[Federalist] How many innocent civilians have to be senselessly murdered before Western powers admit that mass importation of Third-World migrants was a mistake? Apparently, the answer is: many more.
By now, most Americans have heard of the horrific terrorist attack that occurred at Bondi Beach in Australia over the weekend, in which two Islamists opened fire on a crowd of Jewish festivalgoers. The suspects — who allegedly murdered at least 15 people and injured many more — have since been identified as father and son, Sajid and Naveed Akram.
According to Sky News, Sajid came to Australia from India on a student visa in 1998 before later becoming a permanent resident, while Naveed was born in Australia. Law enforcement previously investigated the latter "on the basis of being associated with" alleged terrorists, but officials ultimately assessed "that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence," according to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
The prime minister all but admitted the attack was "driven by" radical Islamic ideology.
Rest assured, Australian authorities are prepared to take action in the wake of this terrible tragedy — just not the kind that would actually prevent barbarity like this from happening again in the future.
Rather than focus on shutting off the immigration pipeline responsible for the Akrams’ presence in the Land Down Under, the nation’s leading officials are preparing to implement more extreme gun control policies throughout the country. Put another way, the Australian government is going to further inhibit the native Aussie population’s ability to defend itself from the radical Islamists their elected officials are willfully importing.
[Federalist] Arguably the height of hypocrisy for the American left is the audacious Make America Affordable Again campaign launched by congressional Democrats ahead of next yearâs midterm elections.
The idea is to hammer Republicans â particularly President Donald Trump â early and often on pocketbook issues. So the same people that brought you the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act that raised inflation, the same party whose tax-and-spend policies unleashed 9 percent inflation on Americans, are going to tell voters that 3 percent inflation is a âcrisisâ only they can fix? You bet they are. Talk about the audacity of hope.
Of course, if Democrats really cared about the affordability problem in America they would have long ago ended their addiction to big government. Then again, too many Republicans are struggling with the same affliction. Per usual, itâs the American taxpayer picking up the tab for the government junkies.
In a new deep dive into the ever-growing monster that is the federal government, public spending tracker OpenTheBooks explores how the leviathan has feasted on taxpayer money over the last century-plus.
10,000 PERCENT
Federal spending per person has exploded nearly 10,000 percent since 1916, according to the analysis. That was the year President Woodrow Wilson campaigned for a second term on the slogan, âHe Kept Us Out of War.â Within five months of Wilsonâs second electoral victory, that slogan would prove to be just another politicianâs broken promise. America entered the First World War â the war to end all wars â and Wilson and his fellow Democrats began spending like there was no tomorrow.
Wilson presided over a national debt that soared more than 700 percent during his tenure, from $2.9 billion to $23.97 billion. Yes, those debt figures seem quaint next to the $38 trillion obligation currently saddling the federal government â rising by $70,000 every second.
Wilsonâs War had a great deal to do with the hefty debt in the early 20th century, but the progressive father of the administrative state set federal government on the path to massive expansion â in the bureaucracyâs footprint and their centralized power. In his book, American Leviathan, conservative activist Ned Ryun describes Wilson as one of the âFour Horsemen of the Progressive Apocalypse.â
Franklin Delano Roosevelt picked up Wilsonâs tax-and-spend torch, and Lyndon Baines Johnson and his costly war on poverty and Vietnam put big government on steroids. Republicans often went along for the ride, especially when it came to their pet projects. All that spending adds up to a disastrous debt.
âLESS WITH MOREâ
In the recently ended fiscal year 2025, the federal government spent a record (again) $7.035 trillion, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. Thatâs $20,474.19 for every man, woman and child living in the country.
As OpenThe Booksâ report notes, median household income in 2024 was $83,730. The government spending share for a family of four would be north of $80,000, just under what that average family would have earned in pre-tax income.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
12/18/2025 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[1762 views]
Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
#1
The Cloward-Piven strategy. Spend the US to death and flood us with immigrants.Professors Cloward and Piven are gone but they educated an entire generation of today's professors.
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/18/2025 3:51 Comments ||
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#3
I must have missed the part where the government spent money on me.
Posted by: chris ||
12/18/2025 4:25 Comments ||
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#4
Would love to see the time line correlations to the mass national debt spending, the MIC spending, the min wage increases and wealth enhancement of Congress persons.
