WEDNESDAY
- donbrooks777
- 3 hours ago
- 45 min read
New BLOG – Great ARTICLES
WEDNESDAY 6-[10]-26
SPIRITUAL:
VERSE-for-TODAY
New International Version
The Narrow and Wide Gates
“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Read all of Matthew 7 ►
‘WOW’…this Revelatory as to where we are Headed!
èPLUMB
To those who want to understand where we are at in this time period…and the future of our world.
Rob McCoy and Seth Gruber discuss on Cross Examined what history teaches us about who's laws apply to even to every country on earth.
What leads to civilizational suicide 100% of the time in 86 countries that were studied over the course of 5000 years?
Well very interestingly in the USA in 1973 what four things happened…you need to listen to this!
Unless you study history of civilizations you do not have the clarity, visibility, to understand what happens to civilizations that codify, celebrate, and tolerate the things we are allowing today.
They are in play and once a country comes to allowing these things they are doomed unless they repent and change their ways.
And this likewise applies to us all.
Where are we on the highway of life, and the things we have bought into that has brought us into slavery, instead of freedom?
May God help each of us through Jesus Christ to find victory in a hopeless world.
God's richest blessings,
Brian Plum
How Do 86 Civilizations Reveal That This is Our Last Stand? Blowtorch Truth with Seth Gruber
èSETH
Is the greatest danger to Western civilization the hostility of the world, or the forgetfulness of the Church? Many Christians don't realize that the same evils that haunted our Christian forefathers still exist today--abortion and sexual sin.
Seth Gruber, founder of The White Rose Resistance, is a leading voice in the pro-life movement and joins Frank to expose the chilling realities of America’s obsession with its false idols, while urging the Church to rise and lead the charge on the front lines of our cultural war through his new project, 'The Last Stand'.
Join Seth and Frank as they ignite the airwaves with their "blowtorch of truth" and answer questions like:
Why does Seth say that this is a "Last Stand" moment for the West?
When and why did the term "Christendom" turn into "Western Civilization"?
What behavior lead to civilizational suicide 100% of the time in 86 countries that were studied over the course of 5000 years?
What two things does a civilization need in order to thrive long-term?
What four things happened in 1973 to make it a major turning point for America's moral decline?
What famous church father gave infants and babies legal protection for the first time in history?
What are some of the accomplishments that Christians have been able to do culturally and politically?
What is the biblical significance of Seth's advice to "remember the signs"?
How is abortion "the demonic parody of the Eucharist?"
Is the West standing on the precipice of destruction? What are Christians supposed to do now?
Our Christian forefathers did not surrender or negotiate with darkness, they exposed it, confronted it, and drove it back with truth. Now it is our time. Join Frank, Seth, and many others at the Last Stand Festival coming up June 5-6 in Colorado, air and watch the film at your church, and pre-order the book using the links below!
Seth Gruber
Be AWARE:
SPENCER PRATT NOTICES SOMETHING
Spencer Pratt has questions.After finishing in a strong second place on election night — which would have advanced him to the November runoff — Pratt watched a “net swing of more than 43,000 votes” hand his runner-up spot to far-left Democrat Nithya Raman when nearly every post-election ballot drop went in Raman’s favor.Pratt quickly noticed that the 43,000 number rang a bell.“43,000, huh? Where have I seen that number before...?” he wrote on social media, attaching an article explaining that roughly 43,000 people are homeless in Los Angeles. “Probably nothing,” he joked.President Trump is noticing, too. “No way this could have happened. Rigged Election!” he said on Monday.
TRUMP LAYS DOWN THE LAW
President Trump doesn’t make idle threats.After Israel and Iran traded fire for the first time since April’s ceasefire, Trump moved fast to pull both sides back from the brink. By Monday, the guns had gone quiet again.“Both sides, Israel and Iran, are looking to do an immediate CEASEFIRE!” Trump said. “Final negotiations on ‘Peace’ are proceeding, subject to ignorance or stupidity getting in its way.”Then Trump reminded everyone who holds the leverage: The U.S. blockade of Iran “will remain in place... until a ‘Final Deal’ is reached.”
NY DEMS’ ANTI-ICE PLAN BACKFIRES
New York Democrats wanted less ICE. But they’re about to get the opposite.Last month, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law restricting ICE and banning masked immigration agents. That anti-ICE plan caught border czar Tom Homan’s attention, and now he’s going to make New York Democrats pay.The plan? Deploy the largest immigration operation to New York City.“You’re going to see more ICE than you’ve ever seen in New York City, and it’s coming,” Homan said. “I just reviewed an operational plan.”
FEDS COME FOR FRAUDULENT CITIZENS
American citizenship isn’t a participation trophy.The Trump DOJ has launched the largest denaturalization effort in U.S. history, filing actions to strip citizenship from 17 naturalized immigrants convicted of serious crimes — including fraud, drug trafficking, and sex offenses against children.“American citizenship is a privilege, and it must be earned honestly,” DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin said. “If you come here, break our laws, and lie in your immigration proceedings, you forfeit that privilege.”
REPORT EXPOSES WALZ’S NEGLIGENCE
Gov. Tim Walz had a fraud problem — and looked the other way.A new 205-page House Oversight report alleges Minnesota officials, including Walz, were warned for years about fraud in social services programs but “repeatedly failed to act.”Investigators found one reason payments to suspected fraudsters kept flowing: Fear of “racial discrimination” claims.“The Walz Administration chose to protect the system rather than protect the taxpayer,” Republican Chairman James Comer said.
The BONGINO Report
How to prove Jesus is God to any Muslim
èPROOF
Is there Biblical Proof that proves that Jesus is God?
View the VIDEO – this is very INTERESTING!
Comments
The undeniable evidence that Jesus is God found in John 1:1.
I had a revelation of that and it blew my mind. In case it may help. Water can be solid liquid or gas. Same element different component. Same with God who can be the Father the Son or the Spirit
“Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus said, “I am…” — Mark 14:61–62
John 10:30 Jesus said “I and the father are one”.
Daniel Brooks
CANADIAN:
ACT 4 CANADA
èCANADA
You also never mentioned the other problems your government created. Women were being grabbed off the streets of Toronto, Jewish schools were being shot at, and the middle class was being taxed into exodus — all while you funneled millions to organizations with proven ties to Hamas and al-Qaeda, whose members burn your flag, chant for your death, and then cash your government’s checks.
The Muslim Association of Canada (MAC) operates mosques, schools, and community centers across the country — and according to the Canada Revenue Agency, it also functioned as “an apparent Hamas support network.” While Qatar Charity was funding MAC and MAC was funding Hamas, a parallel operation was running through Canadian universities — quieter, slower, and in many ways more dangerous.
The Muslim Students Association has been present on Canadian campuses since the 1960s, founded by Muslim Brotherhood members studying at North American universities and designed from the start to spread Brotherhood ideology through what appeared to be an ordinary student club.
You are trading cardiac surgeons for terror networks; you are trading neurosurgeons for MAC conventions. You are handing out government grants to organizations that celebrate the murder of Jews and praise the killings of hundreds on 9/11, and calling it inclusion, while the people who built your hospitals pack their bags and leave.
ACT 4 CANADA
Reminder...
— Silencing Detective Grus Screening THIS Friday in London
Quick reminder — the Silencing Detective Grus documentary screening is happening this Friday. If you haven't grabbed tickets yet, now's the time.
For anyone who missed the first message: Detective Helen Grus uncovered an unusual cluster of infant deaths and followed the evidence straight into the crosshairs of powerful interests. For doing her job, she was prosecuted in Canada's longest and most costly police disciplinary hearing.
