+ Your Phone Is Draining Your Brain (Even When It’s Off)
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Dear Subscribers,
In the last edition of Five Meme Friday, I broke down how we caught Substack censoring people who posted links to our investigation showing how Fractional Reserve Banking + Federal, State and Local taxes + Social Security underpayments will steal $2.7 MILLION dollars from the median American ($60K annual salary) over a 40 year career + 20 year retirement.
When we published the issue to our Five Meme Friday Substack with 1859 subscribers many of whom are paid subscribers paying Substack to deliver Five Meme Friday, Substack appears to have algorithmically censored the article and simply didn’t send it out.
When we published that issue to our 2800+ subscribers on our Daily News from the Art of Liberty Foundation Wire, Substack censored it again.
They published it out to the Substack website, but they simply didn’t e-mail anyone or publish to the Substack feed. The small number of people who read the article likely stumbled across it from the “home page” of our Substack.
This is known as “Freedom of Speech without Reach.” The organized crime “government” will let you publish something to your/a website BUT they will turn off the ability for that information to be syndicated by Facebook, Reddit, X, Quora, Medium, Instagram, or other “Control of Perception” social media platforms at the same time that CIA-installed influencers like Shawn Ryan (See below) are given world-class sets, producers, social media teams, AND are having their content algorithmically PUMPED up so the average person gets a completely artificial understanding about what is really going on OR how they are having $2.7 MILLION dollars stolen from them by the organized crime “government” and banks.
Most people simply don’t understand the extent to which hard-hitting, investigatory journalism is censored on platforms like Substack, Facebook, X, Reddit, and Medium among others… Because they never see it in the first place. The evidence of “government” illegitimacy and criminality is being censored at the platform level, while the platforms are using algorithmic amplification to pump up division, distraction and controlled opposition voices.
Congrats on finding the REAL
“tip of the spear” in the information war!
This is the veritas… We are exposing the three things that the organized crime banks and “government” don’t want the population to know:
1. 1. “Government” is illegitimate on its face… It is impossible to have a moral, legitimate “government”… It has been the Biggest Scam in History… and has produced the Greatest Theft in all of Human History…
2. 2. Information is being controlled to the public using a monopolization of the media and algorithmic censorship of the DARPA Internet made possible by the TRILLIONS stolen though Fractional Reserve Banking and confiscatory taxation.
3. 3. The “government” in Washington DC (and others) are being run as criminal enterprises with TRILLIONS of dollars going out the back door to identifiable interests.
We are working on a plan to move us off of Substack and make us EXTREMELY censorship resistant. It is going to cost $20,000 to create our own infrastructure and we are one of the few voluntaryist organizations that has the IT capability and know-how to be able to do it. You can review our plan and understand the costs HERE.
We need help… We simply can’t do it without our supporters. Please consider sponsoring the Art of Liberty Foundation here: ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor. We have some amazing perks to say: THANK YOU!
The Truth Music of the week (below) is MK Culture from the Red Pill Friends new album: Same Side. You can find the studio version HERE and support the band by getting the Digital Download on Bandcamp here:
. When the Red Pill Friends stopped to see Julie and I in Memphis on their way to play confluence last week, they signed Five (V) copies of the new CD and Brendan Daniel, circled the chair legs in the pic appropriately! I have two (2) signed copies left for the next two folks who become Sustaining Members of the Art of Liberty Foundation at $500 a year or above! You also get signed copies of both my books and a variety of goodies. See the list here:
In Jason Christoff’s documentary Planet Mind Control he breaks down how Hollywood is subliminally advertising drugs like caffeine and alcohol into their content to weaken the population so they can be effectively tax farmed. In my review of the documentary, Planet Mind Control – Documentary on What Hollywood is Inserting Subliminally into Movies and TV, I break down how they are inserting Statism into movies and tell-a-vision. Here is an example of “ex” CIA podcaster Shawn Ryan doing the exact same thing to his audience. Shawn is one of DOZENS of “ex” CIA and/or intelligence agency operatives being given world-class sets, producers, social media teams, etc. to dominate the REAL battlefield: Control-of-Perception.. Can they trick you into thinking the “government” is legitimate, the military is heroic, and our wars are just. I have an email out to Shawn Ryan’s team with a challenge to debate the legitimacy of “government” and the reality of the military setting their morality aside and agreeing to kill whomever they are told while living on money stolen from others at the point of a gun.
