Gaming The System: Huge Proportion Of 'Elite' University Students Claiming Disabilities

  Yesterday we had fun looking at the emergence of Idiocracy in Western countries but it is also important to understand how such a system is built. To secure the unavoidable rise of such a monument of anti-achievement, you must first and foremost poison the education system in such a way that its main output become perfect citizens for such a system. 

  Bribing your way to greatness was always an open freeway to the top for the very rich. Think about such luminaries are George W. Bush. But this alone cannot crash a country as long as competent underlings are still selected in such a way that the brightest end up manning the essential technical positions which ensure that however badly managed by politicians, a country keeps functioning more or less adequately.

  No, to truly crash a system, you need incompetent people whose main achievement is having answered correctly to woke questions and LGBTQ surveys, and of course be either from oppressed minorities or with disabilities. Saying your grandmother was native American has its limits but finding a compliant doctor to sign a disability certificate seems to be easier and this is how you end up with 38% of students with disabilities at Stanford! I kid you not. A sanatorium! 

  Read below if you are interested but the advantages are such that you would have to be a moron not to do it. Now, come on, ADHD? Who doesn't qualify these days? Certainly much easier than a real difficult test with limited time. You know, what University used to be about: Selecting the very best.       

Gaming The System: Huge Proportion Of 'Elite' University Students Claiming Disabilities

Just when you thought the ongoing cultivation of weakness in American youth couldn't get much worse, huge proportions of the student bodies at US universities are enrolling with official disability designations that bestow various accommodations upon the students who claim them. As you may have expected, the alarming trend is most pronounced at what are supposed to be the most "elite" institutions. 

We're not talking about people in wheelchairs, but rather students snagging diagnoses for ADHD, anxiety and depression from indulgent doctors. "It’s rich kids getting extra time on tests," an un-tenured professor at a selective university told The Atlantic's Rose Horowitch. Apparently fearing backlash, he requested anonymity. 

The numbers are jarring. Harvard and Brown's undergraduate student body is 20% "disabled." Amherst has hit 34%, while Stanford's disability rate is a head-shaking 38%. At one unidentified law school, 45% of students have been awarded academic accommodations. In stark contrast, only 3 to 4% of students at public two-year colleges get disability accommodations. 

"Obviously, something is off here," observes Emma Camp at Reason. "The idea that some of the most elite, selective universities in America—schools that require 99th percentile SATs and sterling essays—would be educating large numbers of genuinely learning disabled students is clearly bogus."

Disabled students are often given time-and-a-half or double-time to finish a test, and the freedom to turn in papers well beyond the given due date. However, extra time isn't the only benefit. At Carnegie-Mellon, a social-anxiety disorder can ensure a student isn't called upon by a professor without advance notice.

Schools also let supposedly learning-disabled students take tests in "reduced distraction testing environments," as being in a room with 80 other people is apparently just too taxing for them. However, a University of Chicago professor told the Atlantic that a deluge of students taking tests in the "reduced distraction testing environments" means those rooms are pretty much as "distracting" as a conventional classroom supposedly is.   

In what may be the most darkly amusing accommodation, a public college in California allowed a student to bring her mother to class -- which backfired when the mother went beyond whatever role she was expected to play and eagerly participated in the discussions, tuition-free.  

Professor Paul Graham Fisher, who'd previously co-chaired Stanford's disability task force, told the Atlantic:   

“I have had conversations with people in the Stanford administration. They’ve talked about at what point can we say no? What if it hits 50 or 60 percent? At what point do you just say ‘We can’t do this’?”

 

Plenty of these students are likely motivated by a cut-throat desire to gain advantage. However, equally bad, it's possible a majority of these students sincerely consider themselves disabled. "Over the past few years, there's been a rising push to see mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions as not just a medical fact, but an identity marker," writes Reason's Camp, who notes that social media and other factors foster a rush to attribute common human fallibilities as some kind of medical condition. "The result is a deeply distorted view of 'normal,'" says Camp. "If ever struggling to focus or experiencing boredom is a sign you have ADHD, the implication is that a 'normal,' nondisabled person has essentially no problems." 

The disability rush isn't limited to elite college campuses. High school students are using disability designations to score extra time on SAT and ACT tests. "We are also well aware of fliers in the district circulating among parents of doctors in the area who are known to hand out ADHD diagnoses," a high school teacher at an affluent public school told We Are Teachers. "In some cases, I think what’s happening is a pay-to-play situation.”

And the decline of the West proceeds apace...

Idiocracy! - Jasmine Crockett Announces US Senate Run

   Among the best predictive movies of the late 20th Century was of course The Matrix, making it clear that our reality is in fact "manufactured" and The Terminator, announcing early the arrival of killer robots and drones. 

  And then there was Idiocracy. A seemingly innocent comedy about a future when finally democracy flourished, the Mencken way, and people succeeded in electing politicians who truly represented them in every respect including their low IQ. And gosh was it funny, because here and there a few hints of this coming reality were already apparent but still, it was comedy. 

  That was then. 20 years ago in 2006. Move forward a couple of decades, one short generation later and reality seems to be squaring with fiction. What democracy alone could not deliver, DEI did. 

