and in fact it is criminal.
Since you own your own life, it is your duty and right to defend your life against any who would aggress against you in any manner whatsoever. The initiation of force in self-defense is legitimate in this case, as no man and no government has any right to claim ownership of you or your property in any way. Because of this, each is fully responsible for himself, and has no right to the property of others. If you want freedom, claim ownership of your own life, and refrain from interference in the life of any other unless all is mutually voluntary and non-aggressive.
“The truth is, one who seeks to achieve freedom by petitioning those in power to give it to him has already failed, regardless of the response. To beg for the blessing of “authority” is to accept that the choice is the master’s alone to make, which means that the person is already, by definition, a slave.” ~ Larken Rose
Image Source: Original meme concept Ghibli styled using ChatGTP [Edited]
Original Article: https://www.garydbarnett.com/the-absolute-impossibility-to-hide-or-collectively-protest-as-a-solution-to-tyranny/
Lindsay Clancy, 36, faces three counts of first-degree murder and life in prison without parole for strangling her three children – Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callen, 8 – to death in 2023. Clancy pleaded not guilty by reason of postpartum insanity.
The Details: Judge William Sullivan declared the mistrial on Friday afternoon, saying, "I understood how hard everybody worked in this case. I understood that you all gave everything you could and probably more than you thought you could."
The jury foreperson reportedly stated to Sullivan on Thursday that one juror was "rufus[ing to] listen to the law" that defines "reasonable doubt." The jury then reported on Friday morning that the deadlock remained, writing, "It is with a heavy heart that we report we are unable to come to a unanimous decision and will not be able to." The defense followed with a request for the outlying juror's removal and filed an emergency motion to stay the verdict, which Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) Associate Justice Dalila Argaez Wendlandt denied.
Key Defense Arguments: Defense Attorney Kevin Reddington argued that Clancy was undertreated and overmedicated when she carried out the murders – factors that denoted her legal inculpability. He called Clancy a "fantastic, wonderful individual." He claimed that during the trial – which has given voice to about 70 out of 200 witnesses since it began on July 27th – "nobody had anything bad to say about her except for the two prosecutors and apparently [Plymouth County District Attorney] Tim Cruz."
Criticizing the outlying juror, he said, "She deserved that acquittal that she should have had." He also told Sullivan that his method of reviewing "reasonable doubt" with the jurors was "soft." Forensic psychiatrist and filicide expert Dr. Phillip Resnick said Clancy believed she was doing what was best for her children.
Key Prosecution Arguments: Prosecuting Attorneys Jennifer Sprague and Shanan Buckingham argued instead that Clancy, who sent her husband to pick up food before carrying out the murders, acted with "deliberate, premeditated, and extreme atrocity and cruelty." Forensic psychologist Kirk Heilbrun partially agreed with Resnick's assessment in saying Clancy's actions aligned with "altruistic filicide," but he said that such an alignment supplants the postpartum psychosis argument.
RELATED: Does Lindsay Clancy Deserve Sympathy for Her Mental Health and Actions? | AllSides
What's Next: Reddington requested that Sullivan consider a not-guilty ruling due to insufficient evidence, and a hearing is now set for September 29th. If denied, Cruz will be tasked with deciding whether to establish a retrial. Cruz said on Friday, "We're here at this courthouse today because those children are not."
How The Media Covered It: This case has garnered extreme national polarization alternative to the traditional left-to-right political scale, and it's erupted deep questions about psychiatric care, mental health precedents, criminal culpability, and nuances in court proceedings. Read more about the culture of this case.
Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
House Democrats on Wednesday blocked a proposed Constitutional amendment to prevent expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court.
The Bill: To pass the house, the bill would have needed a two-thirds majority vote, but only garnered 212-206, with all but one Democrat opposing the measure. The bill, if passed by the House, Senate, and ratified by 38 states would have stipulated that "The Supreme Court of the United States shall be composed of nine justices."