Top Stories of the Week
Boom! United Arab Emirates Exits OPEC
by Patrick Wood, Illustrated by Etienne de la Boetie2
History has just been made. The Petrodollar is dead. Asset tokenization will replace the dollar when pricing oil. The IMEC corridor is rebooted with or without the Strait of Hormuz. All of this at the hands of the UAE, the balance of power in the Middle East has shifted. This validates my new book, The New Economics of Technocracy.
On April 28, 2026, the United Arab Emirates announced its withdrawal from OPEC, effective May 1, ending nearly six decades of membership in the oil cartel that has governed global energy markets since 1960. The announcement was brief. The implications are historic. What the UAE did on that date was not merely resign from an organization. It served formal notice that the architecture of global energy commerce — the petrodollar system that has underwritten American financial hegemony since the Nixon era — is being dismantled and replaced.1
The timing tells the story. The Strait of Hormuz has been under effective Iranian blockade since February 28, 2026, when the United States and Israel launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran and assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Tanker traffic through the Strait dropped approximately 70 percent. Oil prices shattered the $100-per-barrel threshold. The ceasefire negotiations that followed have been a rolling catastrophe — agreements made and immediately broken, tolls demanded, mines in the water, and a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports creating what analysts have called a “dual blockade.” Against this backdrop, the UAE did not wait for resolution. It moved.
The UAE’s exit is not an act of panic. It is the culmination of a decade of deliberate strategic positioning — in infrastructure, in finance, in artificial intelligence, and in the emerging Technocratic architecture I have been documenting for years. Understanding why the UAE wins regardless of how the Hormuz crisis resolves, and why its departure from OPEC accelerates the IMEC corridor project that Trump has called “one of the greatest trade routes in all of history,” requires seeing all the pieces simultaneously.
Videos of the Week
Your Phone Is Draining Your Brain (Even When It’s Off)
Summary
The video explains how we have begun to outsource our mental faculties to smartphones, a phenomenon known as cognitive outsourcing. This trend of delegating tasks that the brain used to perform, such as basic mathematical calculations or spatial navigation, is weakening our natural abilities. For example, studies show that constant GPS use is linked to a decline in spatial memory, as the brain stops making the effort to understand its surroundings. This dependency creates an “illusion of knowledge” where we believe we master a subject simply because we can look it up on Google, when in reality we are only remembering the location of the information and not the data itself.
A surprising finding is that the mere physical presence of a phone, even if it is turned off or face down, drains our intellectual capacity. Research from the University of Texas revealed that the brain subconsciously consumes valuable cognitive resources to ignore the device and avoid the temptation to use it. Those who keep their phones nearby score lower on concentration and memory tests compared to those who leave them in another room. This “brain drain” is constant and manifests even in phantom vibration syndrome, proving that our minds are permanently monitoring the device.
Three Recent Examples Of AI Being Used For Empire Propaganda
by Caitlin Johnstone
In the last few days I’ve seen three separate instances of generative AI being used to promote propaganda for US-Israeli war agendas which are worth paying attention to.
Firstly, an Israel-based company called Generative AI for Good has been creating deepfakes of supposedly real women who say they were sexually assaulted by government forces in Iran.
The Canary reports:
“Government”, Media and Academia
Criminality Exposed
These articles also appears in “Government”, Media and Academia Criminality Exposed, A digest of HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of articles exposing and suggesting inter-generational organized crime’s control of the “Government,” Media and Academia by the Art of Liberty Foundation. You can view the other articles or subscribe on Telegram: https://t.me/Government_Scams
by Victor Reklaitis
President Donald Trump is slated to host another private event for top holders of his meme coin, but the grand functions aren’t sending the $TRUMP digital token to new highs — and the ethical concerns aren’t going away.