  If in 2024 you enjoyed the campaign of Kamala Harris and her future "unburdened by what has been", Jasmine Crockett's gonna be pure bliss for you! 

  If this was only about politics, I wouldn't bother to mention it but it clearly is not, this is a trend. If you need to be convinced just listen to Kaja Kallas, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission. With such a lengthy tittle, you would expect the EU to have chosen one of the most brilliant representative available to spar with China, India, Russia and even the US and you would be very wrong.

  All this forces us to consider a fundamental question: Is there an inverse correlation law between the speed of decline of a country and the IQ of the people representing it? Well, Jasmine Crockett is not in the Senate yet but Kaja Kallas and Ursula von der Leyen are at the top of the EU hierarchy. That much is undeniable. No wonder these people had to take the public bus when they visit Beijing last month. Soon they will be treated with a "Panda tour" as Emmanuel Macron was last week when he went all the way to ask China to be "less" competitive! And later finally welcomed with Shanghai Disneyland tickets to enjoy the magic of... whatever, it won't matter that much anymore.

Jasmine Crockett Announces US Senate Run And It's Already Comedy Gold

Democrat meme and congresswoman Jasmine Crockett is running for the US Senate in the deep red state of Texas, and Republicans are cheering.  Notorious for providing some of the worst political takes of the past year, Crockett is widely considered to be the embodiment of leftist DEI - A low intelligence person artificially elevated into law and politics because of her minority status.  Her presence on the national stage has produced endless comedy gold, but it's about to get better.  

Crockett's last minute announcement is causing confusion within the Democrat Party and concerns that her radical Trump Derangement Syndrome is a "gift" for Republican opponents entering the race.  In a state where Democrats have not won a single statewide election since 1994 (longest active drought in the nation), Crockett seems to be operating on the assumption that there is a "progressive base" hidden among the non-voting population.

However, other controversial Democrats have tried to conquer Texas under similar notions that the state is "secretly purple."  Crockett cites Beto O'Rourke's gubernatorial run in 2022 as evidence, but she overlooks the fact that the election took place at the height of the pandemic hysteria and an unprecedented propaganda onslaught by the establishment against conservatives.  O'Rourke still lost the race to Greg Abbott by double digits.

No gubernatorial election involving O'Rourke has occurred since, and as of December 2025, he has not announced plans to run again in 2026.  The likelihood of Crockett doing any better in a run for Senate is next to zero.  The reasons why should be obvious, but her first ad for her 2026 campaign explains everything.  The advertisement features nothing about her accomplishments, only Donald Trump calling her low IQ on repeat. 

Indeed, Crockett's entire career revolves around Donald Trump even though she's not running against Trump and Trump will, ostensibly, retire after the 2028 elections.  Crockett argues:  

“There are a lot of people that said, ‘You got to stay in the House. We need our voice. We need you there.’ And I understand, but what we need is for me to have a bigger voice... I’m done watching the American dream on life support while Trump tries to pull the plug. The gloves have been off, and now I’m jumping into the ring.”

The problem is that Crockett perceives her national exposure as a good thing, despite the fact that she is most famous for being, as Trump says, one of the lowest IQ people in US politics.  Crockett's bizarre behavior includes changing her accent to "black voice" to appeal to progressive voters.  She defended the existence of USAID and Sesame Street in Iraq in order to propagandize foreign enemies to stop hating America.  She also released a list of Republicans who supposedly took money from Jeffery Epstein, except it was the wrong Epstein. 

When confronted on the fraudulent list, Crockett argued that she never specified "which Epstein" she was referring to.  Federal campaign finance records show that the actual Epstein donated primarily to Democrats, including two current sitting members of Congress, Delegate Stacy Plaskett (D-V.I) and Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), both of whom have retained the donations, despite scrutiny.  

These kinds of blunders have become a feature of Crockett's career and there's little doubt that she will provide ample laughs during her Senate race. 

EU Rushes To Secure Russian Assets Under Emergency Powers, Bypassing Hungary Veto

   What is not being said in the article below is that this move could very well crash the current world order. In other words, if the neutrality of Euroclear is compromised, then the platform is toast and European assets themselves cease to be tradable on Euroclear for outside parties, including China and most of the developing countries. In such a scenario, you can expect a sudden rush to expand the BRICS system both vertically with a deeper integration and horizontally with many new countries applying suddenly. Can the BRICS bear the brunt? Well, we may be about to know. This would mark the instant marginalization of Euroclear and internationalization of BRICS. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. The Belgians are right to be worried!  

EU Rushes To Secure Russian Assets Under Emergency Powers, Bypassing Hungary Veto

Ukraine is desperately seeking more money, which has been a persistent reality of the war, and the European Union is scrambling to find solutions amid a general Western war weariness which has already seen hundreds of billions poured into Kiev's coffers.

Currently EU member states are rapidly advancing a plan to permanently freeze as much as €210 billion ($244.38 billion) in Russian state assets to finance Ukraine for at least the next two years. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is seeking to use a loophole to rush this through, based on invoking emergency powers to sanction the frozen assets on a permanent basis, instead of holding the funds based on current six-month renewals, which requires unanimous agreement from all member states.