Frame Democrats As Radical: The Washington Examiner (Lean Right bias) called the measure "a symbolic gesture," explaining that it was "not expected to advance." The article highlighted Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), who proposed the bill, saying the Democrats voted against the bill "so they can follow through on a radical socialist agenda." The Examiner also mentioned that "The Republican Party instantly seized on the outcome as an avenue to frame Democrats as radical ahead of the midterm elections."
Republican Concerns: Reuters (Center) asserted that "House Republicans staged the vote to highlight the potential for Democrats, angered by rulings on issues such as abortion and voting rights, to expand the court and weaken its conservative majority if they regain control of Congress in November's midterms." The outlet also noted that both parties "have historically staged votes on bills they know will fail but are known as 'messaging bills' that can be used to shore up support with voters during election campaigns and force political opponents into taking stands on thorny issues." Reuters also said that Republican Speaker Mike Johnson's decision to schedule the vote "underscored Republican concerns that Trump's low approval ratings could cost the party its House or Senate majority."
Fever Pitch: The Washington Post (Lean Left), before the House vote, published an article headlined "Angry at the Supreme Court, liberals push a slew of plans for overhauling it." The article highlighted a bill that proposes increasing the number of Supreme Court justices to 13 while another bill would cut the lifetime terms of justices to 18 years. According to the Post, "the latest wave of proposals to overhaul the Supreme Court have reached something of a fever pitch over the past few months, as Democrats grow increasingly frustrated with the court's rightward turn."
Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) proposed regulations to end federal tax exemptions for "private schools that engage in racial discrimination" on Thursday.
The Details: According to the IRS, the rules would affect primary schools, secondary schools, colleges, and universities that discriminate based on race, color, or national or ethnic origin across any program or policy. Religious schools will retain the right to select students based on religious affiliation and maintain religious missions or observance. Institutions may still expand opportunities for disadvantaged students using race-neutral criteria, with final regulations taking effect for taxable years starting on or after May 31, 2027. The two agencies think that if implemented, the proposal could impact 18,000 institutions.
For Context: The proposal follows up on an executive order President Trump signed on his second day in office, "Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity." In March 2025, the Trump administration launched an investigation into diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at over 50 universities across the United States.
How The Media Covered It: The Daily Caller (Right bias) first reported the news on Wednesday night, before the federal government confirmed it on Thursday. Outlets across the spectrum framed the policy slightly differently in headlines. The Daily Caller repeated the administration's wording of "racial discrimination" in its headline, whereas The New York Times (Lean Left) described it as "aid" for "minority students." Just The News (Lean Right) described it as "race-based aid," and US News & World Report (Lean Left) said it affects schools with "DEI policies." The New York Times included perspectives from several "nonprofit experts" who were critical of the proposal.
Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Support our mission. Suggest an improvement to this summary.
The latest of thousands of innocent victims of inhuman ethnic cleansing carnage, Pierre Damas Bel was a 20-year-old Haitian honor student, soccer player, aspiring doctor and "beautiful soul" in Ohio who, overwhelmed by the shame of an ICE shackle and the fear of being sent back to his ravaged country, walked into highway traffic and took his life - another brown life senselessly extinguished by a cabal of sadists indifferent to their own cruelty. "Li te chagrin," said his grieving father. "He was heartbroken."
Hopefully, years from now, history will tell of the ceaseless racist atrocities perpetrated by the "abomination against humanity" that is this administration. For now, lest we forget, it feels vital to periodically document them. Never mind the petty crimes - the grifting, gilding, lying, tawdry abuses of taste and common decency. If justice ever catches up to them, let it be for the death, pain, loss, terror, the litany of stupid deadly barbarity afflicting hundreds of thousands of people of color, that began with the obscene gutting of USAID. In barely a year-and-a half, that early DOGE madness swiftly led to over 760,000 global deaths, two-thirds of them children, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, of hunger and once-preventable disease. Experts say deaths could reach 14 million by 2030, including 4.5 million children under five. But not to worry: Li'l Marco says "no one has died."