Meme coins, a type of cryptocurrency based on internet memes or celebrities, tend to have no economic use but still can be lucrative for insiders and some traders. The Trump meme coin has been a big decliner since its launch in January 2025 just before Inauguration Day, although savvy traders may have made money by selling its short-lived rallies.
The Trump coin TRUMPUSD +2.94% on Thursday was trading down 96% from its intraday record high of $72.62, which came on Jan. 19, 2025. It’s off by 80% from its closing level on May 22, when Trump hosted his first private event for the crypto’s top holders.
Another MAHA “win”: RFK Jr’s son Finn raises $100M capitalizing on daddy’s position of power.
by Sasha Latypova
Are your friends and relatives dying of mRNA-induced turbo cancer? Are they developing very baffling disabling autoimmune conditions? Strokes? Or some raging Alzheimer’s at young age?
Mine are.
Not to worry, the HHS with RFK Jr in charge will ignore these tragic statistics and continue to extend the ironclad liability shield for pharmas and hospitals via the PREP Act declarations for fake emergencies. Don’t call me a blackpiller and a movement divider, there is good news reported by Financial Times – RFK’s son Finn will profit from your dying and disabled family members in a “MAHA-maxxing” way! [MAHAMAXXING is a new term, coined by RFK Jr according to Fox News].
How Trump turned the presidency into an infomercial
by Judd Legum
Before his presidential campaign, George W. Bush sold his stake in the Texas Rangers.
President Jimmy Carter placed his peanut farm in a blind trust.
And President Barack Obama limited his assets to index funds, treasury bonds, and cash to avoid financial conflicts.
by R. Cort Kirkwood
Federal agents executed search warrants at almost two dozen daycare centers in Minnesota suspected of defrauding the taxpayers.
One of the targets was the Quality Learning Center in Minneapolis, which became famous for its misspelled sign, “Quality Learing Center.”
While federal officials have been tight-lipped about the raids, they are likely linked to the Somali daycare fraud uncovered by journalist Nick Shirley, as well as autism, Medicaid, and Covid-19 food fraud.
The Art of Liberty Foundation… in Spanish!
We are adding a new section to Five Meme Friday to promote our new Substack, Telegram group, Instagram, and translations of To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many in Spanish. Please tell your Spanish speaking friends! “Go Paid” on our Spanish Substack to support getting voluntaryist ideas, books, and memes translated into Spanish AND get a free paperback copy of To See the Cage is To Leave It in Latin American Spanish.
Con los bancos empezando a fallar, hay algunas cosas fáciles y específicas que usted puede hacer para fortalecer la capacidad de su comunidad local para sobrevivir a un colapso bancario o a una devaluación del dólar.
Use efectivo físico
¡Por qué deberíamos pagar con efectivo en todos los lugares que podamos con billetes en lugar de una tarjeta de crédito! — Adaptado de la publicación viral en “Fedbook” de Wren Hope Rose
“Daily News of The Week”
A Nursing Home Owner Got a Trump Pardon. The Families of His Patients Got Nothing.
by Jeremy Kohler
Another Trump Pardon: Nursing home operator Joseph Schwartz was convicted of a $39 million fraud, but President Donald Trump pardoned him just three months into a three-year prison term.
A Troubling Pattern: Schwartz is one of several nursing home operators convicted of crimes who were granted clemency by Trump.
Devastated Families: The families of some patients in Schwartz’s nursing homes have been awarded millions of dollars from lawsuits. But they haven’t been able to collect from him.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
Government Policies, Not “Monopolies,” Undermine the Economy
by Frank Shostak• Mises Wire
According to much popular thinking, “monopolies” are seen as undermining individuals’ economic well-being. For instance, monopolies are often blamed for increases in the prices of goods and services, often called inflation. Also, monopolies undermine the efficient functioning of the market economy by their ability to influence the prices and the quantity of goods and services.
