Troy Carmichael

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

But this was an age when a lie was not a lie, if a man had the audacity to keep asserting the lie was true.

—Mike Duncan on Rome before the collapse of the Republic at the rise of totalitarianism under the Caesars, “The Storm Before the Storm”

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Once we have completed our review for security vulnerabilities, we will make the entire codebase of 𝕏 open source, with no exceptions.

Moreover, we will invite third party reviewers to examine the system that is running to confirm that the open source code is what is running.

Trust through total transparency is the only thing that should be believed.

[Rock Chartrand @RockChartrand]

The socialist regards society much as a child regards supper: he notices with great precision who received the largest slice, while remaining curiously uninterested in who rose at dawn to bake the thing.

Socialists always imagine themselves at the table, never in the kitchen.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

I was clearly wrong about Anthropic. They are obviously currently the leader in AI. No company has released a model as good as Mythos/Fable and they will undoubtedly have Mythos 2 ready soon.

And I would never cut them off in a way that hurt them badly, even as a competitor. That’s not my style.

Tesla open sourced its patents and we made the Supercharger network available to all competitors, even though we could have made it a walled garden.

SpaceX launches competing satellite systems with no increase in price or use of unfair terms.

Even my worst enemies can attack me on this platform.

…

[Geiger Capital @Geiger_Capital]

The United States is 3 human lifetimes old.

That’s it. In those short years we invented the light bulb, the telephone, the airplane, the transistor and the internet. We turned a few wooded colonies into the most powerful nation in the history of the world.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇬🇧 UK Government to legally take over the YouTube algorithm.

They will force the platform to promote “approved” content and hide critics of the regime.

Pure dictatorship in disguise.

This is an attack on free speech.

Stop it before it’s too late.

Source: @BasilTheGreat / Writer: Samuel

[Porter Stansberry @porterstansb]

As we approach our 250th anniversary, I believe it's worth noting that our government is only actually 165 years old.

The American Republic established in 1776 ended in 1861.

The Civil War cost almost a million lives: one out of every five white men of military age in the South and one out of every ten in the North. It destroyed virtually all of the wealth in the South — a 90% reduction to per capita GDP. The South would not recover economically until 1950.

But the real cost of the war wasn't economic. It was political.

The Civil War destroyed the Federalist system that our founders built to ensure the central government's power remained genuinely limited. Not limited by the goodwill of its legislators, which is no limit at all, but limited by the existence of rival sovereign States, which could restrain the central government and each other through competition.

After 1865 the only real limit to federal power was the self-restraint of the men in office. And that didn't last for long...

But, before we look at the long-term impact of America's first war of aggression, let us dispel a critical myth: that the Civil War ended slavery. Slavery was ending because of technology and economics. And it would have ended just as surely if no war had ever been fought between the States.

Britain abolished slavery, without a war, throughout its empire in 1833, freeing some 700,000 people in the West Indies alone. France abolished slavery in its colonies in 1848. Russia — the most backward great power in Europe — emancipated some twenty-three million serfs in 1861, the very year of Sumter. The Netherlands freed the slaves of Surinam and Curaçao in 1863. Across the entire industrializing world, unfree labor was abandoned within a single compressed generation. And, in no other great nation, was war required.

In America, slavery did not end because of General Grant and the boys in blue. It did not end because of a moral awakening. The cause was economic.

Chattel slavery extracts muscle power from human beings. Therefore, slavery only makes economic sense if muscle power is the binding constraint on production. Once machines had multiplied the labor output of muscle by hundreds of times, slavery was not only immoral but inefficient. In an industrial economy a slave costs more than he yields. As a result, capital flees from slavery into factories. All over the world. And even in the South.

Slavery ended everywhere at roughly the same time for the same reason: innovation and economics. It would have ended in the American South regardless of who won at Gettysburg. Even Brazil, the last holdout in the Western hemisphere, freed its 725,000 slaves with the Golden Law of 1888. No war was required: slavery was no longer productive.

With apologies to the celebrants of Juneteenth, slavery was not legally abolished in the United States until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in December 1865. The institution died, not because of the war, but because the world had entered the machine age.

