conflict
Col. Douglas Macgregor: US is ‘facing disaster’ as it funds overseas wars while bankrupt

From LifeSiteNews
By Frank Wright
“We have a government that consists of 525 lobbyists – and that’s why we have the policies we have.”
Following the news that the U.S. Congress has finally approved $95 billion in “aid” to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan, retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor has returned to ask the difficult question – why is the U.S. funding wars when it is bankrupt?
In an April 21 video interview with U.K. member of Parliament George Galloway, Macgregor gave a blunt and shocking answer.
“We have a government that consists of 525 lobbyists – and that’s why we have the policies we have.”
His full remarks open the video with a searing assessment of the level of corruption in the United States government:
I would currently say that we have a government that consists of 525 lobbyists as opposed to representatives – people who are all busy lobbying for money with which they can line their pockets. Now some of them are just ignorant … some are destructive … but all of them, I’m afraid, with very few exceptions, are bought men.
The U.S. is facing disaster, says Macgregor. With the national debt at over $34 trillion, and the total U.S. debt including households and corporations at almost $100 trillion, the economic situation is just one dimension of the disaster of debt and corruption he says has financed the capture of the political system.
His startling description of a blackmailed captive political class would account for why such an indebted nation is so keen to hand over so much money to fund foreign wars. After six months of wrangling, the House voted to approve $95 billion in lethal and non-lethal aid. $60 billion goes to Ukraine, $26 billion to Israel, and the rest is allotted to future flashpoint Taiwan.
With Macgregor and others saying there is no public support for these measures, how is this level of spending possible?
Washington, D.C. ‘a large Epstein Island’
“Friends of mine inside Washington [D.C.] now refer to Washington as a large Epstein Island,” continued Macgregor, as if introducing a tasteless joke. Yet the punchline was that he was deadly serious.
Epstein Island, as you know, is the place where people were set up with underage girls, and it looks like enough of them have been involved in it that they’re all they’re all blackmailed.
Macgregor notes he is not the only one to reach this conclusion:
That was Tucker Carlson’s most recent allegation – that people on the Hill who lead sadly bizarre lives are blackmailed.
Macgregor is referring to this April 3 interview between Tucker Carlson and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, in which Carlson asks why Speaker Mike Johnson seems “completely disconnected from what we want.” The video below shows a brief excerpt from the interview.
Carlson observed the striking difference between Mike Johnson’s principles and his actions:
Mike Johnson has made a complete departure of who he is and what he stands for – and to the point where people are literally asking, ‘Is he blackmailed?’
Carlson also noted that “70 percent of Americans … and the majority of Republicans do not support funding Ukraine.”
Macgregor’s Epstein Island thesis may explain the mystifying personality change in Mike Johnson. Macgregor went on to conclude:
If that’s the case [the elected representatives] could be compelled to vote in whatever direction the very wealthy and powerful oligarchs in the United States [desire].
We are used to hearing “mogul,” “scion,” or even “philanthropist” to describe the billionaires in the West with state-level influence. This is the reason for Macgregor’s use of the term “oligarch” – usually reserved for the same class of people in enemy nations.
I say oligarch because someone who’s a billionaire hedge fund manager can just as easily buy policy outcomes as an oligarch in Russia or Ukraine.
Macgregor sees this sponsorship of politics as the root of the crisis in America.
I think that’s our biggest problem. The only way that it will end is with some form of financial collapse – which many of us think is going to happen.
Macgregor points out that the vaunted GDP – the Gross Domestic Product by which the size and health of the economy is measured – “is an illusion.”
“We are currently living on income that is close to 50% of government income,” he said, pointing out that the U.S. is living not only on borrowed money, but also on borrowed time.
“This can’t go on forever. We just don’t know when it’s going to happen but something is going to come along and tip us over,” he warned. “When that happens there will be an opportunity to clean house and hopefully start over – and put an end to this unnecessary overseas empire.”
The domestic crisis is largely ignored, said Macgregor, by a political elite which “acts as if it is still 1991.”