According to this thinking, monopolies cause deviations in the market conditions from the ideal state as depicted by the “perfect competition” model. It is held that, to bring the market conditions in line with the “perfect competition” model, the enforcement of the government regulation against monopolies are necessary.
In the world of perfect competition, the following features characterize a market:
There are many buyers and sellers in the market;
Mapped: Where Gas Prices Have Surged Over 100%
by Iswardi Ishak
Gas prices have surged dramatically worldwide, led by Myanmar (+101%).
Southeast Asia dominates the rankings, with 5 of the top 10 largest increases.
Major economies like the U.S. have also seen sharp rises, with prices up 35%.
Fuel price spikes are beginning to push up fertilizer and food costs globally.
The Great Migration of Capital Within the United States
by Martin Armstrong
What we are witnessing across the United States is not just people relocating. It is the migration of income itself, and the numbers now confirm the scale. According to the latest IRS data, California lost $11.9 billion in adjusted gross income in a single year, while New York lost $9.9 billion. At the same time, Florida gained $20.6 billion, Texas gained $5.5 billion, and states like South Carolina and North Carolina each gained roughly $4 billion. This is not theoretical. This is measurable capital movement, and it is accelerating.
The critical point is that the IRS is not tracking opinions or surveys. It is tracking tax returns. These figures represent actual households, actual income, and actual wealth moving from one jurisdiction to another. The data is based on year-to-year address changes on filed tax returns, capturing both the number of households and the total income they take with them. When billions in adjusted gross income leave a state, that is not just population loss. That is a direct hit to the tax base.
SBA Sends 562k Pandemic Loans To Bessent For Collections Totaling $22 Billion
by Tyler Durden
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) has announced a sweeping enforcement action targeting suspected pandemic-era loan fraud, referring more than 562,000 borrowers tied to $22.2 billion in delinquent loans to the U.S. Department of the Treasury for collection, according to the Small Business Association. The move marks the largest referral package in the agency’s history and signals a major escalation in federal efforts to recover funds distributed through COVID-19 relief programs.
The loans in question stem from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and COVID Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) initiatives, which were designed to support small businesses during the pandemic. According to the SBA, these loans had already been flagged for potential fraud in prior years but were not previously sent for collection or investigation.
White House Correspondents’ Dinner Shooter’s Link to NASA and Other Curiosities
by News18, President Trump, James Li, Shaun Ryan, Joe Rogan and ZeroHedge
Cole Thomas Allen, a 31-year-old from California, is suspected of opening fire at officers during the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington DC on April 25, 2026. Allen was armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives. Although there were no injuries, one uniformed division officer was reportedly struck in his bulletproof vest. He has no criminal record. Trump said that Allen was a ‘lone wolf’ shooter.
He is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology in mechanical engineering and has a Master’s degree in Computer Science. He was associated with Caltech’s robotic vehicle design in 2016. He participated in a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which has led to descriptions of him as a “NASA fellow” in some reports. Social media profiles indicate that he is a mechanical engineer, computer scientist, indie game developer, and part-time teacher based in Los Angeles.
Allen contributed $25 to a Democratic Party political action committee in support of Kamala Harris for president in 2024, according to federal campaign finance records.
by Tyler Durden
Late Friday afternoon, as most people were checking out for the weekend after nearly two months of U.S.-Iran war fatigue, Anthropic quietly released a note titled “Project Deal.” The company built a closed marketplace where AI agents negotiated prices, struck deals, and completed real transactions with money changing hands.
“We created a marketplace for employees in our San Francisco office, with one big twist. We tasked Claude with buying, selling and negotiating on our colleagues’ behalf,” Anthropic wrote on X.
The results: Claude agents made 186 deals across more than 500 listed items on a Slack-based marketplace, totaling just over $4,000 in transaction value.
Anthropic’s point is that AI-to-AI commerce offers an early look at the coming agentic economy, where AI bots negotiate with other bots in a marketplace to strike the best deal.