The unnecessary destruction of half of our country and almost a million people wasn't the greatest tragedy of the Civil War. The greatest tragedy was the loss of Federalism and the hard-won liberty Americans won in the Revolution.

The Civil War destroyed the federal structure of the American republic, in which the several States were sovereign in their own spheres, with genuinely different legal systems, cultures, and traditions. The national government was beholden to the States, with only limited and enumerated powers.

The clearest proof of this change lies in our language. Before 1861, the United States was a plural noun. Men said the United States "are." After 1865 our country became singular. The United States "is."

The doctrine that a state could check the central government — by interposition, by nullification, in the last resort by departure — died at Appomattox, and with it the last structural brake on the power of the federal government died too.

The framers had not relied on parchment to limit the government they created. They relied on competition. So long as the States were genuinely sovereign — so long as a man oppressed in one State could remove to another, so long as the national government had to reckon with twenty or thirty rival centers of authority each jealous of its own jurisdiction — the central government could not easily grow into a Leviathan. The States were not administrative subdivisions. They were the Constitution's immune system.

What followed the Civil War was America's first empire -- in the South. And Empire's require a strong central government. Thus began a long erosion of the line between the citizen and the State, and between private institutions and public power.

Twelve years after the war, the Supreme Court considered whether a State could fix by law the prices a private grain warehouse charged its customers. The owners argued it was a taking of their property without due process — that what a man does with his own property, and what he charges for its use, is rightfully his own affair. The Court disagreed. Chief Justice Waite ruled that when private property is "affected with a public interest, it ceases to be juris privati only," and may be regulated by the government for the common good (Munn v. Illinois, 1877).

That was the end of private property in America. After all, if the national legislature may decide which property is "affected with a public interest," and may then dictate its prices and uses, there is in principle no property the government may not control.

Justice Stephen Field saw it and dissented with prophetic fury. The doctrine, he warned, "is nothing less than a bold assertion of absolute power by the State to control at its discretion the property and business of the citizen." A legislature that could fix the uses and prices of property "against the consent of the owner" could "deprive him of the property as completely as by a special act for its confiscation or destruction."

New York City's landlords are finding out the truth of this reality. They believe they own their properties. But they are about to find out otherwise, as rents will now be controlled by the mayor, who is a communist. This will spread. A communist ruling over all of America is only a matter of time. Why? Because the law provides an unlimited incentive for such power. There is nothing in America the government cannot take from you. Nothing.

The proof of the unlimited central authority was established in blood. The courts followed where the armies led. And the first American Empire — the North's conquest of the South — led to more such military adventures, which continue to this day.

In its first century, the United States heeded its founders' warnings against entangling alliances, a large standing army, and foreign military adventures. But the creation of the massive Northern army created its own momentum. Only 20 years after Reconstruction, the country clamored for another Empire and war against Spain. America became an imperial power, with possessions from the Caribbean to the far Pacific — Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Philippines.

The consolidated nation that emerged from the Civil War was the precondition for the American Empire that emerged in 1898. Power flows to the center, and the center's reach has no natural boundary.

The Leviathan must be fed.

In 1913, every American became a direct serf to the national government: The Sixteenth Amendment gave the federal government the power to tax incomes directly. The size of a government is set, in the end, by the size of its revenues. The income tax removed the ceiling.

The Seventeenth Amendment, ratified the same year, provided for the direct election of United States senators. Under the original Constitution, senators were chosen by the state legislatures. This was the last vestige of State sovereignty. It could not be allowed to stand. The Senate stopped being the guardian of federalism.

And… then… with these Constitutional impediments finally vanquished, you saw Leviathan act to ensure its permanent dominance: it would control the money supply.

In December of 1913, Congress created the Federal Reserve System. The power over money, which the Constitution had strictly withheld from the central government, was enshrined into law. Income tax, a central bank, and the removal of the states from the Senate — all in one year.

The Revolution that began in 1861 was complete. America's Empire had begun.