A question to my AI: which president introduced the most debt carter, reagan, bush, clinton, bush, obama, biden, trump?
The response: Among the presidents listedâJimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Donald Trumpâthe largest increase in national debt in dollar terms occurred under Joe Biden, who added approximately $8.5 trillion to the national debt during his presidency as of 2025.
This surpasses the debt contributions of other recent presidents.
Barack Obama added about $8.34 trillion over two terms (2009â2017), which is slightly less than Bidenâs total but accumulated over eight years.
Donald Trump added approximately $7.8 to $8.18 trillion during his four-year term (2017â2021), representing a 40.43% increase.
George W. Bush added around $6.1 trillion (a 105% increase) during his two terms (2001â2009).
Ronald Reagan oversaw a 186.36% increase in the national debt, adding $1.86 trillion from 1981 to 1989, the largest percentage increase among modern presidents at the time.
Bill Clintonâs administration saw a $1.4 trillion increase (31.64%) from 1993 to 2001, and Jimmy Carter added $299 billion (42.79%) during his single term (1977â1981).
Thus, in absolute dollar terms, Joe Biden has contributed the most to the national debt among the listed presidents as of 2025.
#6
It isn't really fair to say the presidents added to the debt. They signed off on it, yes, but Congress holds the purse strings. Every time your representative tells you about something wonderful he's done for his district, you can bet it added to the debt. Democrats are usually the biggest spenders but I'm afraid it's all too true that Republicans go along for the ride.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/18/2025 12:35 Comments ||
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#7
If you're watching an old movie on TV (I like TCM) watch closely whenever the characters have to pay for something. Watch them plunk a few silver coins on the counter. Those days are long gone.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/18/2025 12:42 Comments ||
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#8
The consequences of going off the silver-gold standard. At least the limits of specie restricted the government from 'just printing' money. They'll always find a work around, but it constricts the velocity they do it at.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Alexander Melnik
[TEGNUM] Trump's peace initiatives, the negotiations for which are nearing a climax, are based on the idea that all problems can be solved with money. All it takes is improving trade and attracting investment, and there will be no reason to shoot.
That this approach doesn't work is best demonstrated by the last of the "Eight Wars Trump Stopped."
Despite the signing of an agreement brokered by the US President between Rwanda and the DR Congo, rebels from the March 23 Movement (M23) continue to seize towns in South Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo).
THE REBIRTH OF M23
The east of the republic has been engulfed in war for three decades between government forces and rebels of all stripes.
Currently, the main anti-government force in the region is the March 23 Movement. The group's history dates back to 2012, when former militants from the National Congress for the Defense of the People, integrated into the Congolese army, rebelled against the central government. Renaming themselves M23, the rebels quickly captured Goma and other cities in South Kivu province.
However, in 2013 the group was defeated, but the remnants retained their organizational structure and went underground.
The M23's revival occurred in 2021, but the group launched its truly large-scale offensive in January 2025.
.
This offensive differs from the previous wave of extremist aspirations: the militants aren't simply seizing cities; they're establishing parallel administrative structures. In the areas they capture, M23 creates administrations, appoints officials, imposes taxes, and completely controls mineral extraction. Within a few months of this year, the group captured Goma and then Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu.
M23's goals have evolved from defending the interests of the Tutsi minority to seeking political power.
The movement now positions itself as a political alternative to the DR Congo's leadership and intends to overthrow the country's president, Felix Tshisekedi.
Often, rebels and "freedom fighters" are backed by specific actors. In the case of M23, that's Rwanda. What interests does it pursue?
Officially, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (DFLR)âan organization composed of the remaining members of the 1994 genocidal forcesâis based in the eastern part of the country. Rwandan leaders claim that this group is an ongoing threat to the country's security, and that the Congolese government is allegedly harboring these militants.
This statement is partly true: the DFOR does exist, but its numbers are only a few hundred, not thousands, as is sometimes claimed in Kigali.
RWANDA'S INTERESTS
Rwanda's true interests in eastern DR Congo are economic and geopolitical.
The first is mineral resources: gold, coltan, cassiterite, tungsten and other rare earth elements.
Gold is especially important for Rwanda, as the country officially has no operating gold mines, yet exports over $1 billion worth of gold annually. Where does it come from? From the Democratic Republic of Congo. According to the UN, a stream of Congolese gold passes through M23-controlled territory directly to Kigali, from where it is shipped to the global market disguised as Rwandan gold.