What Iran’s “tanker seizure” can teach us about MSM “reality”.
by Kit Knightly
arlier today, Iranian state media channels published a video of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commandos seizing a container ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
I think we should talk about it. It can teach us a lot.
Just watch it.
Reuters describes it thus…
Interview: The avionics suite designed to let anyone fly a plane
By David Szondy
California-based aerospace company Airhart Aeronautics recently completed test flights of its new cockpit avionics suite for small planes at the company’s Long Beach facility. We sat down with Airhart President Nate Thuli to learn more.
The test flights carried out on April 12, 2026 focused on the company’s Airhart Sling, which is a heavily modified South African Sling TSi that had been gutted and the interior and control systems replaced.
The objective is to create a new avionics suite that could “democratize” flying small private planes by making the controls safer, more intuitive, and much simpler. This would be achieved by making the flying experience less like an airplane and more like an automobile, including replacing mechanical control linkages with fly-by-wire systems, even removing the traditional rudder pedals.
To learn more about the technology behind this, we reached out to Airhart President Nate Thuli, an aerospace executive with extensive experience in defense modernization.
Ballistics & BluePrints: How the ’12-Day War’ Accelerated Israel’s Redevelopment Agenda
by Morgan
June 12 to June 24, 2025, global media staged a nonstop spectacle, breathlessly narrating the scripted “12-day war” between Israel and Iran as if it were an unfolding geopolitical cataclysm.
According to the standard timeline, Israel opened hostilities with “Operation Red Wedding,” targeting Iran’s nuclear facilities and senior IRGC leadership in what officials framed as a preemptive act of self-defence- (because that makes sense).
Iran responded with multiple waves of ballistic missiles, claiming to hit critical infrastructure from Ben Gurion Airport and Tel Aviv to Haifa, Bat Yam, and Beersheba. Death tolls, bizarre rescue footage, and endless maps of “key strikes” fed a rolling sense of crisis.
Al Jazeera’s interactive map catalogued these impact zones in detail. The press described entire neighbourhoods as “devastated,” thousands displaced, infrastructure crippled, and the state teetering on the edge.
Childcare Is Breaking Family Budgets in Every State—and Deepening the Housing Squeeze
by Allaire Conte
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services defines childcare as affordable if it costs 7% or less of a family’s income. Yet, in every single state, the typical family far exceeds that threshold, qualifying them as “cost-burdened” by this essential service.
The timing couldn’t be worse as 1 in 3 homeowners and 1 in 2 renters are currently considered cost-burdened by housing—putting the two biggest and most essential costs of a family budget into direct competition.
“Families with young kids are facing this double whammy,” explains Yuliya Panfil, director of the Future of Land and Housing Program at New America, a think tank. “If they don’t pay for child care, then they can’t work, and if they can’t work, then they can’t pay rent. So it’s this vicious cycle.”
And it’s a dire assessment of the reality families face today. As a shortage of 4.03 million homes collides with a shortage of 4.2 million childcare slots, advocates argue these crises are now inextricably intertwined.
by Simplicius
Let us begin with an update on the position of US carrier groups, as it informs us a bit as to the US’s current posture toward Iran.
We happen to have gotten two new satellite geolocations. First, of the USS Gerald R Ford, which had been taken out of action due to a “laundry fire”, but has now returned to the Red Sea. It was reportedly seen pulling a hard and fast u-turn at geolocation 25.275, 35.964:
Which puts it about here:
Additional Arleigh Burke destroyers nearby, one conducting underway replenishment with a supply ship:
Clavicular’s Rumoured Links to Peter Thiel – and His Definite Ties With an Israeli Crime Figure
Etienne Note: Read my article: Are Jake Paul and Elon Musk Artificially Created “High Status Monkeys” to Steer Perception with Netflix and X?
To understand why the organized crime system creates “high-status monkeys” (Celebrities) to steer the youth into toxic drugs and self-destructive behavior or cultural debasement (Looksmaxxing).
by Anthony Colpo
As I noted in my previous post, Braden Peters, more famously known as “Clavicular”, exploded out of nowhere last year to become one of the world’s most famous influencers. Literally within the space of a month, Peters went from relative unknown to viral social media sensation.