The plan would see €90 billion (roughly $104.71 billion) released over the next two years. Von der Leyen's scheme would allow for the plan to pass merely with a qualified majority, and so couldn't be derailed by just a lone veto. Nations like Germany and Spain have already signaled their support. 

Hungarian and Belgian leaders. Source: vrt.be

EU leadership is rushing it forward to circumvent holdout Hungary in getting what's being dubbed a "reparations loan" to Ukraine, and there's also the idea that it would bolster the EU’s negotiating position in US-led peace negotiations.

EU summits chairman Antonio Costa has vowed to deliver the desired outcome by any means. "The leaders are to decide at a summit on December 18 in Brussels how to deliver on their pledge and Costa told reporters in Dublin he would keep them talking for days, if necessary, until they reach an agreement," Reuters reports.

It will involve more than just overcoming the hurdle of Hungarian objections, however, given Belgium is not onboard at this point, and the bulk of the Russian funds are kept in Belgian banks.

For starters, Brussels fears immediate negative repercussions from Russia, which could deeply hurt its economy, and so wants guarantees ahead of any EU vote that all members would help absorb the impact.

Von der Leyen has acknowledged the issue, posting on X: "Belgium’s particular situation regarding the use of the frozen Russian assets is undeniable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk."  She added: "We agreed to continue our discussions with the aim of reaching a consensus at the European Council meeting on December 18."

Belgium's initial reaction was to call it "complete madness" - according to The Hungarian Conservative:

‘This is complete madness,’ [Belgian Prime Minister Bart] de Wever said of the proposal in October, according to POLITICO Brussels. The Belgian prime minister argued that the risk of legal and financial retaliation from Moscow is simply too great. He told his colleagues that if Russia were to win lawsuits against Belgium or Euroclear—which holds the frozen assets—the country would be forced to compensate the entire amount itself.

De Wever’s concerns are not unfounded. Reacting to the Commission’s proposal, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova warned that any ‘illegal action’ involving frozen assets would provoke the ‘harshest reaction’, adding that Moscow is already preparing a package of countermeasures. Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev described the plan as a ‘casus belli’, labelling the move tantamount to outright theft.

EU diplomats have been in back-and-forth negotiations with Belgium. Germany's Chancellor Merz has also acknowledged, "What we decide now will determine Europe's future: Belgium's particular vulnerability in the issue of utilizing the frozen Russian assets is indisputable and must be addressed in such a way that all European states bear the same risk."

The European Commission is working on 'safeguards'. "The Belgian government, along with Euroclear, are looking for financial guarantees from fellow EU member states before committing to supporting the plan," Fox News writes. "De Wever fears that Belgium will ultimately be held responsible and be forced to pay back the assets that are seized in the event a sanctions deal is negotiated with Russia as a way to end the war in Ukraine." But without doubt, the Kremlin has been brainstorming the punitive actions it could in turn unleash to make Belgium and Europe feel the pain.

Alastair Crooke: Zelensky & EU SABOTAGE US sponsored Peace plan (Video - 1h20mn)

  This interview of Alastair Crooke, a former British diplomat is a must see. Not because of what he is saying about Ukraine which is interesting in its own right but because of how he describes the deep state and how it truly works. 

  The "deep state" as we often understand it, is a layer of non elected and mostly un-removable civil servants who often have more sway over the laws than actual politicians since practically, they are the one who decide which laws are actually applied and which ones can be ignored. I have a long experience of dealing with these people in Japan, France and the UK and can confirm that practically, they and they alone are the law. 

  But then Alastair Crooke goes on explaining how the other layers of the deep state operate. Rich people, often but not limited to industrialists like Elon Musk or Bill Gates, but also thousands of less prominent people, operate through "donations". They give a little money directly and a lot indirectly which eventually get people elected, or in other words, they buy elections, often through the media they control. Bad enough if you believe in democracy. 

  And then finally, there is the very deep state, the supra state of powerful people and organizations, which operates as a control gate of who can and who cannot be elected. Their control is hidden and murky. It goes from the secret but known Bilderberg Group to the shadowy Club of the 300 and others. 

 These "deep states" will get you labeled as "conspiracy theorist" whenever you mention them by name, but less so when you observe the effect of their respective actions on politics. This is especially the case with the Trump administration which for obvious reasons is directly opposed by the civil servants, tries often successfully to co-opt the industrialists and is kept under a rather short leash by the "controllers". 

  This is why, beyond their apparent vagaries, the policies of Trump are mostly and practically always expunged of their most potent aspects soon after being made public. This is especially and glaringly the case with Ukraine where Trump can say almost whatever he wants and in reality the actions of the US stay to course of indirectly supporting Ukraine both politically and militarily to his great frustration.   

  I do not think you can hear a more open description of these deep states than what transpires from the Alastair Crooke's discussion below. This also helps to a large extent understand why the Trump administration looks as disorderly as it does. Trump is fighting many different demons at the same time in a fog of war from which only the results can be glimpsed. Fascinating once you understand what you are seeing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJWiNINCmig

Question Everything

   The tittle alone should be everything you need to know or understand but unfortunately this is not the case. Our current system of communication management and information control was built over a century of better and finer understanding of the way reality is created, since the pioneering days of Edward Berneys, and god knows if we have made progress since. 