At home, DHS and its ICE Gestapo have presided over about 675,000 deportations and perhaps 2.2 million "self-deportations," mostly by those who'd committed no crime but having the wrong skin color. They've been nannies, taco-makers, scientists, academics, kids with cancer, families split, people who peaceably lived and worked here for decades. Often, they abruptly vanish into an opaque detention system that holds them incognito, moves them away from family and lawyers, and ships them back to countries they fled in terror. Lately, cruelly, illegally, over 23,000 have been whisked to 26 third countries not their own to which they have no ties: Afghans, Iraqis, Cubans, Nicaraguans sent to Mexico, South Sudan, Sierra Leone, Djibouti, Central African Republic - "Like hell - countries so unsafe the U.S. warns "Don't Go," and if you do leave us your DNA to be ID'ed when you die.
Implausibly, the regime keeps upping the barbarism. In August, in a first, about 20 people shackled at waist, wrists and ankles were sent to Liberia, where six - four Cubans, a Brazilian, a Cameroonian - refused to disembark. ICE thugs beat them, threw them back on the plane, told them they were headed to the U.S., and dropped them in a fourth country, corrupt, repressive, newly popular Equatorial Guinea, where the venal son of its longtime dictator, banned from the U.S., somehow got a brief waiver long enough to wrangle a deportation pact to take America's refuse for just $7.5 million, a deal all around. In Guinea, armed guards took the arrivals to a former luxury hotel turned detention center, where they've been held in "horrific conditions" and legal limbo; lawyers say the U.S. is using 3rd-and-4th country threats to pressure migrants back to their lethal countries.
Of those not yet deported, a regime "hell-bent on imprisoning as many immigrants as possible” has detained over 610,000 brown and black people - more than the population of Atlanta, Baltimore or the state of Wyoming - less than 4% of whom have criminal records; they include an average of 25 children 3 or younger a day. In a new initiative, an "army" of attorneys from over 50 organizations and law firms are trying to free about 1,900 kids from custody, many stranded without their families, before "they get chewed up and spit out by the child detention system." But the regime remains relentless: A judge just again blocked their latest malevolent effort to kill still-constitutionally-protected birthright citizenship; they argue this new, more narrow move reflects "a commonsense agenda" by only trying to block those born to parents deemed "an alien enemy." Evil incarnate.Meanwhile, in "the most stark testament to (their) lawlessness," this week marked the anniversary of "a year of murders" as the regime killed at least 227 people in boat strikes in the Caribbean declared "absolutely criminal" under U.S and international law. The consensus:"There is no plausible legal justification for the strikes. The term for premeditated killing is murder.” But the upcoming 25th anniversary of 9/11 shows MAGA world still feels free to spew their racism, however specious. In "an insane, blatantly racist" hit piece on Abdul-El Sayed, now-right-wing CBS blathered the date "invited scrutiny" of his past posts - like his mourning "devastation perpetuated ignorantly in the name of my faith"? Translation: "Tell us about the scary Muslim man." One MAGA sage: “El-Sayed has (a) ‘Quacks like a duck problem." James Talarico: "I wish our government would go after pedophiles the way they go after brown men headed to work at 7am."
Or honor students wanting to become doctors. In 2024, Pierre Damas Bel came to the U.S. legally via the Biden-era CHNV program, settling in Springfield, Ohio with his two younger brothers and their parents, who had bought a home there. At Springfield High, Bel quickly acclimated: He excelled academically, played varsity soccer, enrolled in the Marines' JROTC, was in the National Honor Society and worked at a local restaurant. When he graduated in May, he was one of a handful of seniors who won a local college scholarship and an Award of Excellence from the Business Advisory Council; he was also recruited to play soccer at Wittenberg University, where he planned to study neuroscience and physiology in hopes of going on to medical school. He had filed for asylum, and was scheduled to appear for a hearing at immigration court in October.