The fallout is staggering — police officers now effectively need permission to investigate public officials or crimes with "political ramifications." Producer Todd Harris lays it all out in this documentary. This is about what's happened to the Rule of Law in Canada, and it affects every one of us.
Quick Recap
When | This Friday, June 12, 2026 |
Doors | 7:00 p.m. |
Film | 7:30 p.m. – ~9:00 p.m. |
Where | Westview Baptist Church, 1000 Wonderland Rd S, London, ON |
Cost | $20 online / $25 cash at the door |
Online tickets still available: Purchase Here
Bring a friend, bring two. Friday night, good film, important subject — hard to beat that. See you there.
CCAL
Next CCAL Potluck – Saturday, June 20th (Mark Your Calendars!)
èCCAL
A few people have been asking — so here is your reminder. The next CCAL potluck is locked in.
When: Saturday, June 20th Time: 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM (hard stop at 9:30 — see below) Where: Lynn's place
What's happening:
· Pool and hot tub open — bring towels and swim gear
· BBQ fired up — if you want to throw something on the grill, it'll be hot and ready
· Campfire — we'll get it going if someone brings logs for the fire
· BYOB — bring whatever you're drinking
· Bring a lawn chair — this is an outdoor gathering, and it'll save us hauling the folding chairs up from the basement
No smoking: Reminder — even though we're outside, there is no smoking of any kind on the premises. Please respect this.
Cover: $5 per adult, kids under 16 free. This just helps cover some of the costs of running these monthly potlucks — appreciate everyone chipping in. The can for chipping in will be at the patio table.
Entrance: Assuming the weather cooperates (and it should), please don't come through the front of the house. Use the side gate to the right of the garage.
9:30 PM Hard Stop: Lynn needs the house cleaned and wrapped before 10:00 PM, so we're asking everyone to pitch in on cleanup — that includes folding up tables and putting things back in order — and be out the door/gate by 9:30 sharp. Thanks in advance for cooperating on this one — it's how we keep these things happening.
Bring a dish to share, something to drink, a lawn chair, some firewood if you've got it, and your pool floaties. See you there.
CCAL
TRUMP:
Vance sends Minnesota fraud evidence to DOJ, seeks criminal probe of Walz and Ellison
èJD-Vance
By
Vice President JD Vance referred congressional evidence of massive welfare fraud in Minnesota, and alleged inaction by Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. Vance announced the move late Monday in a social media post on X, hours before the House Oversight Committee released a final report detailing what it described as a years-long cover-up that cost taxpayers more than $9 billion.
The referral lands the two most prominent Democrats in Minnesota state government squarely in the crosshairs of DOJ's new Fraud Division. Both Walz and Ellison have denied wrongdoing, but the Oversight Committee's conclusions, drawn from testimony, documents, and whistleblower accounts, paint a picture of officials who knew about rampant fraud as early as spring 2019 and chose to look the other way.
The question now is whether federal prosecutors will act. Chairman James Comer told Just the News on Monday evening that he believed lawmakers had uncovered evidence of criminality in the cover-up and that DOJ could present the committee's findings to a grand jury.
What the Oversight Committee found
The committee's final report lays out a damning sequence. At the center sits Feeding Our Future, a nonprofit that the federal government determined stole at least $300 million from USDA child nutrition programs. But the Oversight Committee's broader investigation concluded the rot extended far beyond one organization. An estimated $9 billion has been lost to fraud from high-risk Medicaid programs in Minnesota since 2018, the report stated.
The report's central charge is blunt: Walz and Ellison knew about widespread fraud in federal programs administered by the state "much earlier than they admitted."
Minnesota state agencies had clear authority to suspend or stop payments to providers suspected of fraud. They did not need direction from courts, law enforcement, or the federal government. They could have turned off the spigot at any time. They didn't.
Why not? The committee concluded that state officials feared political consequences. The report stated that Minnesota "could have stopped the flow of money to fraudsters at any time but chose not to for fear of political retribution from the politically active Somali community, which also wields power within social services provider networks." Concerns about litigation and accusations of discrimination, not legal barriers, were cited as reasons for continuing payments to suspected fraudsters.
Whistleblowers silenced, not heard
Perhaps the most troubling section of the committee's findings deals with what happened to state employees who tried to sound the alarm. The report concluded that instead of acting on internal warnings, Walz's administration retaliated against the people raising them.
The committee described a pattern of intimidation: "going to great lengths to keep them quiet, including intimidation through regular check-ins with high-level agency officials and threats of military surveillance." Senior state officials, the report stated, prioritized managing political and media fallout over addressing known fraud vulnerabilities.
Comer was direct in his assessment of what that retaliation means legally. He told Just the News:
"I think that Governor Waltz and Attorney General Ellison should be held accountable. I think that they've violated the laws. I think they've, you know, violated the whistleblower protection laws."
When asked about a criminal referral, Comer's answer was three words: "I'm all for that."
The Feeding Our Future fraud case has already produced federal convictions and lengthy prison sentences. But the Oversight Committee's work pushes the accountability question upstream, to the elected officials who oversaw the state agencies that kept writing checks.
Vance draws the line
Vance framed the referral in unmistakable terms. In his post on X, the vice president wrote:
"I've referred these allegations to DOJ's new Fraud Division for criminal investigation. Minnesota state officials are not above the law, and if they facilitated fraud, lied under oath about what they knew, or harassed and intimidated whistleblowers, they must face justice."
The referral went to DOJ's new Fraud Division, a unit that signals the administration's intent to treat large-scale public-benefits fraud as a priority enforcement area. Whether the division opens a formal investigation, convenes a grand jury, or declines the referral remains to be seen. Neither Walz nor Ellison has been charged with any crime.
But the political damage is already deep. The fraud allegations sank Walz's 2026 re-election bid, and Minnesota Republicans have repeatedly rejected his attempts to recast himself as tough on fraud. The timeline the Oversight Committee assembled, knowledge in spring 2019, continued payments, whistleblower retaliation, and belated public acknowledgment, leaves little room for the governor to claim he was out of the loop.
Walz at one point attempted to take credit for law enforcement action against the fraud networks. Federal officials pushed back on that characterization.
The $9 billion question
The scale of the alleged fraud is staggering even by Washington standards. More than $9 billion in estimated losses from welfare fraud scams in a single state. At least $300 million confirmed stolen from federal child nutrition programs alone. And state agencies that had every tool they needed to intervene but, by the committee's account, chose political self-preservation over taxpayer protection.
The committee found that state officials continued directing taxpayer dollars to Feeding Our Future and other high-risk entities even after identifying serious program deficiencies. That is not an oversight gap. That is a choice, and the Oversight Committee is now asking DOJ to determine whether it was a criminal one.
Ellison, for his part, has denied wrongdoing. But the attorney general's office is the very entity that should have been prosecuting fraud at the state level. The committee's conclusion that he knew about the problem as early as 2019 and failed to act raises an obvious question: if the state's top law enforcement officer won't pursue fraud, who will?
The answer, apparently, is Congress and the federal government.
What comes next
Several open questions remain. The specific evidence Congress gathered and transmitted to DOJ has not been made public in detail. It is unclear whether DOJ has formally accepted or opened an investigation. No specific whistleblowers have been publicly identified in connection with the retaliation claims, and the report's reference to "threats of military surveillance" against state employees has not been fully explained.