  If you have any doubt, just watch TV advertising from the 1950s. They sound quaint, childish and induce feelings of nostalgia because they come from a simpler world when "reality" was easier to manipulate. Our ancestors didn't question (or rather few did) the necessity to go fight German "Huns" or oppose the "bolsheviks" later. The quote "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it" attributed to Joseph Goebbels is a basic principle of perception manipulation and it dates from the 1930s.   

  Then television became ubiquitous and the messaging more subtle. We slowly understood that "Buy X!" (X being a product or an idea) was not the most efficient method. You just needed to be "primed" to X (hear the name or idea often enough) so that when the time came to look at a product on a shelf or talk about an idea and voice your own opinion with little time to think, the correct induced automatic mechanism would kick in. 

  And as we "discovered" this new continent of the subconscious, more savvy people saw the opportunity and as is often the case, what was earlier an art became a science. 

  Then came the Internet and the trickle of news and ideas became a flood. A fast food of concepts where pre-digested memes were served hot and cold at any time of the day. And here we are today: People's brains are fat with news and starved of thinking, worried about what happens in places they will never go but completely ignorant to what truly and immediately affects them. (Think about public finance and policies. The monetary system, their free access to information and so many other essential parts of their lives.)  

  The other side of the equation, is that the global Internet has conversely polarized and tribalized people so that discussing and therefore confronting your ideas with other people has become more conflictual and therefore less frequent. Now imagine the devastation Artificial Intelligence will bring to such a landscape with its sycophantic interactions and ever more subtle ability to nudge us in the "right" direction.

  To remain sane in such an environment will become a daily struggle, just like trying to find good food when mega-malls and chain-stores have taken over the cities. It is not impossible but it will require so much energy and time that few people will bother. The war for information will not be lost in long passionate discussions but by exhausted people hypnotized by screens, large and small, watching memes and AI generated videos (Slops) with a faint smile, alone, eating stale hamburgers delivered by Uber Eat.

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

The average person in the First World receives far more information than he would if he lived in a Second or Third World country. In many countries of the world, the very idea of twenty-four hour television news coverage would be unthinkable, yet many Westerners feel that, without this constant input, they would be woefully uninformed. 

Not surprising, then, that the average First Worlder feels that he understands current events better than those elsewhere in the world. But, as in other things, quality and quantity are not the same.

The average news programme features a commentator who provides “the news,” or at least that portion of events that the network deems worthy to be presented. In addition, it is presented from the political slant of the controllers of the network. But we are reassured that the reporting is “balanced,” in a portion of the programme that features a panel of “experts.”

Customarily, the panel consists of the moderator plus two pundits who share his political slant and a pundit who has an opposing slant. All are paid by the network for their contributions. The moderator will ask a question on a current issue, and an argument will ensue for a few minutes. Generally, no real conclusion is reached—neither side accedes to the other. The moderator then moves on to another question.

So, the network has aired the issues of the day, and we have received a balanced view that may inform our own opinions.

Or have we?

Shortcomings

In actual fact, there are significant shortcomings in this type of presentation:

1. The scope of coverage is extremely narrow. Only select facets of each issue are discussed.

2. Generally, the discussion reveals precious little actual insight and, in fact, only the standard opposing liberal and conservative positions are discussed, implying that the viewer must choose one or the other to adopt as his own opinion.

3. On a programme that is liberally-oriented, the one conservative pundit on the panel is made to look foolish by the three liberal pundits, ensuring that the liberal viewer’s beliefs are reaffirmed. (The reverse is true on a conservative news programme.)

4. Each issue facet that is addressed is repeated many times in the course of the day, then extended for as many days, weeks, or months as the issue remains current. The “message,” therefore, is repeated virtually as often as an advert for a brand of laundry powder.

So, what is the net effect of such news reportage? Has the viewer become well-informed?

In actual fact, not at all. What he has become is well-indoctrinated.

A liberal will be inclined to regularly watch a liberal news channel, which will result in the continual reaffirmation of his liberal views. A conservative will, in turn, regularly watch a conservative news channel, which will result in the continual reaffirmation of his conservative views.

Many viewers will agree that this is so, yet not recognise that, essentially, they are being programmed to simply absorb information. Along the way, their inclination to actually question and think for themselves is being eroded.

Alternate Possibilities

The proof of this is that those who have been programmed, tend to react with anger when they encounter a Nigel Farage or a Ron Paul, who might well challenge them to consider a third option—an interpretation beyond the narrow conservative and liberal views of events. In truth, on any issue, there exists a wide field of alternate possibilities.

By contrast, it is not uncommon for people outside the First World to have better instincts when encountering a news item. If they do not receive the BBC, Fox News, or CNN, they are likely, when learning of a political event, to think through, on their own, what the event means to them.

