Both liberals and conservatives are convinced that the biggest threat to our freedom and well-being lies with Russia and China. And, well, also the terrorists, Muslims, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, North Koreans, Cubans, Syrians, Vietnamese, communists, Reds, and others. 

They are wrong. The biggest threat to our freedom and well-being is our very own federal government, especially the national-security branch of the federal government.

The Framers clearly understood this. That’s why the Constitution strictly limited the powers of federal officials.

Our American ancestors also clearly understood this. That’s why they demanded the enactment of the Bill of Rights. They knew that the federal government would inevitably attract people who would destroy their fundamental, God-given rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness. With the Bill of Rights, they wanted to make it clear to all those future little federal power-mongers that they lacked the powers to engage in such destruction.

No Russian and no Chinese has ever infringed upon my freedom. The same holds true for all the other things that scare liberals and conservatives to death (i.e, the terrorists, Muslims, illegal immigrants, drug dealers, Cubans, North Koreans, Vietnamese, commies, Reds, Syrians, etc.)

The same can’t be said, of course, for the federal government. It not only has destroyed our freedom, it has also threatened our economic well-being with its out-of-control federal spending and debt as well as its decades of monetary debauchery. Currently, it is getting us perilously close to life-destroying nuclear war, just as it did back in 1962. 

Consider American socialism, which is best manifested by income taxation, Social Security, and Medicare, which are the crown jewels of America’s welfare-state way of life. Operating through the coercive and terrifying apparatus of the IRS, the feds forcibly take money from young people in order to give it to seniors. They say that socialism reflects our collective “care and compassion.” But freedom entails the right to keep everything you earn and decide for yourself what to do with it, with charity being totally voluntary.

Consider the drug war. The feds punish people with criminal prosecution, incarceration, and fines for ingesting unapproved substances. Freedom entails the right to ingest whatever you want to ingest, no matter how harmful. 

Consider embargoes and sanctions. The feds punish Americans who travel to unapproved countries or enter into economic transactions with unapproved people. Freedom entails the right to travel wherever you want, associate with whomever you want, and trade with whomever you want.

Consider the federal government’s socialist system of immigration controls. It has brought a police state to the American Southwest. A police state is the opposite of freedom. Freedom entails the right to cross any political border in search of a better life and to enter into mutually beneficial transactions with others. 

Consider the federal government’s trade wars and trade restrictions. They prohibit Americans from trading with foreigners. Freedom entails the right to trade with whomever you want. 

Consider America’s system of paper money and the Federal Reserve. It has resulted in decades of monetary debauchery that tax people in a fraudulent, surreptitious way. Freedom entails the right to use whatever money you wish to use.

Consider the regulated economy. The minimum wage, for example, has locked countless people out of the labor market, such as black teenagers. Freedom entails the right to enter into any transaction with anyone on any mutually agreeable terms, including wages.

Consider the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA. All three wield omnipotent powers, including torture, indefinite detention, mass secret surveillance, and assassination against both Americans and foreigners. No one living under a system of omnipotent government can ever be considered free.

Consider the federal government’s policy of deadly and destructive foreign interventionism. It has produced an endless supply of people who hate Americans, which the feds use as an excuse for destroying our freedom in the name of keeping us “safe and secure.”

What do Russia and China and all those other scary creatures have to do with all this? They provide a convenient way to divert the attention of the American people away from the real threat to their freedom and well-being. 

Since 2020 it has become clearly apparent to the people of America that our representatives and government at all have no problem limiting our freedoms.

It took mere weeks and a few recommendations from the CDC for State governments to basically shut down a massive slice of the US economy.

Since the death of COVID-19 in America our government has basically swapped that threat out with the threat of climate change to convince us all that we should trade our freedoms for the perceived safety of bureaucracy.

It has become clearer now which freedoms and resources the government is plotting to take away from you by the end of 2023.

Gun

The constant chipping away at our Second Amendment around the country is nothing new. This has an effect. In April Washington become the 10^th state to enact some form of ban on “assault weapons” which included the AR15 in a long list of other semiautomatic rifles. (Source)

The world wants us to give up our guns, the government wants us to give up our guns. Of course, the increase in crime, unsolved murders and criminals being let out on the streets is exactly the opposite way to get law abiding citizens to stop buying guns, participate in gun buy backs, or even give up the right to own certain types of firearms.

Still, they will keep chipping away and by the end of 2023 there will be more states having banned AR15 style rifles and a list of others they deem too dangerous for you to own.