Walz and Ellison have not issued detailed public responses to the committee's final report. Their blanket denials of wrongdoing remain on the record, but the committee's document trail, testimony, internal communications, and program records, presents a counter-narrative that federal prosecutors will now have the opportunity to test.
The broader pattern around Walz's tenure continues to draw scrutiny on multiple fronts, including controversial clemency decisions that have raised questions about his judgment on criminal justice matters.
Nine billion dollars didn't vanish because nobody noticed. It vanished because the people in charge decided noticing was too politically expensive. Now someone else gets to decide whether that calculation was also illegal.
The AMERICAN Almanac
THE DAN BONGINO SHOW
Ep. 2531 - I’m Sorry I Have To Do This
èBONGINO
In this episode, I directly address the latest attacks against me from Tucker Carlson and others. Plus, Trump teaches the media a lesson they won't forget, and breaking election news. Find the video podcast of The Dan Bongino Show exclusively on Rumble at https://Rumble.com/bongino
Spencer Pratt’s Chances Collapse After Suspicious Mail-In Ballot Drops Boost Far-Left Democrat https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2026/06/08/spencer-pratts-chances-of-making-the-la-mayoral-runoff-might-have-collapsed-n2677390
Bombshell Report: Tim Walz, Keith Ellison Knew About Fraud for Years — But Refused to Stop It https://justthenews.com/accountability/waste-fraud-and-abuse/mon4ablind-eye-house-report-slams-minnesotas-walz-ellison
New SPLC Indictment Is Probably Just the Tip of the Iceberg https://thefederalist.com/2026/06/05/the-new-splc-indictment-is-probably-also-just-the-tip-of-the-iceberg/ Watch me, LIVE, on Rumble. Mon-Fri at 10am.www.rumble.com/bongino/
The Dan Bongino Show
Judicial Watch:
FBI Records Reveal Witness Account that SWAT Officer Recovered ‘Remote Device’ from Butler Shooter’s Pocket
èJUDICIAL
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it forced the release of 48 heavily redacted pages from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit that indicate that a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officer at the July 2024 presidential rally for Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, recovered a “gray remote device” with an antenna from would-be assassin Thomas Crooks’ pocket after he was killed.*
The records also show that a medic with the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit told the FBI that she was on the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building examining Crooks’s body when she was informed that a police canine had “hit” on the building and she was told to evacuate the roof where Crooks’s body remained.
Judicial Watch filed the July 2025 lawsuit after the FBI failed to respond to a July 2024 FOIA request for all records related to Crooks and the assassination attempt on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. The request included investigative files, interview summaries, reports, communications, media, and database records, as well as any FBI communications—across all formats—between FBI personnel, sources, contractors, or assets and Crooks himself (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:25-cv-02216)).
In a July 17, 2024, FD-302 interview summary a Beaver County Emergency Services Unit (ESU) first responder told the FBI that she observed a SWAT officer recover a remote device and a cell phone from Crooks’ pocket. The first responder also states that she was called to the roof of the American Glass Research (AGR) building where she examined Crooks and pronounced him deceased:
[Redacted] confirmed she was present at the Butler County fairgrounds for the Trump rally. Her responsibilities included providing medical backup for the ESU [Emergency Services Unit] team or any police response. She arrived at the fairgrounds at 9:00am and was positioned at the spectator screening area.
[Redacted] reported that the Beaver County ESU [Emergency Services Unit] team were provided two Butler County radios to monitor two different channels during the event, one was patrol. Beaver County ESU [Emergency Services Unit] commander [redacted] was notified to move, so the team prepared to move. During that time, [redacted] advised that the team was also aware of reporting from their sniper element of a questionable subject in the area that could not be located.
[Redacted] was in the Beaver County ESU [Emergency Services Unit] vehicle, a Bearcat, with rest of team. The vehicle, driven by [redacted] initially stopped at the command post and moved towards the first victim. The bearcat was moved between the victim and crowd. The Butler County medic, named [redacted] was first to victim. [Redacted] reported there were three health care providers with the victim, so [redacted] did not move to provide support. She then looked for others that may need medical assistance.
[Redacted] did not have access to Butler County radios and only had access to a Beaver County radio. She did not remember who told her, but there were reports for medical assistance needed at the AGR [American Glass Research] facility. She coordinated with [redacted] to request operator support to travel from stage area to the facility. She traveled with [redacted] and [redacted]. The went through a small space between a fence that separated the fairgrounds and AGR [American Glass Research] facility. She was advised that there may have been multiple operators down, a potential shootout and that the shooter was down. She encountered a uniformed officer and was told that support was needed on the roof. She utilized a black collapsible ladder to get onto the roof of the AGR [American Glass Research ] facility.
At 1823 [6:23 p.m.] [redacted] arrived on roof and did not see any officers down. She was told by others on the roof to evaluate the shooter. She observed that the shooter had injuries not sustainable for life. She checked the shooters pulse on the carotid on the right side and did not find one. She pronounced him dead at 1825 [6:25 p.m.].
[Redacted] observed the shooter laying prone, face-down and handcuffed with flex-cuffs. The rifle was off to the shooters left. There were medical supplies near the shooter, but it did not belong to her. There were two Butler County SWAT officers, one Washington County SWAT officer and a uniformed Butler County officer on the roof with her. The Washington County SWAT officer checked the shooter’s right pocket and discovered a gray remote device with numerical push buttons and an antenna and a cell phone.
[Redacted] recalls that EOD [explosive ordnance disposal] showed up on the roof to look the gray remote device. She remembers being told that a canine hit on the building beneath them and were told to evacuate the roof. The shooters body remained on the roof.
[Redacted] does not know when the shooter’s body was moved from the roof. She was provided a body bag by Butler County EMS and later provided this bag to an individual from FBI or US Secret Service. She does not recall which agency.
[Redacted] does not recall the time she left the scene, but it was after 1:00am on July 14, 2024. She participated in a debrief with the Butler County ESU team on July 15, 2024.
[Redacted] did not attend the operations briefing at 0900. She believed that Butler County coordinated with Allegheny Health Network to have a physician on site and a medical tent on site. She does not know who was in charge of the medical response for the event.
“Our federal lawsuit continues to force the release of new information from the assassination attempt at the Butler rally,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The American people deserve full transparency about Thomas Crooks, his contacts, and why key details about this case remain hidden nearly a year later.”
*(The initial version of this release, published June 5, stated that the heavily redacted records showed email communications between Thomas Crooks and a Butler County Sheriff’s Office deputy. After further review of additional information that had been hidden by the FBI, Judicial Watch has updated the press release accordingly.)
In May 2026, Judicial Watch received, in response to a court order, an audio recording of a 911 call placed by the father of Thomas Crooks, who is alleged to have attempted to assassinate then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump at approximately 6:11 p.m. during a campaign rally in Butler, PA, on July 13, 2024.
In February 2026, a separate Judicial Watch lawsuit forced the release of the first FBI records about the Butler assassination attempt, revealing that law enforcement personnel broadcast radio warnings about an “unknown male acting suspiciously” prior to the shooting.
In April 2026, Judicial Watch sued U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for records related to an August 31, 2025, incident in which a club member allegedly carried a loaded semi-automatic handgun past Secret Service screening checkpoints at Trump National Golf Club in Virginia while President Donald Trump was on site.
In April 2026, Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit forced the release of records from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) that show that Crooks was reportedly involved in an altercation with a group of people and making “hateful comments” directed at President Trump at the Butler, PA.
In December 2025, Judicial Watch sued the U.S. Secret Service for communications records related to Code Pink protesters who disrupted a dinner held by President Trump at a restaurant in Washington, DC, on September 9, 2025 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-04408)).