Coltan, a material critical to modern electronics, smartphones, and computers, is mined in the M23-controlled region.
The mines in North Kivu, seized by M23 in 2024, produce approximately 120 tons of coltan per month. This production brings in approximately $800,000 monthly to the M23 budget, but Kigali controls the bulk of these resources. Coltan exports from Rwanda increased by almost 50 percent from 2022 to 2023, when the new M23 rebellion began.
The second interest is geopolitical and strategic.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has long viewed the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as a buffer zone, controlled by Kigali. The distance from the DRC border to Rwanda's capital is only 150 kilometersâthe minimum strategic distance for defense.
M23, by controlling vast territories in North and South Kivu, effectively creates a "gray zone" under Rwandan influence but formally Congolese. This allows Kagame to maintain control without openly annexing the territoryâwhich would attract more international attention and condemnation.
The third interest is economic dominance in the region.
If the DR Congo's leadership were able to stabilize the east and establish its own resource export systems directly to neighboring countries or via other routes, it would threaten Rwanda's monopoly on mineral trade from the region.
WITHOUT M23
"Peace Through Strength" is how Donald Trump describes his approach to international conflicts after returning to the White House in January 2025.
Africa may seem far from the American president's top priorities, but when it comes to control of critical minerals, Trump takes a keen interest. These are strategic materials essential to American industry, and their global price is determined in part by stability in eastern DR Congo.
The Trump administration began active diplomatic efforts in this area in late spring 2025.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has launched an active effort to resolve the Congolese crisis. The first agreement was reached at talks in Washington in early June 2025, when the foreign ministers of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda signed the first agreement.
Kigali was required to withdraw its troops from the DR Congo within 90 days. Kinshasa, for its part, was required to disarm and neutralize the DFOR. Both sides pledged to cease support for armed groups and establish regional economic integration, including joint management of trade in critical minerals, with a clear preference for American companies and investors.
But the March 23 Movement was not a party to this agreement.
The group did not sign it and did not accept it as binding. It was a dialogue between only two statesâthe Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. M23 held separate talks with the Congolese government in Doha, mediated by Qatar.
This was a fundamental mistake: an agreement that excluded the main armed actor in the conflict was doomed to failure from the start.
THE GREAT PEACEMAKER
Several weeks after the signing of the June agreement, it became clear that neither side was in any hurry to fulfill its obligations. Negotiations between M23 and Kinshasa in Doha also stalled: the parties signed a Declaration of Principles for the beginning of negotiations at the end of July 2025, but the deadline set for signing the final agreement (August) passed without a result.
It was at this moment that Donald Trump decided to stage a more high-profile diplomatic move â a direct meeting with the presidents of the DR Congo and Rwanda in Washington.
On December 4, 2025, a signing ceremony for the updated peace agreement was held in Washington, D.C. The location chosen was symbolic: the United States Institute of Peace building.
The White House positioned the agreement as a foundation for economic partnership: a special forum of American businessmen and investors was organized to discuss the prospects of investing in the development of critical minerals in the region under American auspices.
The diplomatic maneuver seemed to work.
However, the warring parties had other plans. On December 5, literally the day after the agreement was signed, fighting resumed in eastern DR Congo. Congolese command accused Rwanda and M23 of shelling civilian areas in South Kivu.
Rwanda denied the allegations, in turn accusing the Congolese army of violating the ceasefire.
On December 8, President Tshisekedi openly accused Rwanda of violating the recently signed agreement. These were clear signs that the "historic" agreement in Washington had no real impact on the situation on the ground.
On December 10-11, 2025, M23's key operation took placeâthe capture of the strategic city of Uvira in South Kivu, the second largest after Bukavu. Control of the city gives M23 and Rwanda significant leverage over trade routes in the region.
By December 13, 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was forced to acknowledge in a public statement that "Rwanda's actions in eastern DR Congo constitute a clear violation of the Washington Accords." Trump and his administration threatened sanctions against Rwandan military leaders and government officials, but no one cared.
Trump's attempt to end "another war" has failed miserably. We're seeing a similar scenario on the other side of the world, where Thailand and Cambodia have also resumed hostilities. The ceremony at the Institute of Peace will remain a pretty veneer without any real substance.
And if we ignore their real historical causes and regional specifics, relying only on business interests, it will be impossible to achieve lasting peace.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