Energy

There is a good chance that I will never forget what happened inside people’s homes in the summer of 2022 in Colorado. 22,000 people were notified by their thermostat that they were experiencing an Energy Emergency and their thermostats could go no lower than 78 degrees. (Source)

Now, in all transparency, these 22,000 customers signed up for this kind of service and were compensated for doing so. Still, it was the first time we saw how quickly and easily our “smart” technology can be controlled and suddenly our sovereignty is gone.

Now, you might be thinking, well that is a one off, and those people were signed up for that kind of limited service and they were being compensated to sweat inside their homes when it is 90 degrees out.

We were not witnessing a one off in Colorado, we were witnessing an introduction. It was a peek into what was coming for us all.

About 1 year later a strange “conspiracy” began circling online about the crazy idea that governments might start banning gas stoves and gas heat in homes.

It got even more crazy as time went on and people were saying that these kinds of appliances would even be banned in areas like Upstate New York where the weather can be very cold and almost all homes depend on natural gas for heat and cooking. Off all the things to ban only a crazy person would jump on that idea, right?

Thankfully, there is a cheap and easy way to build your own stove that operates independently of gas or electricity, providing heat for your home. This offers a practical and sustainable way to reduce your reliance on conventional energy sources.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with being wild and crazy or even protecting people from the harmful fumes that come off gas stoves, apparently. Nope, this is all about control.

Now, I know that 2026 is not the end of 2023 but I want you to understand that the power dynamic has shifted, and you will be subject to their decree on the kinds and quantities of energy you can use going forward.

Food

In schools all across the nation cafeterias are celebrating “no meat” days in an effort “help the planet” or help animals from experiencing pain, or just stretching the budget on cheaper foods to feed your kids.

Your freedom to eat what you want, when you want, is in danger. Inflation in the nation acts both as a means of stressing the budget but it also affects your ability to eat out at restaurants or even afford steak to bring home and prepare.

Too bad leaders like NYC Mayor Eric Adams are not at all concerned about hiding his intentions. His climate & environmental justice office has created a chart to represent the carbon footprint of New York households.

Adams is a plant based diet advocate and diabetic who has made his choices and now he is showing one example of how governments are fully prepared to make your choices for you, too.

Commerce

The most divisive and controlling of all mechanisms is but a whisper now but will soon become a reality and it will affect everyone.

The CBDC or Central Bank Digital Currency is likely the way our government gets out of the financial mess it is in now.

They have already created a digital payment system called FedNow and those in the media are 100% sure we have nothing to worry about.

When it comes to my freedoms, I get really worried when they tell me I have “nothing to worry about” or they say that “will not happen” like the recent plan to ban gas stoves in NYC.

Once a digital currency is established all your choices go out the window. Your sovereignty goes out the door. All of the above rights are tethered to free commerce.

A great measure of gun control is not allowing your CBDC card to work on gun purchases. Maybe you cannot swipe to buy that steak either! This one may not come by the end of 2023, but it will be much further along by the end of the year. Keep an eye on it.

This all falls under one umbrella and that is your freedom of choice. The government is plotting harder than ever to be able to eliminate your perception of choice by the end of 2023. They want you to believe you have a choice and they want you to believe you are simply compelled to make the right choice.

Of course, what is really happening is that the government is eliminating choice and recreating what it means to be a citizen of this nation and of this world. They want to guilt you into following orders and giving up choice and comfort.

The only way you can escape something like this is to get outside of all these systems. Producing your own energy, your own food, enacting a barter system amongst neighbors, and making sure you have the guns and ammo you need to protect it all are the best ways to combat these bad intentions.

There are a few realities I’d like to address before answering the question.

Wiping out an American city, much less the largest ones, requires either blast yields well beyond the capability of any terrorist organisation, or numbers of nuclear weapons that would make the terrorist organisation one of the largest nuclear powers on the planet. This is particularly true of major cities such as Atlanta, Houston, and LA, which are defined by their suburban sprawl.

The US and USSR encountered this problem early in the arms race. They were building larger and larger bombs in their show of force, but these became ever more impractical to deliver if ever called upon – to say nothing of the cost to maintain. They eventually realized that they could achieve the same level of destruction by detonating lots of small weapons in a tight pattern.

Compare one really large bomb on New York City (a B-83, 1.2 megatons [the yielding power is measured in equivalent mass of TNT required], the largest single warhead in the US arsenal)…

Against the close detonation of seven smaller ones (W76s, each 100 kilotons, which can be delivered by a single, sub-launched Trident II missile)…

Whereas the one big bomb definitely does damage, the seven smaller bombs’ overlapping shockwaves will do exponentially more damage across a larger area, thus more completely wiping out the city using 58% of the yield of the one bomb.