In September 2025, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit for messages among top leaders of the FBI referencing social media posts of Special A gent Jeffrey Veltri, head of the Miami Field Office, which is investigating the September 15 assassination attempt against Donald Trump (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-02740)).
In March 2025, Judicial Watch sued the Homeland Security for records related to security provided for the July 13, 2024, rally in Butler, PA (Judicial Watch Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:25-cv-00704)).
In August 2024, Judicial Watch uncovered documents from the district attorney’s office in Butler County, PA, detailing the extensive preparation of local police for the rally at which former President Trump was shot. The preparation included sniper teams, counter assault teams and a quick response force.
In August 2024, in response to a separate open records request, Judicial Watch obtained bodycam footage of the July 13 assassination events from the Butler Township Police Department.
In August 2024, following up on reports that the Biden Secret Service denied Trump’s requests for additional Secret Service protection, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA lawsuit for Secret Service and other records regarding potential increased protective services to Trump’s security detail prior to the attempt on his life at his July 13 campaign rally (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:24-cv-02495)).
GLOBAL:
Former Oregon Sen. Bob Packwood, who resigned amid sexual harassment probe, dead at 93
èBOB
By
Former U.S. Sen. Bob Packwood of Oregon, a Republican who spent 27 years in the Senate before resigning in disgrace over sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, died Saturday at age 93. His family announced his death in an obituary sent to media outlets. No cause of death was disclosed.
Packwood’s career traced a particular arc familiar in Washington: a long record of legislative achievement, followed by a spectacular fall driven by personal misconduct that no amount of policy accomplishment could erase. He was once a powerful figure on the Senate Finance Committee, a champion of sweeping tax reform, and a moderate Republican who broke with his own party on social issues. None of it mattered in the end.
More than two dozen women, former employees and acquaintances, accused Packwood of making unwanted or uninvited sexual advances. The allegations surfaced publicly just two weeks after his 1992 reelection, when The Washington Post printed accounts from accusers. By 1993, the Senate Ethics Committee had launched a formal investigation. By September 1995, Packwood was gone from the chamber he had entered as a 36-year-old upstart in 1968.
A career built on independence, and undone by misconduct
Packwood won his first Senate race by narrowly defeating Democratic Sen. Wayne L. Morse, who had held the seat for 23 years. The great-grandson of a member of the 1857 Oregon Constitutional Convention, Packwood carved out a reputation as a Republican willing to fight his own party. He publicly accused President Ronald Reagan of alienating women, African Americans, and Jews, a move that prompted the White House to back a primary competitor against him.
He earned praise from groups like Planned Parenthood for his advocacy of abortion rights, an unusual position for a Republican then and now. He played a lead role in the sweeping 1986 tax reform that lowered the top income tax bracket and eliminated many itemized deductions. By 1980, he had risen to chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee and even briefly considered a presidential run.
In a December 1992 interview with the Associated Press, Packwood described his approach to politics in terms that captured his self-image as a maverick. Asked about the various labels applied to him, liberal, moderate, conservative, he said:
“I think they probably all ring true. I would like to think that I am nobody’s lackey. I try to reach conclusions independently and then I’m willing to fight for those conclusions; if necessary, having to fight against my party or my party’s president.”
That independence won him admirers across the aisle. But it did not insulate him from the consequences of his own conduct.
The ethics investigation and the diary fight
The Senate Ethics Committee investigation that began in 1993 went beyond the sexual harassment allegations. Investigators also examined whether Packwood had solicited jobs from lobbyists for his ex-wife, used Senate staff to threaten accusers into silence, and obstructed the probe by altering his personal diaries.
The diaries became the central battleground. The Ethics Committee subpoenaed them. Packwood refused to comply. The Senate held two days of debate over the subpoena in 1993, then voted 94, 6 to enforce it, an overwhelming, bipartisan rebuke.
Packwood took the fight to federal courts and lost. He then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intercede. Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused. The diaries were turned over. The scandal deepened. Packwood’s story is hardly the only case of a senator’s career ending in an ethics investigation; former Michigan Sen. Donald Riegle, who survived the Keating Five scandal, died last year at 88 after his own legacy was permanently marked by institutional misconduct.
Packwood resigned in September 1995 before the Ethics Committee could complete its work and the full Senate could vote on expulsion. Democrat Ron Wyden won the special election to replace him in 1996.
Wyden’s blunt assessment
Wyden, who still holds the seat Packwood vacated three decades ago, issued a statement that offered no diplomatic softening. As the Washington Times reported, Wyden said:
“His horrible history as documented in his own diaries will forever overshadow that public record. Simply put, historians’ first line about Bob Packwood must include those women who he abused and assaulted for years and years.”
It is a harsh epitaph from a successor. But it reflects a bipartisan consensus that formed in real time, 94 senators, including the vast majority of Packwood’s own Republican colleagues, voted to force him to hand over the diaries that documented his conduct.
The Packwood case helped set the template for how Congress handles allegations of sexual misconduct against its own members, a pattern that has repeated itself in various forms over the decades. The question of how the Ethics Committee handles misconduct allegations remains a live issue in the current Congress.
Life after the Senate
Packwood did not retreat into obscurity. In 1997, he launched Sunrise Research Corp., a lobbying firm based in Washington. By 1999, the firm was grossing $1.5 million a year. As late as 2010, Packwood told a City Club of Portland audience that he was still spending about half his time in Washington lobbying for clients.
He acknowledged the lobbying life had its limits. “It is not as much fun as being in the Senate,” he told the audience.
In a November 2002 interview with the Salem Statesman Journal, Packwood suggested he had moved past the scandal that forced him from office. His words carried a studied matter-of-factness:
“People have told me it must have been tough on me, or it seems unfair. But you cannot go through the rest of life and say look what happened. Pretty soon you become a bore to your friends.”
He added: “I told myself I was not old enough to retire, so I have got to get at life and not complain about it.”
That Packwood could land on his feet, building a seven-figure lobbying practice within two years of leaving the Senate under a cloud, says something about Washington’s revolving door. A senator forced out over misconduct allegations from more than two dozen women simply walked across K Street and kept working the levers of power. The pattern is not unique to Packwood. Lawmakers who leave office under pressure, whether over sexual harassment payouts funded by taxpayers or other forms of disgrace, often find that Washington has a short memory and a long payroll.
The record and the reckoning
In his 2010 City Club speech, Packwood advocated a centrist approach and called for Oregon to create nonpartisan elections. It was the kind of good-government pitch that might have earned him a respectful hearing in another life. But Packwood’s public legacy was already fixed.
His wife, Elaine Franklin, a former chief of staff and political consultant in Portland, shared homes with Packwood in the Portland area and Washington. The family obituary offered no details beyond the announcement of his death.
Packwood’s case is worth remembering not for its partisan implications, both parties voted overwhelmingly to hold him accountable, but for what it revealed about how long misconduct can persist inside institutions that pride themselves on self-governance. More than two dozen accusers came forward. The conduct stretched over years. The Senate acted only after a newspaper forced the issue. The ethics process, once engaged, was fought at every level by the accused, from committee hearing to the Supreme Court. Accountability came, but it came slowly, and only under enormous public pressure. Similar dynamics continue to play out; just recently, a longtime House member faced an ethics probe over alleged unwanted advances toward young interns.