Clavicular’s message was two-fold: 1) Physical appearance is the most important determinant of your happiness and wealth, and 2) the best way to improve your appearance is via “looksmaxxing”, which radically escalates personal grooming to include “bone-smashing”, limb-lengthening surgery, anabolic drugs, hanging weighted bags from your doodle and, perhaps most controversially, crystal meth for appetite suppression and fat loss.
They’re Funny Because They’re True
by Christopher Cook
I’ve had these first two videos gathering dust for a while, so I figure I ought to make a #FreedomShorts post. The third one is newer, but all three are entirely worth it.
This one is so good. It nukes just about every aspect of the West’s “response” to Covid (whatever Covid actually was).
Don’t even get me started on the absurdity and wickedness of “climate change.” Attacking carbon monoxide is one thing. Blaming carbon dioxide for anything is an attack on life itself.
And indeed, that is the point. They are criminalizing your existence—the air you breathe, the food you eat, and the energy you use. And they are stealing billions of dollars from you in the process.
More Curious Facts about the Attempted Shooting that Is the Excuse to Build Trump’s Ballroom
by JImmy Dore and RT
Jimmy Dore did a recap of the curious attempted shooting of President Trump and noted that security was lacking, JD Vance was escorted off the stage first, the alleged shooter was far away from the President and was not a danger, John Hinckley shot President Reagan at the same Hilton hotel in 1981, a chorus of right wing independent reporters and Fox News are calling for the building of the ballroom, and a random Twitter/ X account belonging to Henry Martinez tweeted out the name Cole Allen in 2023.
Recently, a judge shut down the $400 million construction of Trump’s ballroom, saying that Congress must approve it, unless there is a security reason to build it. The shooting threat by Cole Tomas Allen is being used as the security threat justification for building Trump’s ballroom that many have compared to Solomon’s Temple.
This is the first time Trump attended a White House Correspondence Dinner (WHCD).
A TikTok content creator, disciple_derek, said the the ballroom’s architecture looks like Solomon’s Temple. Trump fired McCrery Architects and hired architectural firm Shalom Baranes Associates that is known for synagogue renovations. Trump quoted a Bible passage, 2 Chronicles, chapter 7: 11-22, about the Lord appearing to Solomon after he built the temple, suggesting the ballroom is designed to resemble Solomon’s Temple. The building of Solomon’s Third Temple is part of a religious prophecy.
Ford Biometric Monitoring of Drivers that Tracks Emotions that Can Trigger Kill Switch
by JustDonVlogs and Lifesite News
Ford Motor company has filed multiple patents related to driver monitoring systems that typically use cameras, sensors, and AI to track driver attention, drowsiness/fatigue, distraction and facial expressions. The technology can track facial expressions, analyze emotions, and it is trained to read lips.
Ford patent no. 0104469 “doesn’t just watch you,” it “puts drivers in jail.” This system reportedly measures a driver’s biometric data — face, iris, fingerprints — and runs the collected info through a law enforcement criminal database in real time.
Technology meant to trigger a “kill switch” if a car judges a driver to be drunk might also stop someone imperiled by a threat or extreme emergency from starting their car or truck.
Congressman Thomas Massie, who tried to stop the ‘kill switch’ mandate, said, “Federal law says new cars after 2026 must monitor drivers and shut down if the car disapproves. Your dashboard should not be judge, jury, and executioner.”
This Claude-powered AI agent deleted a company’s whole database — and then gloated about it
by Dan Thorp-Lancaster
More companies are integrating AI agents into their workflows, and it’s beginning to reveal cracks in the rapid pace of AI development. Jer Crane, the founder of PocketOS, a SaaS company whose software is used by car rental companies, recently experienced this firsthand. This past week, a mix of Claude Opus 4.6 and the Cursor coding agent deleted his company’s production database — and its backups — in seconds.