Munn established that the government may dictate the use of private property. 1898 established that the consolidated nation would project power without limit beyond its borders. 1913 established the revenue, the money power, and the removal of the states from their guard post. The 1964 Civil Rights Act expanded this dictatorial power into every private transaction in America.

Government of the people, for the people, and by the people has been destroyed.

We now live in an Empire, not a Republic.

The Civil War didn't free any slaves; it enslaved all of us.

[Sharyl Attkisson 🕵️‍♂️💼🥋 @SharylAttkisson]

When the dermatologist was just on Fox News debunking the idea that some chemicals in sunscreen aren't good for us, it sounded illogically dismissive of the studies and research.

I took a quick look.

I didn’t hear her disclose her paid relationships with big sunscreen makers. ☀️

This is part of a trend that I discovered decades ago. It permeates our news media landscape.

I learned that nearly every member of the national board of experts that lowered cholesterol guidelines and basically recommended that people should take more statins, worked for the statin makers.

I learned that many members of the board set up during Covid that restricted hydroxychloroquine... were paid by the companies that made other controversial treatments for Covid like remdesivir that were then prioritized over hydroxychloroquine.

It doesn’t stop there.

When the government and the cosmetics industry tried to falsely debunk the scientific studies linking antiperspirants and breast cancer, they referred me to the American Cancer Society for an interview. I learned that the expert at the American Cancer Society hadn’t even read the relevant studies, and yet was claiming the link was a myth. I asked and found out that the American Cancer Society takes money from the antiperspirant industry and other allegedly cancer, causing industries. However, they wouldn’t tell me how much.

When the nonprofit “every child by" was illogically denying the proven vaccine autism link, I dug in and found out the nonprofit was actually started by a vaccine maker in order to defend vaccine companies, and to controversialist those of us exposing the risks.

I was the first journalist to ask and report that the expert the government kept referring us to in order to debunk the vaccine autism link, Dr. Paul Offit, was not an independent expert at all, but was a vaccine inventor and vaccine industry insider… though that was never disclosed in the media at the time. He was always presented falsely as if he were an independent expert.

When I saw a lead dietary group giving questionable advice about nutrition, I learned that the group takes money from the sugar, cola, fast food, and preservative snack industry.

In short, whenever I’ve looked for a tie between experts defending a chemical or risk that could impact an industry's bottom line... I’ve always found one. Food for thought.

"Dr. Jody Levine has financial and professional relationships with several prominent consumer product companies that manufacture and market sunscreens.
Because sunscreen is legally regulated as an over-the-counter drug and is a core component of commercial skincare lines, her consulting roles inherently create potential conflicts of interest when she recommends sun protection or reviews skincare products in the media. 

Her specific ties to major corporate sunscreen manufacturers include:

1. Johnson & Johnson / Kenvue

Dr. Levine has served on the Medical Advisory Board for Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson’s consumer health spin-off, Kenvue, owns Neutrogena and Aveeno, two of the largest and most widely distributed sunscreen brands in the United States. In her media and print features, she has regularly recommended product categories or specific options overlapping with these brands, such as recommending Neutrogena Sport Face in broad consumer media interviews. 

2. Galderma (Cetaphil)

She has acted as a consultant and advisor for Cetaphil, a brand owned by Galderma. Cetaphil produces a substantial line of daily facial moisturizers with SPF, mineral sunscreens, and broad-spectrum sun protection lotions marketed heavily toward sensitive skin and pediatric care. 

3. Beiersdorf (Eucerin)

Dr. Levine has maintained consulting arrangements with Eucerin, a brand under the Beiersdorf corporate umbrella. Eucerin manufactures a wide range of daily anti-aging lotions with SPF, sensitive skin sunscreens, and body sun protection products. 

Impact on Media Appearances

When Dr. Levine appears on networks like Fox News or in print publications to deliver general public health messages—such as advising viewers to apply sunscreen 15 minutes before going outside or warning against the dangers of tanning beds—she is providing standard medical advice aligned with the American Academy of Dermatology. However, because she does not routinely issue on-screen financial disclosures listing her corporate partners during short news segments, viewers are generally unaware that she is paid by the parent companies of the very products sitting on drugstore shelves."