In preparation for court, he had assembled multiple, glowing references from local mentors. His JROTC instructor wrote Bel "exhibits the type of individual character that makes our society great. He has my highest endorsement that he will make us proud and be value added to our nation." "From the moment Pierre came to Springfield, he has done everything needed to be a valuable, upstanding member of American society," wrote one of his teachers. Along with excelling at school, he "utilized all its opportunities to better prepare for his future (and) realize his fullest potential (to) continue to succeed and give back to the country that helped save him from the threat of violence. I have no doubt he will only continue to deepen and broaden not only in his personal growth, but in his dedication to the city, state and country where he has chosen to make his home.”
In June, the right-wing zealots of SCOTUS allowed Trump to terminate Temporary Protection Status for up to 350,000 Haitians legally in the U.S; they include up to 15,000 who were welcomed to, and helped revive Springfield despite the infamous, bonkers, they're-eating-the-pets claims first promulgated there by racist shitgibbon J.D. Vance. In fact, most TPS holders are decades-long U.S. residents who contribute nearly $6 billion to the U.S. economy and pay over $1.5 billion in taxes. More than 111,000 work in health care as nursing assistants or home health aides; others work in construction, agriculture, hospitality and food production, which is why the abrupt termination of legal protections for so many law-abiding, hard-working immigrants who happen to be Black was widely denounced as "an abomination" and "unthinkably cruel."
It was also torched as a depraved move that "blatantly ignores reality on the ground and knowingly puts lives at risk." The State Department gives today's Haiti a Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory, citing a "high risk of crime, kidnapping, terrorism, rampant gang violence and limited health care." Armed gangs control large swaths of the country, more than half Haitians don't have enough to eat, overcrowding in cities is "a public health disaster waiting," the risk of a major earthquake remains, Port-au-Prince is too dangerous for even U.S. deportation flights to land, and deportees arriving in Cap-Haïtien with nothing but the clothes on their backs - and, if they're lucky, maybe $130 - are reportedly either "running for their lives" or trying to push their way back onto planes. Even Haiti's prime minister has declared, "This is not the time to send people back here."
In Springfield, where the Haitian community "had taken one hit after another," the end of TPS sparked terror. ICE sightings and arrests soared, people afraid to leave their homes lost their jobs, hundreds had to be fitted for painful ankle monitors; for many, they evoked the chains of slavery, prompting an “Unshackle Springfield" protest. On July 29, Bel was notified he had to wear a monitor. The next day, he posted photos on Instagram of his awards, soccer triumphs, referral letters. "I came to this country to pursue my education," he wrote. "I didn’t come to commit a crime or hurt anyone. Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the U.S. with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation I never imagined I would experience. I came here to study, to build my future and to live a better life, not to be treated like a criminal."
Friends texted messages to comfort him: "We will fight for you," "Keep praying, Young King." A prosecutor called the imposition of a monitor, rarely used even for drug traffickers unless deemed a serious danger or flight risk, as "staggering" and "grossly disproportionate" for a 20-year-old student who'd never gotten a traffic ticket. Bel was so upset he drove twice to nearby ICE offices, pleading it be removed; both times, officials refused. The heavy monitor, and his new uncertain immigration status, made him unable and ineligible to play soccer at Wittenberg. He transferred to Wright State University; on August 24, he arrived there as a freshman, but he was teased about the monitor. A few days later in ROTC, again due to his new legal status, he was the only person who didn't get handed a uniform.
“Everything was fine with him before this happened," said his father Pierre Ronal Bel. "They put an ankle monitor on him, and everything changed." For his son, the monitor was a constant reminder the life in America he'd worked to build could be taken away at any moment. It had already taken much of what he felt gave his life purpose; he was ashamed of it, and terrified it meant he would be sent back to Haiti. "He didn't go to work, he wouldn't eat," he said of the energetic kid who until recently had loved his life, friends, family, education. "It was his first week of classes, but he didn’t feel he was learning anything because he was traumatized. He'd wear long pants so people wouldn’t make fun of him....A 20-year-old living their life shouldn’t feel like it's a crime.”