As they are not pre-programmed to follow one narrow line of reasoning or another, they are open to a broad range of possibilities. Each individual, based upon his personal experience, is likely to draw a different conclusion and, thorough discourse with others, is likely to continue to update his opinion each time he receives a new viewpoint.

As a result, it is not uncommon for those who are not “plugged-in” to be not only more open-minded, but more imaginative in their considerations, even when they are less educated and less “informed” than those in the First World.

Whilst those who do not receive the regular barrage that is the norm in the First World are no more intelligent than their European or American counterparts, their views are more often the result of personal objective reasoning and common sense and are often more insightful.

Those in First World countries often point with pride at the advanced technology that allows them a greater volume of news than the rest of the world customarily receives.

Further, they are likely to take pride in their belief that the two opposing views that are presented indicate that they live in a “free” country, where dissent is encouraged.

Unfortunately, what is encouraged is one of two views—either the liberal view or the conservative view. Other views are discouraged.

The liberal view espouses that a powerful liberal government is necessary to control the greed of capitalists, taxing and regulating them as much as possible to limit their ability to victimise the poorer classes.

The conservative view espouses that a powerful conservative government is needed to control the liberals, who threaten to create chaos and moral collapse through such efforts as gay rights, legalised abortion, etc.

What these two dogmatic concepts have in common is that a powerful government is needed.

Each group, therefore, seeks the increase in the power of its group of legislators to overpower the opposing group. This ensures that, regardless of whether the present government is dominated by liberals of conservatives, the one certainty will be that the government will be powerful.

When seen in this light, if the television viewer were to click the remote back and forth regularly from the liberal channel to the conservative channel, he would begin to see a strong similarity between the two.

It’s easy for any viewer to question the opposition group, to consider them disingenuous—the bearers of false information. It is far more difficult to question the pundits who are on our own “team,” to ask ourselves if they, also, are disingenuous.

This is especially difficult when it’s three to one—when three commentators share our political view and all say the same thing to the odd-man-out on the panel. In such a situation, the hardest task is to question our own team, who are clearly succeeding at beating down the odd-man-out.

Evolution of Indoctrination

In bygone eras, the kings of old would tell their minions what to believe and the minions would then either accept or reject the information received. They would rely on their own experience and reasoning powers to inform them.

Later, a better method evolved: the use of media to indoctrinate the populace with government-generated propaganda (think: Josef Goebbels or Uncle Joe Stalin).

Today, a far more effective method exists—one that retains the repetition of the latter method but helps to eliminate the open-ended field of alternate points of view. It does so by providing a choice between “View A” and “View B.”

In a democracy, there is always an “A” and a “B.” This illusion of choice is infinitely more effective in helping the populace to believe that they have been able to choose their leaders and their points of view.

In the modern method, when voting, regardless of what choice the individual makes, he is voting for an all-powerful government. (Whether it calls itself a conservative one or a liberal one is incidental.)

Likewise, through the modern media, when the viewer absorbs what is presented as discourse, regardless of whether he chooses View A or View B, he is endorsing an all-powerful government.

Two Solutions

One solution to avoid being brainwashed by the dogmatic messaging of the media is to simply avoid watching the news. But this is difficult to do, as our associates and neighbours are watching it every day and will want to discuss with us what they have been taught.

The other choice is to question everything.

To consider that the event that is being discussed may not only be being falsely reported, but that the message being provided by the pundits may be consciously planned for our consumption.

This is difficult to do at first but can eventually become habit. If so, the likelihood of being led down the garden path by the powers-that-be may be greatly diminished. In truth, on any issue, there exists a wide field of alternate possibilities.

Developing your own view may, in the coming years, be vital to your well-being.

Americans Will Freeze & Obey When Market Collapses (Video - 25mn) - Must listen to!

  This is a must listen to interview as it goes much beyond the usual analysis of factors of what could go wrong. Here, we're concerned about how it will go wrong and why people won't revolt, won't do anything in fact and just be stunned by the sudden changes which will come their way and that they won't understand or rather be able to make sense of. Mostly people will be stuck with the wrong answers to a new paradigm which won't follow the imaginary script they have in their mind. This is dynamite. A true different way of looking at reality! (Which is in the end what this blog is about.)

 Now, think: What if he's right? What does it mean and infer?

 You can follow the link below to Zero Hedge to listen to the YouTube interview:

Americans Will Freeze & Obey When Market Collapses

Americans won’t riot — they’ll freeze, and they’ll obey. That’s the chilling warning from behavioral strategist Chase Hughes as nearly $11 trillion quietly migrates beneath the financial system. This isn’t 2008 déjà vu; it’s the blueprint for something far larger.

Hughes argues the public is already being conditioned: confusion as the primary weapon, division as the operating system, compliance as the endgame. Political violence, collapsing trust, and back-room monetary restructuring aren’t isolated events — they’re linked signals. When the real trigger snaps, the fallout won’t just be economic. It will reveal how easily a nation can be managed into silence.

Follow Daniela on X: Daniela Cambone

"The Days Of Censoring Americans Online Are Over": Senior US Diplomats Slam EU's "Attack" On American Tech Platform X

   After teaching a military lesson to Russia and a commercial one to China, now Europe is on the verge of teaching a lesson on democracy to the US. 