[Selene Mariposa @Selene_Mariposa]

The World Cup has turned America into a discovery channel for the rest of the world.

And they are not handling it well.
In the best possible way.

Here is what they are discovering:

Free public restrooms. Europeans pay every time.
Free water at every restaurant. Just appears.
Free refills. Coffee. Sodas. Iced tea. Unlimited.
Free chips and salsa before you even order.
Free warm bread with dinner.
Ice in drinks like civilized people.
Air conditioning everywhere. Not a moral debate. A fact.
Parking lots attached to the actual place you are going.
Drive throughs where the food comes to the car while you sit in it.
Ranch dressing by the gallon.
Tex-Mex that cannot be explained only experienced.
Dental care that actually works.
Buccee’s. There are no words for Buccee’s.

Then they found the grocery stores.

Five of them within one mile.
Each one the size of an aircraft hangar.
Burgers. Steaks. Brisket. Ribs. Pulled pork. Lamb. Veal. Every cut of every animal ever domesticated by human civilization available in one refrigerated aisle at ten in the morning on a Tuesday.

The Germans stood in the meat section for forty five minutes.
In silence.
Processing.

They finally understand why we do not have trains.

We have roads wide enough for the cars we actually drive.
Parking lots the size of small European countries.
Airports in every city worth visiting.

Why would we need trains.

The Germans are taking ranch home by the bottle.
The Dutch found queso and briefly lost the ability to speak.
The Japanese are photographing HEB like it is the Louvre.
The Czechs are weeping in West, Texas.

Welcome to America.
Everything is free, enormous, air conditioned, comes with chips, and has five grocery stores within a mile that will sell you any cut of any animal you have ever imagined.

Write that down. 🦋

[Hannah Spier, MD @hannahspierMD]

https://t.co/C89dkVtuCd

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

On a per capita basis and removing suicide by gun deaths, it is order of magnitude more deaths by heat in EU than guns in US.

From Grok:

US population ≈ 340 million
Europe population (32 countries in the study) ≈ 539 million
• US non-suicide gun deaths:
16,854 ÷ 340,000,000 × 100,000 = ~4.96 per 100,000
Or ~0.00496% of the population.
• Europe heat deaths:
62,775 ÷ 539,000,000 × 100,000 = ~11.65 per 100,000
Or ~0.01165% of the population.
Bottom line: On a per-capita basis, Europe’s estimated summer heat death rate is now more than twice as high as the US non-suicide (mostly homicide + other) gun death rate.

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

Also, thought I would post for those interested the parts I have identified so far that will need to be replaced. This is as of now, and sourced from several places: Cub Cadet, Amazon, and a great shoutout to https://t.co/hGHJYG41Os. Generally focused on least expensive or quickest arrival (lawn and pasture growing out of hand!) and no longer caring whether or not they are @CubCadet_USA parts because, well, you know why. To Cub Cadet’s credit, they have great parts diagrams that are easy to get to. The local repair dealer here I spoke to (great interactions!) also had praise for some of their service personnel made available to dealers.

I saved maybe $100 or so ordering these parts how I did and am receiving them 7-10 days earlier than had I gotten them all directly from Cub Cadet. That’s ok. MowTheLawn could get me the Cub Cadet factory wiring harness much quicker and the belt and fan standard enough to get via Amazon. The only hold up in this is the battery tray (had to order directly from Cub Cadet) but I can borrow my neighbor’s in the meantime (remember, we bought the exact same model and the exact same day from the exact same place. He has had no issues, until just recently when he started having the carburetor solenoid issue).

So, if you find any of this useful to you, please like it simply so I know that I saved someone else some time and frustration in life.

Be blessed.

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

Cub Cadet XT1 LT46 randomly caught fire, factory battery. Fortunately the cover on it kept it smothered enough that the gasoline tank didn’t catch. What a mess. Anyone have similar issues? Not sure what @CubCadet_USA could or would do because its purchase date is about 3 years ago although I the original owner. Early on had to replace the switch on the carburetor. Seems these things have major electrical issues. For such an expensive piece of equipment and it looks like I have to buy another one, I would like to have some suggestions on mowers for 2 acres that can last me more than a decade rather try and giving me nonstop issues for several years.