Early Monday morning, his son called him crying, sitting in his car by the side of the road. "He said, 'Dad, I'm not feeling OK. I'm not thinking right. I can't do it any more. I can't take the bullies.' I told him, 'Come home, so we can talk.'" The call ended; the father kept trying to call the son back, there was no answer. A few hours later, police arrived at the house. They said Pierre had walked into traffic on I-70, thrown himself under a tractor-trailer in the westbound lane, and was pronounced dead at the scene. Days later, his family issued a statement saying they wanted people to know their son and brother had committed suicide, and he'd been driven to it by this regime's grotesquely inhumane immigration policies. Said his father, "He felt like he was treated like an animal."
"Multiply this story by millions," said one horrified observer, "and we get a sense of the moral monstrosity this country is committing." "This is our worst fear and nightmare come true," said a member of Haitian Bridge Alliance. "Our government, our system, our Supreme Court - they are all complicit in the death of this young man." Yola Lamarre of the Haitian Community Network concurred. "They all have blood on their hands," she said. "Pierre Damas Bel was not a criminal, but he was treated as one." At vigils this week, devastated friends, residents, community leaders mourned "the loss of this incredible young soul." They reminded others feeling hopeless, "Your status does not define you - your life is precious." They vowed, "Someone must be held accountable for a life upended and destroyed," "We are not going to be silent," "We have to do more."
Dr. Leo Moore, who trained and worked alongside Haitian doctors, grieved "the loss of a future physician in a country in desperate need," imagining how Bel, with his education and character, could have lifted Haiti up: "Pierre was on his way to becoming one of those physician who understands both the body and a patient’s story. His community needed him, in that Wright State classroom and, one day, in a white coat...Instead, we are left with tragedy and stolen potential." Pastor Carl Ruby of Central Christian Church recalled "a friendly, joyful, very smart young man (who) everyone loved." "This was so unnecessary," he noted. "I am supposed to be forgiving. But right now, as I sit with a broken family, I’m crying out to God for righteous judgment of those who made this happen.” The furious Dropkick Murphys: "Don't tell us everything is fine."
Update: Wow: More grotesque racist shit from the ghouls who just can't help themselves. The White House just launched Arcade, featuring video "games" like the Tetris-rip-off Build the Wall - "Protect the border from the coming horde" - and Rio Run (Snake ripped off) where players get to "deport" migrants along the Rio Grande. Tetris is pissed - "We take copyright infringement very seriously” - and the rest of us uneagerly await what's gotta be next: Maybe Vermin, where players get to stick yellow stars on undesirables? Fucking Christ, what a bunch of loser sickos.
- YouTube www.youtube.com
An abomination: Haitians about to be deported Photo by Getty Images
Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.
This week’s caption reads:
U.S. Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Vincenzo Morrison, right, a metal worker, and Chief Warrant Officer 4 Daniel Opper II, an engineer equipment officer, both with 1st Maintenance Battalion, 1st Combat Readiness Regiment, 1st Marine Logistics Group, utilize an underground bunker to repair a drone’s flight controller during a field exercise on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, California, Aug. 19, 2026. The FEX focused on increasing proficiency in tactical communication networks, analog processes, field intermediate maintenance and supply operations, as well as refining Marine combat skills in an expeditionary environment in order to prepare for Exercise Steel Knight 27 at the end of the year. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Desiree Ruiz)
PRIME DIRECTIVES:
The post Bunker Talk: Labor Day Weekend Edition appeared first on TWZ.
The U.S. Air Force is targeting an approximately $10 million unit price, excluding sensors and certain other systems, for a drone to succeed the MQ-9A Reaper. The cost of a fully kitted-out Reaper today is generally reported to be between $30 million and $50 million. The Air Force is also now pushing to accelerate the program to acquire the new drones, dubbed the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA), amid what it admits are “concerning” Reaper losses in the course of recent operations against Iran.
Air Force Lt. Gen. Christopher Niemi, the service’s Chief Modernization Officer, told reporters that the goal was for the MMAs to be “closer to half” the cost of a Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), at a roundtable at the Pentagon yesterday, according to Breaking Defense. He also said the service was hoping to see the price tag on its future CCAs fall to around $20 million after full-rate production of those drones gets underway.