This is why while the largest bombs ever tested hit yields in the 10s of megatons (and some weapons were designed with theoretical yields of 100 megatons – 5,000 times more explosive than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima) the majority of weapons currently in the US and Russian nuclear arsenals are in the few hundreds of kilotons. They’re cheaper to maintain, easier to deploy, and can be clustered to create more damage than a single, larger bomb.

The other issue is that in the maps above, the bombs were detonated at their optimal altitudes. Given that a terrorist organisation is unlikely to have ICBMs and nuclear submarines at its disposal, they’re probably looking at a ground delivery, ie, a surface detonation, which requires even larger yields to achieve the same scale of damage as an airburst.

For example, it would take a 3.5 megaton nuclear weapon being detonated at the surface to replicate the damage of the 1.2 megaton airburst depicted in the first image. Neither the US nor USSR ever deployed such a large weapon outside of a test†.

So either the terrorists need twenty extremely large bombs that, frankly, would be impossible to acquire and deploy without someone noticing, or many dozens of smaller ones to detonate simultaneously, making the terrorist organisation on par with nuclear states such as the UK, India, and Pakistan.

Okay, as long as we’re all accepting of these realities, we’ll move on to the hypothetical – with one correction.

The question asks about the 20 largest cities, but American cities are greater than their defined areas. The 20 largest cities, going strictly by their defined city limits, are as follows:

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Chicago
• Houston
• Philadelphia
• Phoenix
• San Antonio
• San Diego
• Dallas
• San Jose
• Austin
• Indianapolis
• Jacksonville
• San Francisco
• Columbus
• Charlotte
• Fort Worth
• Detroit
• El Paso
• Memphis

Notice anything missing? Washington, DC, perhaps prime-of-prime targets for any terrorist organisation with a nuke (or 20) to spare, is the 22nd largest city in the US on its own, and so not on the list. Also missing are major transportation and infrastructure centers such as Boston (24), Atlanta (40), and Seattle (21).

I mean, really, if they’ve gone through the trouble of getting a bunch of nukes into the US, passing on DC and Boston to take out El Paso and Indianapolis seems like one hell of a strategic blunder.

However, if we modify the question slightly to the 20 largest metropolitan areas’ core cities, then our target list looks like this:

• New York
• Los Angeles
• Chicago
• Dallas
• Houston
• Philadelphia
• Washington
• Miami
• Atlanta
• Boston
• San Francisco
• Phoenix
• Riverside
• Detroit
• Seattle
• Minneapolis
• San Diego
• Tampa
• St. Louis
• Baltimore

The loss of those cities would be far more devastating to the US than the first 20.

Okay, so to stay within realistic parameters, let’s say that the nuclear weapons come from Pakistan as the result of a particularly effective Taliban offensive. Although the world raises serious concerns about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, in order to save face, the government of Pakistan says, “Nope, everything is fine. They didn’t get close to our stockpiles.”

Meanwhile, their intelligence service begins freaking out over the loss of 20 nuclear weapons, each with an estimate blast yield of 45 kilotons – enough power to turn most downtown centers into ash.

By keeping the rest of the world in the dark about the severity of the breach of their nuclear security, those who stole the weapons are given ample time to dismantle the warheads and move them out of the country during the chaos. Somehow, sometime later, they arrive in the US, are loaded onto moving vans, and sent to their targets.

By the time Pakistani officials are forced to admit that they lost control of some of their weapons, it’s too late.

At 2 p.m. on the East Coast, the peak business hour, the terrorists detonate their weapons, killing over two-million people and injuring millions more from shrapnel and burns. Even though most of the cities’ areas remain intact due to the low yields of the blasts, their downtowns have ceased to exist – and fires are ignited well across the metropolitan areas.

It only takes minutes for panic to set in among the survivors. The 120 million people – more than one in three Americans – who live in the affected metropolitan areas are now desperately trying to get anywhere else but the cities they call home.

Outside the targeted cities, panic sets in as news of the blasts floods the Internet and the surviving cable and television networks’ broadcasts. People voluntarily evacuate other cities as rumors and fears of additional bombs spread.

In Washington, DC, there are more pressing concerns. The bomb was detonated at 16th and K St, NW, just a few blocks due north of the White House. Whatever little of the mansion the 50psi overpressure did not destroy, the intense thermal radiation has ignited. The President and Vice President are almost certainly dead.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Speaker of the House, second-in-line to the presidency, was in his office overlooking the National Mall. When the fireball rises over the ruins of downtown, he has no shielding from its full effect, suffering a mix of second and third degree burns on his exposed skin. Some loose papers in his office ignite, and wood surfaces scorch.