This crisis, which includes that on the U.S. border, and a breakdown in law and order so severe that Elon Musk called for crime to be made illegal again, is one which sees no explanation at all as to why actions are taken to make everything worse.
Time to make crime illegal again
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2024
As Carlson pointed out, no one in power ever really explains why they are taking these decisions, as their policies fuel an expanding global and domestic catastrophe.
Since Joe Biden became president, the U.S. government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars fighting an undeclared war against Russia.
No one in all of that time has explained really the purpose of this war, why it would benefit the United States or the world.
Yet the war in Ukraine is not the only one being funded. The genocide in Gaza simply could not continue without a constant supply of U.S. arms – and money. Carlson added that “ethnic and religious” reasons play a part, but that even these fall short of a convincing reason.
Clearly, at least some policy makers are motivated by ethnic and religious hatred. That’s probably part of the real reason. But officially, no one has told us why we are doing this.
Ukraine war – and NATO – lost?
Regardless of the dark motives for the wars, Macgregor considers the one in Ukraine lost, and the money will make no difference to Russia’s post-war plans. He thinks this defeat will break the NATO alliance, with the Europeans breaking away to forge a different future.
I think even the Europeans, who were even more misguided and utterly confused than much of the American population, are going to realize that there’s no future in this relationship between us and them.
He says the European allies will see “that they too have to save themselves – that they’ll have to chart a new destiny for themselves. So I think that’ll be the end of NATO.”
With a dissolving military alliance abroad, Macgregor turned to the question of Israel. Why has the Biden administration changed its initial tune of “unconditional support” for Benjamin Netanyahu?
Until recently it was unconditional support for Israel. I think the reality has begun to set in with some of the senior people behind the scenes that are instructing Biden and controlling the Congress, that there’s a very real potential for a major war that would draw in Russia and China – and other countries – and could frankly destroy Israel and fatally harm us.
So now I think there’s a sense of helplessness, and that helplessness leads to pleas for cooperation with Mr. Netanyahu.
Macgregor warns that though it is “a good thing” that Netanyahu “did not get his war with Iran,” he counsels that this “doesn’t end the probability of a future war with Iran,” as Netanyahu “continues to enjoy unconditional support [from the U.S. government] for this program of mass expulsion and murder in Gaza.”
‘You’ve got to save yourselves’
With politics controlled by a “donor class” that effectively dictates spending, Macgregor warns against the desperate belief in some national savior.
“I’m one of these people that really dislikes the notion that any one candidate is going to rescue us,” he said, addressing the idea that some “Napoleon” may emerge to save America.
I keep telling people: stop talking about Donald Trump or RFK Jr. or anybody else saving us.
You’ve got to save yourselves.
He thinks this message is getting through – “but we’ve got a long way to go”. Most Americans are “too busy trying to put food on the table,” he adds, with others sadly taking in “the usual nonsense from the mainstream media.”
He thinks perhaps a third of Americans have awoken to the gravity of the situation:
Right now perhaps a third fully understand what’s happening in the country and the dangers abroad- but that’s about it.
Macgregor, a retired US Army colonel, makes an impressive summary of nuclear capabilities in the Middle East, mentioning the widely held assessment of Iran as a “threshold” nation. His appraisal is that the dangers of war are misunderstood, or even ignored, by a political management that is out of its depth and disconnected from contemporary reality.
Speaking of President Biden, he said “we’re dealing with someone now who is eminently incapable of coping with the reality of what you and I have been discussing,” before going on to note that those behind the president are less incapacitated, but deluded.
However, there are others behind Biden who are not total fools. They … are simply amateurs.
He says their assessment is of a reality that no longer exists – and whose God-given rights and way of life their policies are destroying.
They’ve been playing at everything as though America is still what it was in 1991: they are ignoring the open borders which they have deliberately created to dilute our population and essentially erase the American culture and national identity.
Macgregor says they are responsible for the chaos inside what were America’s borders.