Bob Packwood served 27 years in the United States Senate. He shaped tax policy, broke with his party, and built a record that, in a different world, might have earned him an honored place in Oregon political history. Instead, his name became a cautionary tale, proof that no legislative accomplishment outweighs a pattern of personal misconduct when the record finally catches up.
Institutions that cannot police their own members in real time will eventually be forced to do it in public, under pressure, and at great cost to their credibility. That lesson outlives any senator.
The AMERICAN Almanac
Images | Strait of Hormuz Bypass proposed by Dubai architecture firm
èIRAN
Architecture firm Znera has produced digital renders for a proposed “strategic waterway” linking the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman (Image: Znera)
The article focuses on a large-scale vision rather than an approved construction project. Znera's concept imagines a new strategic waterway running across the United Arab Emirates that could reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz while creating new transportation, trade, and urban development opportunities.According to the article, the firm argues that such a project could improve trade resilience and economic diversification. The proposal was presented through digital renderings, and the article notes that no cost estimate was provided.
èIRAN-Ahttps://www.constructionbriefing.com/news/images-strait-of-hormuz-bypass-proposed-by-dubai-architecture-firm/8119659.article?utm_source=chatgpt.com&zephr_sso_ott=SImb20
Dubai-based architecture practice Znera has proposed the construction of a “strategic waterway” that would bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
The Strait is currently closed by both Iran and the US following conflict between the two countries, dramatically curtailing the passage of ships carrying oil, gas, and petrochemicals and pushing up energy prices worldwide.
In response, Znera has released a series of digital renders to illustrate a plan for what it calls the ‘Strait of Union’.
The new “strategic waterway” would connect the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, running across the Musandam Peninsula.
Znera said, “Beyond infrastructure it is conceived as a national spine – enabling trade resilience, economic diversification, and the creation of new urban systems. In an increasingly complex global landscape, the question is no longer about growth, but about control, continuity, and long-term positioning.”
èIRAN-1
A map showing the route the proposed waterway could take (Image: Znera)
It’s not clear how long the waterway would be but it appears from a map published by Znera that it could be in the region of 90km. The cost of construction would likely run into billions of US dollars.
èIRAN-2
The expansion of the Panama Canal, which involved the additional of a third set of locks and a new traffic lane, started in 2007 and completed in 2016 cost US$5.2 billion. The New Suez Canal, a 72km waterway that involved 35km of dry digging and 37km of expansion to provide a second shipping lane alongside the existing 164km-long Suez Canal was completed in 2015 and cost around $4.2 billion.
Daniel Brooks
WARNING – WARNING – WARNING
Trump: U.S. must ‘Respond’ against Iran
èTRUMP-Retaliate
THE CATCH-UP
BULLETIN: President Donald Trump today vowed to “respond” to the downing of an American Army Apache helicopter gunship near the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, which he blamed on Iran. He said the two crew members who were involved in the incident are safe and unharmed. “Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social at 12:34 p.m.
It was not immediately clear what the U.S. response would actually entail, but any military action could imperil the already shaky ceasefire.
Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf also rattled the saber in an ominous post on X: “We prefer the language of diplomacy, but we speak other languages far more fluently. Break your commitments, and we'll switch to what we speak best,” Ghalibaf wrote. “You ride the horse youTrump’s fresh warning came about 12 hours after he told reporters that the White House and Tehran could reach a deal to end the conflict “in two or three days,” adding that the Strait of Hormuz would “open up immediately upon signing,” per POLITICO’s Ferdinand Knapp. Keep in mind Trump has been saying the war could be over soon at nearly every stage of the conflict, which began more than 100 days ago. saddled!”
èTRUMP-RETALIATE-1
President Donald Trump told reporters that the U.S. and Iran were close to a deal early Tuesday morning following a Knicks game in New York City. | Samuel Corum/Getty Images
ON THE HILL: House Republicans could pass a hard-fought party-line immigration funding package as soon as tonight — but GOP lawmakers on the Hill are far from catching a break.
First, there’s the Bill Pulte situation. Trump’s housing chief, whom he tapped last week to lead the country’s 18 spy agencies and organizations despite having no apparent intelligence experience, has caused a hiccup in the Senate’s reauthorization of FISA’s Section 702, for which Democrats are withholding their votes as long as Pulte remains in the role.
Speaker Mike Johnson is headed to the White House this afternoon to speak with Trump about FISA, which expires Friday without a reauthorization. He said it was likely Pulte would “come up” during that meeting, per POLITICO’s Meredith Lee Hill, as some GOP senators nudge Trump to change course. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters today Trump is “weighing seriously” naming a permanent nominee — and he hopes Trump makes an announcement soon, POLITICO’s Jordain Carney reports.
In a closed-door meeting today, Johnson told his caucus the FISA extension fight would go on until Thursday at least, Meredith reports. That’s the day members are supposed to fly out — but that could be in danger. “If we don’t do FISA, we don’t go home,” Johnson told Republicans, according to NOTUS’ Reese Gorman.
Then there’s the decision over whether to pursue yet another reconciliation bill ahead of the midterms. House GOP leaders have been meeting with factions across the conference about what they might support, and the Republican Study Committee convened a meeting last night with congressional scorekeepers to discuss a third reconciliation package.
But Republicans are casting serious doubt on a path forward.
“I think it's safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill,” Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the top military appropriator, said during a budget hearing today.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top GOP appropriator, said she agreed “with that assessment.”
Good Tuesday afternoon. This is Irie Sentner. Get in touch.
A message from Meta:
America’s Workforce Academy: Paid training, a job and a path to America's future.America’s Workforce Academy, built by Meta, will give hundreds of thousands of Americans the skills to build our country's AI future.The program offers paid training in electrical, plumbing, fiber installation and many other trades, with a job upon completion. No experience necessary. No degree required. No cost to the participant.Because the future is for everyone.
5 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW
1. WHEN MOORE EQUALS LESS: Trump administration officials, GOP lawmakers, lobbyists and industry officials are jockeying for Rep. Riley Moore (R-W.Va.), a freshman in the House, to be the next Labor secretary, according to nearly 20 people with knowledge of the effort, Jordain and Meredith report. Tapping Moore would further whittle down Republicans’ already razor-thin House majority. Moore declined to comment, but some sources say he has privately expressed interest in the job. White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said “when there is an announcement on a permanent nomination, it will be made by the President directly.”
2. BACK TO MINNESOTA: VP JD Vance is intensifying his anti-fraud campaign that’s targeted mostly Democratic-led states, pressing federal prosecutors to probe Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and AG Keith Ellison over allegations they failed to stop social services fraud in the state, per AP. It’s not clear which federal laws they could have broken, and the DOJ didn’t immediately respond to questions from the AP about if it would launch an investigation.
3. PEAK PARTISANSHIP: Two-thirds of respondents to a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week who belong to a political party said they sometimes vote for a candidate they don’t like in order to keep the opposite party from winning. More than three quarters of respondents said they “often have to pick the lesser of two evils when voting,” including 83 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats.
Getting specific: “In a nationwide poll, just 17% of Democrats familiar with [Maine Democratic candidate Graham] Platner said his tattoo of a Nazi-style skull-and-crossbones would stop them from voting for him if they could vote in Maine’s election. The same share of Republicans nationwide said they would refrain from voting for Texas Attorney General [Ken] Paxton, who was indicted a decade ago on charges of defrauding investors, if they could vote in the state's Senate election in November.”
Watch Season 1 of On the Road with Jonathan Martin
From South Philly to Baltimore, Chicago, Augusta and San Francisco, Jonathan Martin hits the road for candid conversations with key political players where they call home. Catch up on Season 1 featuring Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, JB Pritzker, Brian Kemp, Gavin Newsom and more on American politics, the road to 2026 and what’s next. Watch Season 1 now.