When the blast wave hits the Capitol Building, it is a mere 2 psi overpressure – not enough to knock down the marble, but plenty to turn its blast-facing windows into projectiles.

The moment the Speaker’s security detail, who were sheltered in the halls of the Capitol, rush in to evacuate him, he is alive, but in critical condition. There is now a leadership crisis:

Under the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, the Speaker assumes the role of Acting President unless he “fails to qualify.” Does his incapacity mean he fails to qualify for the role? “Fails to qualify” is specifically defined in the Act as regarding Constitutional eligibility criteria, and makes separate, specific reference to “inability” – but only to the President, Vice President, and President pro tempore of the Senate. “Disability” is also specifically mentioned separate from a failure to qualify, but again only applies to the President pro tempore of the Senate and successive Cabinet officials.

The President pro tempore of the Senate has survived (with minor injuries) and, on learning of the Speaker’s condition, urges that he be sworn in as Acting President for the sake of providing leadership to a stricken nation – just as soon as they can find the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to provide a favorable interpretation of the law.

At the Pentagon, across the river from the blast, America’s military leadership has survived mostly unscathed. A few high-ranking officials whose offices faced the blast have sustained minor burns, and some have been blinded, but the building has survived. It is one of the very few headquarters of government that has escaped the DC blast that is still operational.

While they bring the Armed Forces to its highest state of readiness, there is almost no question in the minds of military leaders that Pakistan was effectively complicit in the attack by waiting so long to raise the alarm. To them, it is only a matter of time before they are ordered to retaliate with the full might of the United States; but as the law does not allow for the Secretary of Defense to take full control of the National Command Authority, they have to wait for an Acting President to be sworn in.

At the same time, leaders of the civil service who have not been killed in the attacks make their way to secondary and tertiary continuity of government sites, and await instructions from the surviving heads of their respective agencies. Many Cabinet officials and their deputies have been killed, putting the Federal government’s agencies in the hands of people whose authority to make orders is in doubt.

Meanwhile, financial markets around the world begin to implode. The tremendous loss of financial capital and power through the destruction of New York, LA, and Chicago has sent confidence tumbling. While heads of state and militaries brace themselves for further attacks, heads of finance wonder aloud if the world’s reserve currency has just lost its value. Global depression seems imminent.

In the hours after the attack, the 50 States call up their National Guards in an attempt to bring order to the chaos now spreading across the country. Health services have been overwhelmed with the injured, law enforcement spread thin, and cities and States outside of the targeted areas struggling to manage the displaced and panicked masses.

The country’s transportation network has largely ground to a halt, as the interstates have been clogged with refugees, air traffic grounded, and major rail hubs rendered inoperable. Most of its busiest seaports, too, have been knocked out of commission, either through damage (in the case of seven of the nation’s 10 busiest) or their workers fleeing in the mass exodus from America’s urban centers.

In the days following the attack, the President pro tempore of the Senate is sworn in as Acting President, as the surviving Supreme Court justices determine that the Speaker’s ongoing incapacity means he fails to qualify for office; but they made no ruling on what might happen if the Speaker recovers.

Quorums of both houses of Congress managed to escape Washington and, in playing very loose with the text of the Constitution, have granted themselves the authority to meet in sessions outside the destroyed capital.

It did not take long for the US to lay blame for the attack at the feet of Pakistan, due to their failure to cooperate with the international community in the hunt for the stolen nuclear weapons, and the military has begun planning its response. The US did not have trouble convincing its allies in NATO, ANZUS, and others, to supporting its declaration of war.

A nuclear strike has not been definitively ruled out, although Iran, Russia, and China all warn – with deep sympathies to the millions killed, of course – of consequences should the US launch a retaliatory nuclear strike. India is less strident in cautioning against a nuclear strike, but keeps a close eye on prevailing winds as it readies its own nuclear arsenal.

The US economy, however, has effectively collapsed. Consumer confidence is at lows not seen since the 1930s, and absenteeism is at all-time highs, leaving the surviving urban centers of America as ghost towns. To prevent a full economic free fall, trading and banking has been halted; but that leaves many without access to funds.

Millions of people, mostly from the densely populated Northeast Corridor between DC and Boston, are now suffering from the effects of radiation sickness, and hundreds of thousands of them are likely to die as medical services continue to be stretched.

International aid is mobilizing, but with most major air and seaports out of action, it will take weeks for significant relief to make its way to the tens of millions of displaced and terrified people who need it.