Crane told the story in a lengthy social media post on X, noting that Cursor was performing a routine task when it opted to fix a credential mismatch on its own. In the process, Cursor gained broad access to permissions by finding an API token from PocketOS’s cloud infrastructure provider, Railway. It then decided, without any prompting for input from the PocketOS team, to delete the production database volume. “It took 9 seconds,” Crane said.
To make matters worse, all of PocketOS’s recent backups were also deleted because Railway stores them on the same volume. Crane says the most recent recoverable volume the company had access to was three months old.
As if the actions Cursor took weren’t bad enough, it responded with a rundown of all the safeguards it had ignored when Crane asked why it did it.
by Robert Aro • Mises Institute
The U.S. Government sells debt on a revolving door basis, yet most people aren’t aware of the mechanism by which this is done. Luckily, ZeroHedge covers the debt auction results, which allows us to articulate one of the structural problems in the Federal Reserve system. As reported last week:
The week’s lone coupon auction priced at 1pm when the Treasury sold $13 BN in 20Y paper, in a solid if not stellar auction.
Deciphering the trader talk in the article, the Treasury took on an additional $13 billion in debt that is repayable in 20 years, paying an annual interest rate of 4.883% (approximately $635 million a year).
A 2.68 bid-to-cover ratio means that for every $1 of debt issued, there were $2.68 in bids, suggesting a healthy market appetite. Only so many entities can lend billions of dollars at a time; here are the three who took the auction:
Is Surveillance Pricing Ripping You Off? How to Stop Your Data From Being Used Against you
by Kristina Byas
You may be the victim of surveillance pricing without even knowing it. But what does that even mean?
Surveillance pricing is the increasingly popular practice where some online retailers adjust prices for individuals based on data collected about that person, including browsing history, location, purchase history, and more. They often use third-party intermediaries to adjust those prices.
According to a preliminary report released by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in early 2025, these third-party intermediaries can even track your mouse movements. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about it.1
The FTC found that companies collect personal information about online shoppers and use it to tweak the prices they pay for products.
US national debt is now bigger than the economy for first time since World War II
by Joe Sommerlad
The U.S. national debt is now larger than the economy as a whole, hitting levels not seen since the aftermath of World War II, new data has revealed.
Figures released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis Thursday place the total debt held by the American public at $31.27 trillion as of March 31.
Meanwhile, the country’s nominal gross domestic product was estimated at $31.22 trillion, meaning the national debt as a percentage of GDP stands at 100.2 percent, putting it on course to challenge the historic 106 percent recorded in 1946 during demobilization.
The debt stood at 99.5 percent of GDP at the end of the 2025 fiscal year in September, revealing how quickly it has climbed.
US Economy Expands at 2.0 Percent in 2026 Q1, a Look at the Numbers
by Mike Shedlock
The BEA reports Real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 2.0 percent in the first quarter of 2026 (January, February, and March). In the fourth quarter of 2025, real GDP increased 0.5 percent.
Real First-Quarter GDP and GDI
Real GDP: 2.0%
Real Final Sales: 1.6%
Upcoming Liberty Events
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Memes Bonanza
I break down the REAL story behind Waco in my article: Oklahoma City Bombing 30th Anniversary – Why Did the Gov’t Blow Up a Day Care Center? – Because They Had Been Caught Burning Down a Church and Machine-Gunning 80+ Men, Women and Children A Couple of Years Earlier…
Truth Music of the Week
MK Culture by the Red Pill Friends
From the Red Pill Friends new album: Same Side. You can find the studio version HERE and support the band by getting the Digital Download on Bandcamp here:
. When the Red Pill Friends stopped to see Julie and I in Memphis on their way to play confluence, they signed Five (V) copies of the new CD and Brendan Daniel, circled the chair legs in the pic appropriately! I have two (2) signed copies left for the next two folks who become Sustaining Members of the Art of Liberty Foundation at $500 a year or above! You also get signed copies of both my books and a variety of goodies. See the list here: https://artofliberty.org/sponsorship-program/
libertarian Intentional Community Roundup
libertarian Intentional Community Roundup is where we cover libertarian and voluntaryist intentional communities and free private cities including Prospera (Honduras), The Free State Project (New Hampshire), Liberstad (Norway), Montelibero (Montenegro), Los Propietarios, (Argentina), Liberland (Croatia/Serbia border), Network States in general and Sea Steading (The Oceans). I am also covering secession movements including Greater Idaho, Please send details of any new happenings, projects or projects I am missing!