4. FADE TO RED: Democrats have lost voters in 27 of 28 battleground House districts since November 2024 — a total of more than 275,000 registered voters, or an average of 10,000 voters per district, according to the results of a NRCC analysis shared with NOTUS. All but one of those districts (Colorado’s 3rd) are still considered competitive by the Cook Political Report, and the analysis doesn’t include some key districts Cook considers toss-ups, including California’s 22nd and Michigan’s 7th.
What Dems are doing: Democratic super PAC American Bridge plans to spend a record of about $50 million in ads targeting Republicans in 14 House races and four Senate races, mostly in Republican strongholds, per NYT.
5. FOR YOUR RADAR: “Gates Said to Have Hired Ex-Oversight Chief to Advise on Epstein Testimony,” by NYT’s Annie Karni: “The former chief investigations counsel for the House Oversight Committee has been helping to prepare Bill Gates, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, to testify privately in the panel’s Jeffrey Epstein investigation on Wednesday … In preparing for the deposition, Mr. Gates has turned to Jake Greenberg, who until December was spearheading the oversight panel’s Epstein inquiry in his role as the committee’s top investigative official. … The arrangement, while not uncommon, raised eyebrows among government ethics experts who said it could create questionable optics.”
TALK OF THE TOWN
PLAYBOOK HISTORY SECTION — “From tennis to T-ball, the White House’s South Lawn is no stranger to sports. But not like the UFC,” by AP’s Will Weissert: “The White House and its storied South Lawn are no strangers to sporting events. But they’ve never seen anything like the UFC bout President Donald Trump is hosting to celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday or the eight-sided, wire-mesh cage complete with an open overhead dome featuring large screens that are surrounded by thousands of arena seats.”
EXPECT DELAYS — D.C.’s primaries for mayor, delegate and city council are one week from today, when voters in the District will elect their first new mayor in a dozen years and their first new delegate to Congress since 1990. But don’t expect those results to come in quickly: D.C. election officials are warning that the races might not be decided for at least five days after polls close. One reason is due to ranked-choice voting, which is being used for the first time since D.C. voters approved the practice November 2024 and will take more time than the traditional method. It’s also because about two-thirds of D.C. voters vote by mail — and a significant number of those ballots aren’t received until Election Day or after. More from NOTUS
SPOTTED: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) watching last night’s NBA Finals game between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs at Sports & Social with her D.C. staff.
OUT AND ABOUT — Shakespeare Theatre Company’s annual “Will on the Hill” event last night featured speakers Angela Lee Gieras, Mike Evans, Carol Danko and Karishma Page. SPOTTED: Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Reps. Gabe Amo (D-R.I.), Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.), Sean Casten (D-Ill.), Laurel Lee (R-Fla.), Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) and James Walkinshaw (D-Va.), Carolyn Maloney, Jim Moran, Elizabeth MacDonough, Phil Mendelson, Christina Henderson, Charles Allen, Wendell Felder, Marla Allard, Olivia Beavers, Maureen Dowd, Rich Edson, James Hohmann, Mara Liasson, Jon Beal, Renea Brown, Felicia Curry, Bess Kaye and Faith Lee.
POLITICO MOVES — POLITICO has added Georgena Mierow and Jackson Barton as associate producers for the social-video team. Mierow previously was most recently a producer for The Hill. Barton previously led social video efforts for Bloomberg Opinion and worked at WaPo. Rachel Ishikawa, an experienced audio producer, is joining to oversee the Playbook DC podcast.
TRANSITIONS — Zach Brown is joining RYE Digital Strategies as senior director of accounts. He previously worked in California Republican politics, including for James Gallagher, Jim Nielsen, Doug LaMalfa and Josh Hoover. … Alexis Sargent is now a speechwriter for Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.). She is an alum of SKDK's executive comms team, Boston Globe Opinion and WaPo. …
… Anna McCleaf is now director of federal agency relations for Penn State University. She previously worked in Rep. Robert Aderholt’s (R-Ala.) office. … Riva Sciuto is now head of external affairs at Kalshi. She previously spent 11 years at Google and YouTube.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD — John Howes, principal of Magis LGA, LLC, and a Marcy Kaptur alum, and Domantė Howes, executive director of the Kazickas Family Foundation, recently welcomed daughter Klara Howes. Mom and baby are both doing well, and Klara is proudly both American and Lithuanian.
Editor
Garrett Ross.
Patrick Bestall’s INPUT:
èPATRICK
#1.
Economic Stats Revised (not good)
Since Lockdowns, a 12% GDP Loss; Half of US Dollar Purchasing Power Stolen
By
Many of us have had the intuition that the economic damage from 2020 – including industrial stoppages, monetary printing, supply-chain disruptions, extended school closures, and general population demoralization – was in fact far greater than official statistics indicate.
What follows will shore up this intuition, using new techniques and numbers from an innovative project called RealityIndex.co.
It’s true that official data is bad enough, showing a 26% loss in purchasing power, slow growth in output, and only marginal improvements in real income. The labor participation rate and worker/population ratio never fully recovered and continue to fall.
èFRED
Output has been lackluster. It’s supposedly running 2.3% which is about half the postwar norm for US economic performance. It feels like a general downshift. Official data shows a brief recession in 2020 followed by gradual economic recovery overall.
But is this even true? In 2024, Brownstone Institute commissioned a study (by E.J. Antoni and Peter St. Onge) that concluded that we have never really entered recovery after 2022. We’ve been in a technical recession since that time. They got this with some limited adjustments of price data bumped up against output data. That study was met with brutal attacks, with every critic falling back on official data and doubting the supposed extremism of the conclusion.
That’s where matters have stood even as reports pour in concerning broken labor markets, no raises for 1 in 4 professional-class workers, and sketchy Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data that seems barely above zero thanks mainly to medical-sector subsidies, government spending, and social services. Then there are the learning losses showing dramatic declines in test scores among affected students.
We are left with real questions. How can consumer sentiment be at historic lows given that the overall data seems to raise no loud alarms?
èFRED-1
In the meantime, Artificial Intelligence has come along to make these complicated calculations possible, ones that seek to discern and delineate the huge gaps between official data and reality. The goal is to come up with real data concerning real prices, sans the many different methods that the Department of Labor uses to adjust price changes.
For example, housing prices are not measured directly but rather converted to owners’ equivalent rent (OER). Medical service prices are adjusted for consumption, not premiums or final bills. When consumers substitute one good for another, that is also factored in. When the quality of a good or service improves, the statisticians apply what they called hedonic adjustments, which are invariably designed to minimize price increases and never run the other direction.
Where does this leave those of us who are looking for a plain index of prices? A veil has been put over that basic question and answer, such that we don’t know for sure. This matters tremendously for issues like raises, examining cost of living increases, taxes, and pension payments. Everything is adjusted for inflation to convert it to real valuations but if we don’t have a clear number, what are we to do?
This is why we should be thrilled about a new study/service called the Reality Index. You are free to browse the site yourself and examine every aspect of the method. Essentially, the site owner, an independent intellectual in Madrid, Tom Elliott, has deployed tools of AI to wholly reconstruct price indices in a way that is consistent with actual prices. His results are absolutely eye-popping. I’ve examined the method here in detail and found no fault.
The Wall Street Journal has also taken notice. This is good news and raises the possibility that we can finally get to the truth.