  Are these people out of their mind? Or do they believe that it is 1885 again? Carving Africa and the rest of the world to bring civilization to the locals?  

  As if their woke, DEI, trans, green, save the planet, combat CO2 meme were not enough to insure collapse at an accelerated speed, the fanatics of Brussels are in the process of cutting themselves from the rest of the world. A kind of North Korean Juche (counting on your own strength) a la sauce Bruxelloise to prove by the absurd that everyone else is wrong. 

  Conversely, aren't we seeing a replay of the fall of civilization, and just like the Maya who couldn't stop sacrificing more and more "enemies" to insatiable gods, the Europeans flounder in the quagmire of their ideologies with no awareness whatsoever of the absurdity of the process? It sounds absurd because it is. But just as in North Korea, permit only one source of information and soon enough people will be crying for polar bears sitting on a melting ice cube without realizing that it is a metaphor of their own demise. 

Authored by Jacob Burg via The Epoch Times,

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several other senior U.S. officials have criticized the internet policies of the European Union (EU), likening them to censorship, after the governing bloc last week levied Elon Musk’s social media platform X with a $140 million fine for breaching its online content rules.

On Dec. 5, EU tech regulators fined X 120 million euros (about $140 million) following a two-year investigation under the Digital Services Act, concluding that the social platform had breached multiple transparency obligations, including the “deceptive design of its ‘blue checkmark,' the lack of transparency of its advertising repository, and the failure to provide access to public data for researchers.”

The EU accused X of converting its verified badges into a paid feature without sufficient identity checks, arguing that this deceived users into believing the accounts were authentic and exposed them to fraud, manipulation, and impersonation.

This meant the platform had failed to meet the Digital Services Act’s accessibility and detail standards, leaving out key information that prevented efforts to track coordinated disinformation, illicit activities, and election interference, according to the EU.

Even before the EU’s fine was announced, U.S. Vice President JD Vance suggested it amounted to punishing X for “not engaging in censorship.”

On Dec. 5, Rubio wrote in a post on X that the fine was not “just an attack on @X, it’s an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.”

“The days of censoring Americans online are over,” Rubio wrote.

On Dec. 6, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau said the EU’s policies are threatening the trans-Atlantic partnership.

“The nations of Europe cannot look to the US for their own security at the same time they affirmatively undermine the security of the US itself through the (unelected, undemocratic, and unrepresentative) EU. This fine is just the tip of the iceberg,” he wrote on X.

In a follow-up post, Landau said his recent trip to Brussels for NATO’s ministerial meeting left him feeling that there is a “glaring inconsistency between [the United States’] relations with NATO and the EU.”

“When these countries wear their NATO hats, they insist that Transatlantic cooperation is the cornerstone of our mutual security,” he said.

“But when these countries wear their EU hats, they pursue all sorts of agendas that are often utterly adverse to US interests and security—including censorship. ... This inconsistency cannot continue.”

U.S. Ambassador to the EU Andrew Puzder called the EU’s fine on X “regulatory overreach targeting American innovation.”

The EU also charged Meta and TikTok with breaching its Digital Services Act transparency guidelines in October and then accused Temu, a Chinese online marketplace, of violating guidelines intended to prevent sales of illegal products.

TikTok, however, was able to avoid the fines levied on X by making concessions to the EU.

Meta’s Facebook and Instagram were accused of failing to offer a user-friendly and easily accessible procedure for reporting illegal content, including child sexual abuse material and terrorist content, which the parent company denied.

Then on Dec. 4, the European Commission said it had opened an antitrust investigation into Meta to determine whether the company’s policy blocking third-party artificial intelligence tools on WhatsApp violates the EU’s competition regulations.

Helmut Brandstätter, a member of the European Parliament, shot back at Vance’s post condemning the EU’s decision to fine X.

“There is No censorship in Europe, and everybody has to follow our rules,” he wrote on X on Dec. 5.

“[U.S. President Donald Trump] fights the free press, suing newspapers and TV stations. So leave us alone.”

In response, Under Secretary of State Sarah B. Rogers posted a video to X in which she referenced the German woman who was recently given a harsher jail sentence than a convicted rapist after calling the latter a “disgraceful rapist pig.”

The woman was convicted of insults and criminal threats under German law and sentenced to a weekend in jail, while the rapist received a suspended sentence without prison time because of his age.

“So which is it, Mr. Bronstetter, is there no censorship in Europe? Or do we all have to follow your rules?” Rogers said.

Europe's Innovation Is Drowned In A Sea Of Government Intervention

   Over taxed, over regulated, Europe is a nice place to live if you are retired, preferably 62, in good health and with a nice pension. And consequently, Europe has a lot of such people. A majority in fact. These young retirees want to change absolutely nothing to the system. They don't care much about foreign policy nor about domestic policies as long as their pensions are safe. That's the base.

  Then there's the top with a paradoxical system of survival of the least fit and often most stupid. People with no belief, who profess one thing and do the opposite. The "war is peace" kind of politicians. Zelinski fits rather well which may be one reason he wonders why he can't be admitted. Corruption is rife and so is nepotism. Civil servants at the European commission are often the children of former commissioners. A new kind of nomenklatura which serves its interest first, mostly tax free. 