They are the ones who are releasing criminals onto the street by destroying the justice system. They’ve ruined the armed forces in terms of morale and capability – it’s at an all-time low.
This toxic combination makes for a bleak prognosis from the retired colonel.
So you add that to the equation and the only thing I can see ahead for the United States right now is total disaster.
Yet Macgregor does not simply pronounce doom. He is trying to mobilize Americans in defense of their nation under God.
Macgregor is the CEO of Our Country, Our Choice – an organization which stresses the centrality of God, family, and country to the American success story whose passing he laments in detail.
Its founder, RJ, describes himself as a “devoted Christian” appalled at the theft of liberties under lockdown and shocked into action by the chaos flowing from the Biden administration.
“We’re driven by an unwavering commitment to protect what matters most: our faith, our loved ones, and the land we call home,” says the founding father-of-four, describing why he created OCOC in 2021 himself. “As I witnessed America’s trajectory under the Biden administration, it became increasingly chaotic and disheartening.”
He tells how he was moved to do so:
I reached a breaking point, realizing that the responsibility of reclaiming our country and defeating the deep state ultimately rests with us, the American people. No one else will step up. So, I made a bold decision, risking everything I had, and founded Our Country Our Choice.
His message to the American people is that they can take back their country and their politics from a class determined to destroy them.
It is one which Macgregor is determined to spread. There is hope amidst this desolation, says Macgregor, who believes that it lies with the American people themselves, and the defense of their God-given rights.
conflict
How Iran Could Shake Up Global Economy In Response To US Strikes

From the Daily Caller News Foundation
By Audrey Streb
Iran is reportedly weighing blocking a key commercial choke point known as the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could drive up energy costs in the U.S. and across the globe, according to energy sector experts who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Israel began to bombard Iran to eliminate the Islamic Republic’s ability to build a nuclear weapon on June 13, and the U.S. carried out “Operation Midnight Hammer” on Saturday night, bombing three of Iran’s nuclear facilities. While Iran’s parliament has reportedly voted to close the Strait of Hormuz in a retaliatory move to choke the world’s oil supply in response to the American strikes, the U.S. is well-positioned to combat the inevitable energy cost spike that would follow if Iran succeeds, sector experts told the DCNF.
“The escalating conflict between Iran and Israel is already putting upward pressure on oil and natural gas prices—and that pressure will intensify if the Strait of Hormuz is blocked,” Trisha Curtis, an economist at the American Energy Institute, told the DCNF. “This kind of disruption would send global prices higher and tighten supply chains. Fortunately, the U.S. is well-positioned to respond — our domestic production strength and growing export infrastructure make American oil and natural gas increasingly indispensable to global markets.”
Iran does not have the legal authority to halt traffic through the strait, meaning it would need to usurp control through force or the threat of force, according to legal scholars and multiple reports. The Iranian parliament’s reported move to block the Strait on Sunday awaits final approval by Iran’s Supreme Council, according to Iran’s Press TV.
The Strait is only 35 to 60 miles wide and connects the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, flowing past Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. The thoroughfare is vital for global trade, as tankers carried one fifth of the world’s oil supply through the Strait of Hormuz in 2024 and the first quarter of 2025, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Roughly 20 million barrels of oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz on a daily basis, Curtis noted. Some liquified natural gas (LNG) exports would also be blocked if the Strait of Hormuz were closed, she said.
Iran has reportedly been warning that it could close the strait for weeks, with one Iranian lawmaker and a member of the parliament’s National Security Committee presidium both quoted as saying that Iran could respond to enemy attacks by disturbing the West’s oil supply. Maritime agencies and the U.K. Navy have advised ships to avoid the Strait in recent weeks, given the potential threat.
Other energy experts pointed to how the Russia-Ukraine war led to a worldwide spike in energy costs.
“Energy markets do not like war — they particularly do not like war in the Middle East,” Marc Morano, author and the head of Climate Depot told the DCNF. Morano noted that the impact of the war did not immediately spike energy costs in the U.S. and abroad, though further escalation could spike them — especially Iran moving to block the Strait. “Even rumors of a blockade could instill fear into energy markets and drive prices up,” Morano said.