Beyond cost, the Air Force has previously said that it wants the MMA drone to perform the same general intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and strike missions as the MQ-9A. To that end, stated program requirements to date include a speed of at least 200 knots true airspeed, a munition and sensor payload capacity of at least 2,800 pounds, an unrefueled combat radius of at least 2,300 nautical miles with payload, the ability to self-deploy one-way at least 8,000 nautical miles, and the ability to operate from runways no longer than 6,000 feet. The MMAs also need to be highly modular and use open architecture mission systems to make it easier to integrate new capabilities and functionality down the line.
With all that in mind, Niemi’s MMA cost “estimate includes only the cost of the air vehicle, without being fully missionized,” an Air Force spokesperson clarified after yesterday’s roundtable, per Breaking Defense.
The MQ-9A is out of production, but, as mentioned, the full cost of each one in Air Force service today is generally pegged at between $30 million and $50 million, depending on the sensors, weapons, and other mission equipment they carry. Speaking yesterday, Lt. Gen. Niemi explicitly used the $50 million price point to underscore the MMA program’s unit cost target, as well as explain why the Air Force does not view the newer, in-production MQ-9B as a path to meeting its current needs. General Atomics developed the MQ-9B from the Reaper, but the former is a significantly evolved design with substantial differences from its predecessor.
“If you don’t like losing an MQ-9A that cost on the order of $50 million, with the sensors, you’re probably not going to like losing an MQ-9B at a higher price point,” Niemi said at yesterday’s roundtable, according to a separate report from Air & Space Forces Magazine.
“There’s a, I think, sort of a misconception that because the MQ-9B is in production, we can walk down there with a big fat check and have 100 of them this year,” the general also said, Breaking Defense also reported. “That’s not reality.”
Niemi acknowledged that tradeoffs will have to be made to find an MMA design that is substantially lower cost compared to the MQ-9A.
“You’re going to have to certainly give up something,” he said, per Breaking Defense. “There’s no doubt if we try and pursue the exact same approach that we had with things like the MQ-9, we’re going to get something that costs about the same as an MQ-9.”
However, “what makes the MQ-9 special has nothing to do with the aircraft itself. Like there is no cutting-edge technology for how fast it flies, how high it flies, how far it flies, all that is proven, decades-old technology,” he added, according to that outlet. “So, if you’re focusing on the truck, and you do it in a way where you’re able to make some smart design compromises … we do think you can drive the cost down.”
Niemi said that he expected the MMA, in very general terms, to look much like an MQ-9, including that it would likely also be turboprop powered and have a similarly shaped main wing.
“I think it’s all going to be proven stuff, because that’s how I’m going to drive down the cost so I can get to that goal that I laid out,” Niemi added.
For its part, General Atomics has had choice words in the past regarding discussions about the costs of the MQ-9A and MQ-9B, as well as their capabilities, particularly in light of recent losses. We will come back to the matter of attrition in a moment.
“Some say we need cheaper, disposable aircraft, so that we can use them and throw them away, or lose them and not feel bad about it. No one is talking about actual capability, ready today,” C. Mark Brinkley, a spokesperson for the company, told TWZ back in June after new discussions about a Reaper successor for the Air Force first began to surface. “No one is talking about all of the hard lessons, already learned, about icing and weather and weapons integration. No one is talking about the multiple survivability upgrades available for the existing platforms and the lack of investment in those.”
“These make-believe weapons that don’t exist have the luxury of being anything you imagine them to be,” Brinkley added at that time. “Unscratched lottery tickets, promising all of the win and none of the lose [sic].”
“I think it’s really unfortunate that MMA has been branded as a ‘Reaper replacement’ because it misrepresents what America needs now and what we need later,” he told us last month. “We need an immediate backfill solution to a critical shortage of unmanned MALE [medium altitude, long endurance] ISR/Strike. We need to get going on that now. MMA isn’t a backfill solution, or even a bridge to a backfill solution. This isn’t that.”