Either way, I hope they fix this issue. So thankful it was outdoors and had a cover on it. Imagine if this happens in a garage? The entire house could be destroyed and people killed. 😮

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

Ends up the fire was caused by the Cub Cadet battery. The first one had to be replaced 18 months into ownership: the second one, that caused the fire, was 18 months old, too. As Cub Cadet batteries are only warrantied for 12 months and the mower for 3 years, and the fire occurred 2 weeks after owning the mower for 3 years, Cub Cadet said none of it is covered and to take it to a dealer to fix (and I will be without my mower for 6 weeks during height of growing season and cost how much $$? along with time and trouble and cost to transport, etc.…). They said had there been other property damage (like burning something else down) or someone had been injured they would have looked into it more.

So, after fixing everything (and makes sense to do it myself at this point) there is no way I’ll ever use another Cub Cadet battery, as both Cub Cadet batteries may have been the source of all my problems and downtime and frustration all along. I guess @CubCadet_USA needs to rethink their battery strategy. When replacing the first battery it took a while to receive it from a dealer (several weeks if I recollect) and there were much cheaper replacements available if I didn’t use Cub Cadet’s name brand. Seems if I’m going to have to replace batteries every 18 months and risk fires, I might as well pay 1/3 the cost of the battery by buying a non-Cub Cadet one online and have it delivered to my door rather than traipsing across town to get the “Official” Cub Cadet version from a dealer and being out of commission for a couple of weeks each time.

Despite all of this, to Cub Cadet’s credit at least, they responded to me in 1-2 days each time via their service support and X. Well crafted lawyer-like emails and good comms in the DM’s, but a response just the same. That’s a plus. And the dealer I met in this process I will do business with—they were great to interact with.

Much of the soot damage over all the machine I was able to alleviate—not quite remove—with Black Magic tire cleaner. The seat is pretty much ruined and blackened but they cost over $400 (over 1/6 the price of a new machine!!🤷‍♂️🤦‍♂️😂) to replace so I’ll have to figure something out on that.

Experience is a great teacher, best when it is someone else’s. So, to that point dear reader, one thing I’ve learned in this experience is any battery is going to be as good as or better than the Cub Cadet ones. At worse, another brand will have the same issues but cost less, at best, they won’t have to be replaced just outside of warranty each time, nor catch fire nor leave the machine stranded when it doesn’t restart.

Biggest mistake in all of this and that created the resonant cascade of problems seems to have been my commitment to staying with Cub Cadet branded parts.

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

@JohnLeFevre That’s encouraging, when compared to the alternative.

[The Biblical Man @Biblicalman]

Chuck Norris died yesterday at 86.

The internet will spend the next 72 hours posting roundhouse kick memes.

Nobody’s going to talk about the thing that mattered most to him.

He was a Christian.

Saved at 12 years old. Baptized at Calvary Baptist Church. Attended a Billy Graham crusade and recommitted his life to Christ.

His mother raised him alone in Oklahoma. Dirt poor. Father was a drunk who left. She had nothing but a Bible and a prayer life that wouldn’t quit. Told him every single day: “God has a plan for you.”

He strayed in Hollywood. First marriage fell apart. Fame rotted the inside while the outside looked invincible.

Then God gave him a second chance. He came home to Christ through his wife, Gena. Joined Prestwood Baptist Church in Dallas. Fought to put the Bible back in public schools. Created a foundation that embedded biblical principles in 6,500 schools.

He stood in front of cameras and said, “We are unashamed Christians. Our faith is the primary anchor for our souls.”

In a town that hates the name of Jesus, he said it anyway.

2 Timothy 4:7 — “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Rest in peace, Chuck. Your mother’s prayers held.

[Troy Carmichael @TroyCarmichael]

@craiginite @thescottbarber Pan-millennialism at its best ;)