  In between, some people are indeed working and producing goods and services, almost as an afterthought of former economic dynamism. It is not that they are not competitive or innovative as the article below argues but the weight of the top and bottom are such that the continent keeps sinking. 

  Then of course, unlike the seas, the waters of international competition keep rising faster and faster. With Macro in China begging the country to be less competitive, being heard with disbelief by his Chinese counterparts. Well, at least he didn't have to endure the ignominy of having to ride the airport bus as his European colleagues recently.

  So where do we go from there? The Mises Institute below believes that all can be saved if only a few things could change. You can read the article to know which ones. In reality, what needs to change are mentalities and that unfortunately can only change after calamities or the people in charge either retire or are retired. We'll probably get all three in short order. And the new leaders will blame the usual suspects: China for flooding the markets with cheap goods, Russia for stalling the export of energy and the US for not helping politically or militarily. In other words, the European will keep digging. No wonder a report from the US lamented recently: "The suicide of Europe!" From the outside, that's what it looks like. From the inside, as long as the elderly crowds have their dinner and the music keeps playing on the deck of their Titanic, what the heck, they'll keep dancing!        

Authored by Mihai Macovei via The Mises Institute,

Europe became prosperous through a burst of innovation and capital accumulation during the eighteenth-century industrial revolution that allowed individual freedom to replace feudalistic rents and privileges.

A new industrial revolution based on digitalization, advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and automation is in the making, but the reputed analyst Wolfgang Münchau claims that Europe is about to miss it.

In his view, Europe has forgotten how to innovate, because it may still have the aptitude, but it has lost the right attitude to foster creative destruction.

Münchau and other analysts put down this failure on European government’s inability to pick winners like China or capitalize on military investment like the US, in order to promote cutting-edge technologies and research.

In our view this is wrong - Europe does not need more and better targeted government intervention, but considerably less.

Europe lags behind in productivity growth and innovation

For almost four decades, Europe has been falling behind the US, and now China, in digital technology sectors, such as internet, semiconductors, ICT equipment and software, and AI. These sectors are recording the highest productivity growth rates and account for most of the widening productivity gap between the EU and the US (Graph 1).

Graph 1: EU vs US labor productivity 1890-2022

Source: The Draghi report: A competitiveness strategy for Europe (Part A)

European decision makers could not just ignore the productivity growth problem and turned their attention to closing the innovation gap with the US. However, despite strong competition from China and the US, Europe still appears to retain a decent capacity to produce innovative ideas. According to Mario Draghi’s report on EU competitiveness, the EU produces almost one-fifth of the world’s scientific publications, lagging behind China, but ranking ahead of the US. It also has a strong position in patent applications with 17% of the world’s patent applications. EU’s public spending on R&D at 0.74% of GDP is slightly larger than 0.7% in the US, and 0.5% in both Japan and China. Overall, according to the European Innovation Scoreboard, the EU continues to trail the US closely in terms of scientific research (Graph 2), while China comes strongly from behind and outranked Germany in the latest Global Innovation Index 2025.

Graph 2: Innovation performance of EU, China and the US

Source: The Draghi report: A competitiveness strategy for Europe (Part B)

It seems that Europe’s main problem is not lack of scientific discoveries, but of providing the right conditions for businesses to develop them into marketable products. The links between higher education and businesses are weak. Only about one-third of the patented inventions by European universities or research institutions are commercialized. Successful commercialization in high-tech sectors is linked to innovation “clusters” of networks of universities, start-ups, large companies and venture capitalists (VCs) which are less developed in Europe.

The insufficient scaling up of tech start-ups is another key issue. Europe is creating a large number of start-ups, comparable to that in the US, but they often fail to grow. Many barriers, such as overregulation and bureaucracy, a heavy tax burden and insufficient access to finance force companies in Europe to stay small or relocate, mostly to the US. Only one in ten unicorns (i.e. start-ups with a valuation exceeding USD 1 billion) are active in Europe, relative to the US and China. According to Politico, nearly 30 percent of the bloc’s unicorns have transferred to the US since 2008. Young talent is also fleeing for the U.S. and Asia, while Europe’s economy is falling behind in modern industries.

Innovation does not work without capital accumulation

A disproportionate focus on innovation is not helpful, especially when Europe does not seem to lack innovative ideas. Ludwig von Mises explains how the scarcity of capital goods is the key factor impeding technological progress and the use of scientific knowledge. Throughout history, underdeveloped countries had relatively open access to the scientific methods used by advanced economies, but lacked the capital structure to implement them. The latter is the outcome of sustained market-oriented investment, where Europe seems to fail today.

Only around 40% of European companies report that they invest in R&D, compared to 56% in the US. The overall R&D investment of the private sector in the EU was only 2.2% of GDP in 2022, compared to 3.5% of GDP in the US, 3.3% in Japan and 2.4% in China. In general, European companies invest somewhat less than the US, and considerably less than China, (Graph 3), which also explains the anemic capital accumulation and productivity growth.