The core of the problem is a constantly changing methodology in official data. The formula was changed eight times over 35 years. All the changes seem technical and vaguely justifiable, once explained. Adding them all up, you get wild distortions in the data that the index is supposed to reveal. All these changes came home to roost in the great inflation of 2021-2024, which might be entering a second wave right now.
In 1983, owners’ equivalent rent replaced basic housing prices. The new formula was based on an estimate of what homeowners would have to pay to rent their own homes. But in real life, people pay mortgages, property taxes, and home prices. When home prices and mortgage rates rise faster than rents, the new formula understates the housing inflation real households face.
In 1996, the Boskin Commission announced that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was overstated because people substitute higher-priced goods for lower-priced goods which are too slow in being calculated. The agency made the correction to eliminate the bias in the fixed basket of goods. The problem is that every single adjustment ended up forcing the reported rate to be less than a plain addition of the same goods over time.
In 1998, there was a new fashion for hedonic adjustments. This stemmed from an observation that quality is always improving, especially in digital goods and computer functioning. The idea is that you might be paying the same or even more but you are getting more bang for your buck with quality shifts. You guessed it: hedonic adjustments drew the inflation rate lower. Notably, hedonic adjustments never run the other way, raising prices when quality decreases.
In 1999, a geometric mean formula replaced arithmetic mean for most CPI components. This was intended to capture substitution effects. This was the change that ended up disguising the increase in medical service costs. By looking at consumed services rather than actual prices, the inflation rate in this sector ended up burying inflationary trends. This highly technical adjustment completely ignored all the ways in which substitution is a behavioral adaptation to inflation, not a reduction in the inflation experienced.
In 2002, we got a continuation of this same method with new “chained CPI” which changes the basket weighting based on new purchasing patterns. Sure, if people buy less beef and more chicken, the household will experience inflation in a different way. But this ignores the manner in which the substitutions themselves are a response to higher prices. In 2017, the new calculation was applied to taxes causing people to pay more than they otherwise would have under the old method.
In 2018, the hedonic adjustment strategy was expanded to a huge new range of products including smartphones, residential telephone services, internet services, and cable and satellite television. In 2020, at the same time the composition of M1 was changed and not retrospectively applied such that the data is essentially useless. Following money supply data became more difficult. Then in 2024, the Bureau of Labor Statistics stopped looking at the actual cost of medical services and started only looking at claims, completing the consumption-only bias against actual posted prices. In 2025, a month went by with no data collection at all.
So what happens when we strip all this away and examine actual prices as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, without all the many adjustments? We find that a basket of goods and services that cost $100 in 1980 costs $515 per the Reality Index in 2025. The official CPI reports only $391.
That means that real prices have run 32% higher over 45 years than the government reports. Over a 55-year window, the Reality Index ran 54.4% faster than CPI.
To put it another way, consider the loss of purchasing power since 1980. According to the CPI, the loss has been to make $1 in 1980 worth only 26 cents. According to the Reality Index, the loss is greater: $1 in 1980 is now worth only 19 cents. By any standard, that is a shocking devaluation. All of this became much worse starting with lockdowns.
èFRED-2
There is much more work to do with this method. The charts could be interactive. They can also be set for real-time updates. They will be if Elliott continues to develop this. He should. There might even be commercial value in this.
Think about the implications. Isolating from the beginning of the Covid period to the present, Elliott’s data estimates as much as a 40% loss in purchasing power over six years. Or perhaps closer to 50%. Here is a zoom in of the above chart covering 2019 to the present.
èFRED-3
This seems correct to me. Government data, meanwhile, logs only a 26% loss. That’s a massive gap between the official data and what prices actually reveal. With an AI re-rendering that tracks purchasing power – the flipside of the increase of prices – we get numbers closer to 50%. That means that Covid cut the value of the dollar in terms of goods and services to half its former value.
èFRED-4
I asked AI to map this out in terms of year-over-year changes in prices. CPI shows a peak in 2022 followed by a decline in the rate of increase. Reality Index shows that the devaluation actually intensified and never fell below 6%. This explains so much about consumer sentiment and political shifts. People feel it even if official data never revealed it. This kind of chart forces a re-thinking of the history of the last six years.
èFRED-5
There are still larger implications. We measure national output with the Gross Domestic Product, a national income statistic used since the 1930s. For output data, it would make no sense to report it in nominal terms without factoring in inflation. As a result, the GDP is usually reported in real terms, with an inflation adjustment that is continually compounded on an annual basis.
Elliott’s own data – which is shocking enough – did not go into the implications for GDP. But I was able to use a simple AI tool to make those adjustments, adding the corrected price index as the deflator metric.
The result is rather astounding. The recession of 2020 never really ended in a sustained way. Charted by hard numbers and then by percent change, you gain a very different picture of present levels of output. It causes one to completely rethink the last six years.
èFRED-6
èFRED-7
The official definition of recession is two quarters of declining real GDP. In revised data, we’ve had consistently negative GDP in all but three quarters since summer of 2022. In those three quarters, output barely rose above zero. Mostly real GDP has been falling, a recession without end.
Overall, Grok AI estimates a loss of 5-12% of GDP from 2019 to present using Reality Index numbers. Sorry but read that again. Instead of any recovery, we’ve seen as much as double-digit declines in GDP overall since 2020. This is the cumulative loss spread out over six years.
That’s roughly half of the losses of the full period of the Great Depression, which was more catastrophic than people know. Most research from the 1930s, for example by George Selgin, shows that this was not a normal business cycle but a structural hit tracing to the very coercive measures designed to fix the problem. Price controls and market disruptions made a bad situation far worse. This is precisely the sort of hit that should worry us the most.
The lockdowns were a similar situation: a massive exogenous shock to commerce, accompanied by a huge devaluation of the currency. It amounted to a gigantic transfer of wealth to elites, the largest in history, followed by a destruction of wealth of the middle and lower classes.
At least during the Great Depression, people knew it was happening. It was officially documented. Our times are different. We have heard nothing for six years except happy talk about economic recovery. Based on real data, the opposite has happened, most tracing to the disastrous lockdowns of 2020.
The beauty of this data is that it is subject to replication. Anyone can look at the methodology and disagree. Be my guest. From what I can see, the actual picture is far closer to the reality that most people are experiencing.
In other words, that only one in four workers has had a nominal raise in five years barely scratches the surface. The reality could be that we’ve lost as much as 12% of national output since the lockdown era, along with a halving of the currency value. It’s somehow worse that we are only now able to document this.
Also, I would like to see his methods applied to my own concern over effective household income per hour of work. We keep hearing that household income is rising in real terms without considering that it generally takes two incomes to provide what one once did. It won’t do to pretend that two incomes in a single household is double the income when one person has been drafted into the workforce to sustain living standards.
Adding that consideration in here, and the dramatic change in household remuneration between 1950 and 1990, would be very revealing. After all, only 1 in 5 households (with children under 18) had two income streams in 1950 where it is 3 in 5 today. That is effectively a diminution of wages per household hour and not an increase in income. Add that consideration and you would generate a chart of declining living standards in the decades before lockdowns delivered the final coup de grâce.
And that is where we are today. Households are scrambling to keep the bills paid while juggling children and domestic life while running from job to job to keep the flow going as best they can. Meanwhile, they money they earn has less buying power than ever. It’s no wonder consumer sentiment is rock bottom.
It is long past time for this technical work to be done. What Tom Elliott has provided is what index numbers should provide: clean and stable comparisons of the same or similar products over time, no adjustments, refinements, and manipulations. Run those numbers against conventional output numbers and you produce a very different picture of economic performance since 2020.