Despite the threat of shipping through the Strait of Hormuz being blocked, the U.S. has some cushion, given that it is a net exporter of oil and gas, according to energy sector experts.
President Donald Trump has promoted a pro-energy-growth agenda that paves the way for domestic oil and gas expansion, which positions the U.S. to withstand intense conflict escalations or even the closure of the Strait, energy sector experts told the DCNF.
Such a blockage would make US oil and gas exports more important. It underscores the importance of Trump’s agenda — to open Alaska and other areas to energy production, to speed up infrastructure permitting, and to increase exports to our allies,” director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment Diana Furchtgott-Roth told the DCNF.
Though the U.S. still imports oil from some nations in the Middle East, including those that use the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. has the capacity to become the dominant oil producer, energy sector experts told the DCNF.
If Iran were to close the Strait it would amount to “economic suicide” as the nation’s economy is reliant on Hormuz, both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in interviews on Sunday.
James Taylor, president of the Heartland Institute, told the DCNF that any disruption in the oil markets would lead to price increases, which only highlights the need for pro-energy policies domestically.
“It is very important for American policymakers to support rather than impede American oil production because America, as a dominant energy producer, will be largely immune to such political crises,” Taylor said. “In fact, if America is a dominant oil producer and Iran takes steps to shock the oil markets, America would benefit and Iran’s nefarious plan would backfire.”
conflict
Americans abroad told to stay alert as Iran threatens retaliation

Quick Hit:
The State Department over the weekend warned Americans abroad to “exercise increased caution” in the aftermath of U.S. military strikes that destroyed three major Iranian nuclear facilities.
Key Details:
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In a worldwide security alert, the State Department warned U.S. citizens to remain vigilant abroad due to the fallout from the strikes, which targeted Iran’s Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear facilities.
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“There is the potential for demonstrations against U.S. citizens and interests abroad,” the alert stated, noting that the Israel-Iran conflict has already caused airspace closures and travel interruptions across the Middle East.
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Iran’s U.N. Ambassador accused the U.S. of “destroying diplomacy” and warned that Iran’s military would determine a “proportionate response.” President Trump, in turn, vowed that any retaliation from Iran would be met with overwhelming force.
Diving Deeper:
The U.S. State Department issued a global security alert late Saturday, urging Americans overseas to exercise heightened awareness and caution following a major military operation that struck three of Iran’s most critical nuclear enrichment sites. The warning follows a surge in tensions between Iran and Israel, which have increasingly drawn in the United States.
“The conflict between Israel and Iran has resulted in disruptions to travel and periodic closure of airspace across the Middle East,” the State Department said. “There is the potential for demonstrations against U.S. citizens and interests abroad.”
The warning came just hours after President Donald Trump confirmed that the United States had launched what he called “massive precision strikes” on the Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz nuclear sites in Iran. “Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success,” Trump declared. “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.”
The operation marks one of the most significant escalations in U.S.-Iran relations in recent years. Trump had been tight-lipped in the lead-up to the strikes, telling reporters beforehand that “nobody” knew what he planned regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
In response, Tehran condemned the attacks. Speaking before an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani claimed the U.S. had “decided to destroy diplomacy” and warned that a military response was imminent.
Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reportedly traveled to Moscow on Sunday to meet with Russian officials, a sign that Tehran may be seeking support from its key strategic partner as it formulates its next move.
President Trump made clear on social media that the United States would not tolerate further aggression from Tehran. “ANY RETALIATION BY IRAN AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA WILL BE MET WITH FORCE FAR GREATER THAN WHAT WAS WITNESSED TONIGHT,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “THANK YOU! DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.”
With tensions running high and travel in parts of the Middle East already constrained, Americans abroad are being advised to avoid public gatherings, monitor local media, and follow instructions from local U.S. authorities.
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