Graph 3: Corporate sector investment

Source: OECD Data Explorer

Private investment in Europe is not low because of insufficient domestic savings, but because of heavy government intervention that renders the business environment unattractive. Domestic savings are actually plentiful in several old member states such as Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden, but are mainly invested abroad. It results in very high current account surpluses (to the tune of 5 to 12% of GDP). As regards foreign investment, France, Germany and Italy have recorded a predominantly negative and volatile net foreign direct investment (FDI) balance, while US and China remain major destinations of FDI inflows in both absolute and relative terms.

Investors complain about the high regulatory and administrative burden, not least on account of severe labor market rigidities and the intrusive green legislation. Moreover, the tax burden is one of the heaviest in the world in order to finance an over-seized welfare state. According to the OECD, France, Italy, and Germany collect more than 40% of GDP in tax revenues, compared with less than 30% in the US and China. The perverse incentives of the generous welfare systems affect both companies and workers as it discourages education and hard work. Europe has an acute shortage of skilled employees in particular in the fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), undermining innovation. Despite the very large public spending on education, a steep decline in the level of basic skills and top performers took place in recent years, as evidenced by falling PISA scores. In terms of labor incentives, Germans and French work about 20% less hours per year than Americans and 30% less than Chinese.

Does Europe need more or less government intervention?

European decision makers focus on strategic solutions that favor more government intervention and policy centralization at EU level, such as higher public spending for innovation and education, faster decarbonization of the industry shielded by green tariffs, higher defense spending and strategic autonomy. They also target regulatory simplification, but remain conspicuously silent about reducing the tax burden and the welfare state, the real elephant in the room. European governments took a similar approach of protecting the welfare state, when recently confronted with fiscal and growth woes, either going for higher taxation in France, the UK, or Italy, or higher government spending in Germany.

Münchau also argues for more government intervention and believes Europe should emulate China in getting better at picking winners. But, the EU is no stranger to heavily subsidizing the industrial sector to the tune of 1.5% of GDP annually. It is also the originator of an artificial market for “climate change” compliant products, such as solar panels, wind mills, large capacity batteries, electric cars, etc. Normally, EU companies should be leaders in these markets, benefitting from the advantage of the first entrant. Yet, Chinese and other Asian producers took over “green” markets because they are cheaper and more competitive. If foreign companies investing in China in the early nineties were complaining about a “forced technology transfer,” now it is the EU requiring Chinese investors to transfer advanced technology know-how to their European peers.

In conclusion, it is not true that China has proven wrong the Western economic policy consensus that governments should never pick winners. China has only proven right the classic Western capitalist mentality that economic freedom stimulates hard work and capital accumulation, fostering prosperity. A relatively unencumbered capitalist system can be very productive at creating wealth so that, within limits, governments can waste some of it by subsidizing less efficient activities. But, if government intervention and redistribution reach a point where they stifle incentives to work, save and invest, privately created wealth may not be enough to cover government misadventures. Hence, the illusion that China is better than others at picking winners, and that better calibrated socialist policies could solve Europe’s problem of too much intervention in the economy.

French Government Plan To 'Label' News Outlets Backfires Spectacularly

  Finally some push back! Just when you think all is lost, the rambunctious French say "Not so fast!" And god knows how right they are! 

 

  Do you really want your "100% climate emergency, virus update, Russia is at the border, government is broke, sorry no money but always right, please smile" daily dose of news? Maybe not. 

 

 But whatever happens now, "emergency" will come later and maybe sooner than expected. That much is almost unavoidable at this stage. Then we'll see if the French can really avoid "Media control", sorry accreditation. 

Via Remix News,

A few weeks back, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a new “media labeling” system, while also assuring citizens that this “media accreditation” will not include any sort of state-backed labeling. 

Suffice it to say, these assurances have only stoked fears of an authoritarian creep into the media sphere. 

Back in November, Macron had told La Voix du Nord that “a labeling process carried out by professionals” was in the works to highlight those media outlets that respected certain “ethical standards,” and thus also those it deems lacking.

Le Journal du Dimanche (JDD), owned by the conservative Bolloré group, denounced this development on its front page as a project for “information control,” reports France24.

Jordan Bardella, head of the right-wing National Rally, also posted on X about the news: ”The role of the State is not to “certify the truth” with an obscure label: it is to guarantee freedom of the press and freedom of expression. Let us reject Emmanuel Macron’s project, which is nothing less than to establish genuine control over information.”

The Élysée posted itself in response to criticisms, with the message: “Pravda? Ministry of Truth? When talking about the fight against disinformation sparks disinformation…”

In response to this, Marion Marechal, president of Identity Liberty and niece of Marine Le Pen, noted, referencing Arcom, the French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication.

“French people, rest assured, so it is therefore not the Élysée that will deliver the media truth label but a ‘Journalism Arcom,” held, once again, by socialists designated by the president?” she asked.

Bruno Retailleau, the leader of the Republicans, has now launched a petition entitled “Media: Yes to Freedom, No to Labeling!” which garnered over 40,000 signatures.

Éric Ciotti, now allied with the National Rally, published his own petition shortly thereafter, reaching the same number.