Brinkley was speaking here in the context of a discussion about Wildfire, a new drone General Atomics is now developing in response to the MMA requirements.
Wildfire “addresses all of the concerns posed by the MMA solicitation. We can deliver years earlier and maintain the same high quality. You can have everything that makes Reaper special, plus more, at a price that doesn’t break the bank,” Brinkley also told Breaking Defense for its story yesterday.
All of this brings us back around to the matter of MQ-9A losses and the Air Force’s efforts now to accelerate the schedule for the MMA program.
Exactly how many MQ-9As the Air Force has lost due to enemy fire or for any other reason in the course of operations against Iran this year is unknown, but it is reliably reported to be in the dozens. The service is also understood to have lost dozens more Reapers last year during operations targeting Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. The service is on record saying that its Reaper fleet had shrunk to 135 airframes as of May, down from an official total of 165 as of the start of Fiscal Year 2026. It is also important to note here that these inventory numbers do not include Reapers operated by the Marine Corps or the Central Intelligence Agency.
Air Force officials have offered glowing assessments of the MQ-9A’s performance in operations against Iran, despite these losses, but have also said that the level of attrition is worrisome. That reality, in turn, had major impacts on discussions that led to the current MMA program.
“Although we have plenty of MQ-9As today, we are going through them at a rate that is concerning to us,” Niemi said yesterday, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. “There’s not a lot of good options to immediately replace those aircraft.”
When the MMA program was first announced in July, the stated goal was to have an initial operational fleet of 20 of the drones in service by 2031. The Air Force is now working to push that timeline to the left, but still sees fielding of the new drones as being around three years away, at least. The service eventually hopes to acquire at least 180 MMAs.
“I can’t buy an MMA today. The reality is, based on the budget and other constraints, that I’m not going to buy a whole lot of MQ-9Bs today either,” Niemi conceded, per Breaking Defense.
It is important to remember here that the Air Force has already tried multiple times to develop a replacement for the MQ-9 without success. In that time, the idea of what a successor to the Reaper would look like has changed dramatically. As we’ve written previously:
“The Pentagon has long worked on the basis that a future conflict with a peer rival, and especially with China in the Pacific, would see it facing highly robust anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) scenarios. With that in mind, previous Reaper replacement studies had suggested that low observability would need to be incorporated into the design.”
“The latest thinking seems to reject that, or at least reorient the program toward a lower-cost platform of the kind that the Air Force would be able to field in mass, as well as to absorb the anticipated attrition in a high-end conflict. This does not preclude this airframe from featuring low-observable elements. In fact, it most likely will. But those would be more aggressively balanced against cost.”
MMA is also looking at a wider slate of potential vendors. General Atomics, which has long had a monopoly on the U.S. MALE combat drone market, is not the only one angling now for an MMA contract.
Overall, as we have previously written in the context of the Air Force’s latest effort to move beyond the Reaper:
“…the U.S. drone landscape has changed considerably in terms of manufacturers. A few years ago, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and General Atomics would have been seen as the front-runners for the MQ-9 replacement. Now, there are more contenders, often with a founding focus on rapidly scaling up production at low cost. Still, these firms have much to prove, especially considering the risk in replacing an aircraft as important as the MQ-9. At the same time, in the more advanced drone space, the legacy defense ‘prime’ contractors are also making major progress in leveraging new technologies to reduce production costs and migrating away from exquisite, very expensive drones as their default offerings.”
The possibility was reportedly raised yesterday that the MMA program could ultimately lead to the fielding of multiple types of drones through successive incremental development cycles. This is exactly how the Air Force is running its CCA program now.
With the Air Force now pushing for a more aggressive schedule for the MMA effort, more details about the designs it is considering may begin to emerge relatively soon. The service certainly has a pressing need already for these drones after so many MQ-9A losses.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com
The post USAF Wants MQ-9 Reaper Successor At A Fraction Of The Cost At $10M Each appeared first on TWZ.
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