We’ve lived so long with distorted statistics. It fascinates me that the person who finally did it is an independent data expert in Spain rather than an employed academic in the US. That itself is revealing.
The big picture is that the lockdowns, not only nationally but globally, were far more catastrophic for us economically than has been generally admitted or recognized. It is not unusual in the history of economics for the really bad news to emerge years and even decades after an exogenous shock such as war.
We would rather not wait that long. The crisis is too real and the public knows, even if the official data does not admit the truth.
Lockdowns were a kind of war on the population. The economic carnage might have sliced off half of the purchasing power of the dollar and cut output by as much as 12% over six years (in real terms, leaving aside missed counterfactual growth on the previous trajectory), even as labor participation never recovered and continues to fall.
Did Covid kick off a kind of permanent recession? How many decades must pass before we admit what happened? More precisely, how much longer will it take before the public mind recognizes what they did to us?
Join the conversation:
Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International LicenseFor reprints, please set the canonical link back to the original Brownstone Institute Article and Author.
Author
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Jeffrey Tucker is Founder, Author, and President at Brownstone Institute. He is also Senior Economics Columnist for Epoch Times, author of 10 books, including Life After Lockdown, and many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press. He speaks widely on topics of economics, technology, social philosophy, and culture.
By Maryanne Demasi / June 4, 2026
Unless this system is forced into the open, selective reporting will continue to be standard practice in even the most prestigious journals. And the public will keep receiving a polished marketing story instead of the…
Unsurprisingly, a recent paper from members of SAGO concluded: “We did not find evidence to suggest that SARS CoV2 (sic) resulting from experimental manipulation was more likely scenario than it emerging from recombination events.”
By Meryl Nass
If Congress adopts sweeping federal preemption in this area, it will not merely reshape meat markets; it will establish a precedent that states may no longer meaningfully govern the terms under which food is produced…
BROWNSTANE INSTITUTE
.PB
#2.
RUMOUR:
RUMOURS Circulating out there...:
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The world keeps spinning, and now you’re caught up.
Right On Schedule, Fake News Pushing Recession, One Problem The Economy Is Getting Stronger
Streamed on: Jun 9, 4:45 pm EDT
[CB] and fake news are right on schedule. They are now pushing that we are in an affordability crisis and that we are headed into a recession. This will boomerang on them big time, the oil shock will disappear and items will become affordable. The steel industry is coming back to the US and the economy is strengthening.
èTRUMP-F
Trump Shutdown The [DS] Money & The World Is Being Set Free, Power Is Gone, Deal Incoming
Streamed on: Jun 9, 5:15 pm EDT
The [DS] used the people’s money to fund their system world wide, Trump has now shutdown the middleman and the money is no longer flowing to NGO and countries where they install their leaders. The world is being set free and they installed leaders are being pushed out. Their power is gone. Trump is making a deal with Iran and every step of the way he gets what he wants by getting more leverage. Deal incoming.
èTRUMP-P
============
George Orwell’s 1984 Meets Scripture
èTRUMP-1984
“1984” Meets ScriptureThe central battle in both Scripture & George Orwell’s “1984” is not first over territory, institutions, money, or weapons.
It is over language.
Because language shapes thought.Thought shapes identity.Identity shapes behavior.Behavior shapes destiny.
That is why Scripture places extraordinary emphasis on speech, and why Orwell devoted so much of his work to the corruption of language.
The Tongue: Civilization’s Smallest WeaponThe Bible declares: “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.” – Proverbs 18:21
The verse is often reduced to personal encouragement or negativity.
The actual implication is far larger.
Speech creates culturesSpeech creates lawsSpeech creates contractsSpeech creates nationsSpeech creates warsSpeech creates peace
Human beings are fundamentally word-governed creatures.
The first recorded creative act in Scripture is speech:“And God said…”
Creation itself begins with the spoken Word.
Orwell understood that tyranny begins the same way.
Not with tanks.
With words.
Corrupt Language, Corrupt RealityOrwell wrote: “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
In Nineteen Eighty-Four, Newspeak was not designed merely to censor speech.
It was designed to eliminate the ability to think certain thoughts.
Remove the word.
Eventually remove the concept.
Eventually remove the possibility.
This mirrors an eternal principle:
Language is the operating system of consciousness.
When words lose meaning:truth becomes opinionjustice becomes preferencerights become permissionsliberty becomes compliancemorality becomes consensus
The tongue can give life through truth.
The tongue can bring death through deception.
Every civilization ultimately becomes a reflection of its vocabulary.
Destroy the Past, Control the FutureOrwell wrote: “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”
Scripture states: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” – Hosea 4:6
Knowledge requires memory.
Memory requires truth.
A people disconnected from their history become vulnerable to manipulation because they lose their reference points.
When historical truth disappears:lies become plausibletyranny appears normaldependency appears necessaryslavery appears voluntary
The person who forgets where they came from becomes easier to tell where they are going.
The nation that hates its past eventually surrenders its future.
Fear Creates Self-SurveillanceOrwell observed: “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.”
The brilliance of Orwell’s insight is that external surveillance eventually becomes unnecessary.
People begin policing themselves.
Fear becomes internalized.
The prison moves inside the mind.
Contrast this with Scripture’s most repeated teachings:
“Fear not.” – appearing 365 times in various forms throughout Scripture.
The message is unmistakable:
Fear is one of humanity’s oldest control mechanisms.
Fear causes:silenceconformityhesitationself-censorshipsurrender of agency
Faith restores agency.Fear transfers agency.
Orwell recognized the political version of what Scripture recognized spiritually.
The frightened mind becomes governable.
Emotion Without Principle Becomes ManipulationOrwell wrote: “The rage that one felt was an abstract, undirected emotion which could be switched from one object to another.”
This may be one of the most relevant observations in modern society.
Emotion is powerful.Emotion is not truth.
Emotion becomes dangerous when disconnected from enduring laws & principles.
A population governed primarily by outrage can be redirected endlessly.
Yesterday’s villain becomes today’s hero.
Today’s hero becomes tomorrow’s villain.
The target changes.
The emotional mechanism remains.
Scripture repeatedly points humanity toward wisdom, discernment, self-control, and sound judgment.
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
The statement is intentionally irrational.
That is the point.
When objective truth is abandoned, contradictions can coexist indefinitely.
This is Orwell’s warning against moral relativism.
If there is no fixed standard:power becomes truthauthority becomes moralitypreference becomes law
The result is not equality.
The result is hierarchy disguised as equality.
Scripture reaches the opposite conclusion.
There is one standard above all men.
One lawgiver above all rulers.
One truth independent of popularity, power, wealth, institutions, or governments.
Without an absolute reference point, language eventually collapses into contradiction.
Orwell’s Greatest InsightMany believe Orwell predicted the future.
A stronger interpretation is that Orwell recognized permanent patterns of human nature.
The mechanisms change.The technology changes.The slogans change.
The psychology does not.
His warning was never primarily about governments.
It was about what happens when human beings surrender truth for comfort, principles for emotions, memory for propaganda, courage for fear, and language for manipulation.
That is why Orwell remains relevant.
And that is why Proverbs remains relevant.
Both point to the same battlefield:The human mind.
The tongue gives life when it aligns with truth.
The tongue brings death when it separates from truth.
The deepest question Orwell leaves us with is not whether tyranny exists.
It is whether we still possess the discernment to recognize it when it first appears in our own speech.
Because before a civilization loses its freedom, it usually loses its words.
The END
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