he Facebook Group: Jeremy Kauffman is a Fed Sent to Destroy the Liberty Movement is up to 145 members this week. I’ll drop a fresh membership count and some content from the group. Here is someone mocking Kauffman’s promotion of “Libertarian Nationalist” Austin Pederson who Kauffman brought up to NH to trick people into easily rigged elections and statism.
The Liberator
Get a NEW 2026 Liberator for “Going Paid” (or upgrading from monthly) as a $50 Yearly Subscriber to This Substack.
We just announced the BRAND NEW 2026 Liberator (Version 2.3), which includes the ePub versions of “Government” – The Biggest Scams in History Exposed! AND To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many, Important books in PDF, truth documentaries, dank liberty memes, and music from the Liberty movement’s hottest artists.
The Liberator is available from ArtOfLiberty.org/Store and Amazon.com.
Individual Liberator are $30 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com
5 Pack Liberators are $65 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com
10 Pack Liberators are $115 – Art of Liberty Store – Amazon.com
Get The Liberator Bundled with:
”Government” in paperback = $45
”Government” in High-Resolution Hardcover = $65
”Government” + To See the Cage in paperback = $60
”Government” + To See the Cage in High-Resolution Hardcover = $100
The Everything Bundle (paperback copies of the best of voluntaryist thought) = $115
How to Support the Art of Liberty Foundation
1. Become an Art of Liberty Foundation Sponsor at ArtOfLiberty.org/Sponsor – The best way to support us is to become a sponsor of the foundation. We have some great perks to say Thank You! including copies of “Government” – The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed!, Liberator Flash Drives, Signed Hard Copies, calls with Etienne, and even the ability to have an Art of Liberty Foundation event with tier one Liberty speakers in your City or Town for your friends, family and neighbors!
2. Go Paid on Substack! – We simply couldn’t do what we do without the support of our sponsors and paid subscribers on Substack! If you are enjoying the Daily News, Important News, or Five Meme Friday on Substack we hope you will consider “Going Paid” on Substack. All it takes is a click and we have some great premiums to say: Thank You! WE ARE NOW BEING HEAVILY CENSORED ON SUBSTACK. See my Subscriber Letter Here.
3. Buy Us a Coffee… Err Juice! at https://ko-fi.com/artofliberty – Support us for as little as $5… We really, really appreciate it! OR Buy Us a Coffee at https://buymeacoffee.com/etienne2 BTW, right now coffee and juice are tied!
4. Get a Pop Up Guerrilla Bookstore and Earn Profit from Distributing Copies of “Government” in Your Town / City – Do you (or a friend) have a retail location? Open up a Pop Up Guerrilla Bookstore and share in the profits. We have everything you need to attractively merchandise “Government” and Liberators in a small footprint. Details here: https://government-scam.com/bookstore
5. Buy Books and Merchandise at ArtOfLiberty.org/store – Our store has become one of the biggest distributors of Voluntaryist and peaceful anarchist titles. Especially popular is our “Everything Bundle” – The Sampler of Liberty!
To See the Cage Is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many is now IN-STOCK and shipping from our distribution center. Order OR get a free teaser copy where you can see a list of all 25 techniques and the Table of Contents at https://SeeTheCage.com/
Thanks for joining us for Five Meme Friday. Please feel free to forward this email to friends and colleagues.
Sincerely,
Etienne de la Boetie2
Executive Director,
The Art of Liberty Foundation
Author of: To See the Cage is to Leave It & “Government” The Biggest Scam in History … Exposed!!