The military response, once it is organized, is brutal. Over international objections, the US destroyed several major urban centers, but the consequences major powers warned about did not materialize. The US and its allies quickly overwhelm Pakistan’s armed forces, their dual mandate to remove the government and quell the Taliban insurgency; and in the latter case, the US forces are particularly harsh in executing on their mandate.

Months after the attack, and the US economy has begun to show signs of life. Many have made their way back to urban areas which have been declared safe, but others have begun to settle in other cities, creating boom towns in the upper Midwest, New England, and mid-South. However, the strength and longevity of America’s economic recovery is in doubt as the global depression persists and there is very open talk of replacing the US Dollar with the Euro as the world’s reserve currency, leaving its value at historic lows.

The US capital is relocated to Denver, due in part to the destruction of the nation’s historical, alternate capitals, its distance from the attacked cities, and the area’s high number of Federal employees and major Federal installations. The political chaos in the aftermath of the attack, and in the beginnings of investigations into how such an attack could have been possible, has angered an already government-resentful population. The early election results to replace those Members of Congress killed in and as a result of the attack have shown a rise of third-parties and extremists.

America survives, but it’s been scarred and forever changed.

(OPINION) Some of the world’s top economic officials for the Group of 7 nations just pressured Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen with the question of what is going to happen with America’s debt ceiling.

According to the Washington Post, All of Yellen’s counterparts were aware of the potential global ramifications if the United States were to default on its debt — so aware, in fact, that many asked her privately for updates on the status of negotiations between the White House and House Republicans, according to one person familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reflect private conversations.

Yellen told U.S. allies that she agreed that a default would be devastating and that resolving the debt ceiling was a top priority for the administration, the person said.

Talks over the debt ceiling also forced President Biden to cut short his own foreign trip, scrapping planned visits to Australia and Papua New Guinea after the G-7 summit so he can return to Washington on Sunday.

But well before that, the fight over the borrowing cap was alarming U.S. allies. Around the world, experts are watching in disbelief as the U.S. flirts with its first default, fearful of the potential international economic ramifications — and astonished by the global superpower’s brush with self-sabotage.

Experts are already warning that if this isn’t resolved that the stock market will crash, the economy will immediately plunge into a recession, and tens of millions of Americans will not get their Social Security payments. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says that a U.S. debt default would begin somewhere around June 1st.

The following description of what could be ahead comes from the Washington Post… Federal workers furloughed. Social Security checks for seniors on hold. Soaring mortgage rates. A global financial system sent reeling.

Leaders from Congress and the White House are trying to forge an agreement to lift the federal debt ceiling, with only a few weeks before the Treasury Department may no longer be able to avert an unprecedented U.S. default. If they fail, and the government can’t meet its payment obligations, economists and financial experts predict chaos. The report went on to give a grim report stating that there are 7 major things to watch for if a U.S. debt default actually happens…

-Stocks crash

-A sudden recession

-Federal workers in limbo

-Social Security and Medicare miss payments

-U.S. borrowing costs soar

-Economic problems spread worldwide

-The dollar drops, along with U.S. prestige

The severity of the crisis will depend upon the duration of the default. If the federal government can’t meet its obligations for a few days, it won’t be a very big deal. But if there is no deal for several months, things could get really crazy. In fact, the White House is projecting that stock prices could fall by 45 percent….

According to a report from Michael Snyder, The economy is already starting to come apart at the seams all around us, and the “experts” at the Federal Reserve openly acknowledge that they are making things even worse by hiking interest rates.

Pretty much everyone agrees that rougher times are ahead of us, and “a probability model from the New York Federal Reserve” is now projecting that there is a 68.2 percent chance that there will be a recession within the next 12 months…

The odds that the United States will fall into a recession at some point over the next 12 months have risen to a 40-year high, according to a probability model from the New York Federal Reserve.

The probability that the country will enter a recession within the next year has risen to 68.2 percent, according to the New York Fed, which is the highest level since 1982. The Fed’s recession risk indicator is now greater than it was in November 2007, not long before the subprime crisis, when it stood at 40 percent.

Earlier this year, CNN warned that we are in the midst of “the worst food crisis in modern history”, and so we really need this to be an extremely successful year for our farmers. Unfortunately, that just isn’t happening in much of the country. In fact, one wheat farmer in Oklahoma says that his farm is experiencing “the most severe drought I’ve ever seen”….

Along with this report, farmers who planted the fields are literally witnessing their crops die off and blow away. “We had less than half of a crop last year, and we’re probably going to have half of that this year. It’s terrible,” said 75-year-old Burlington farmer Keith Kisling. “We’re in the most severe drought I’ve ever seen.”

Another Oklahoma farmer, 23-year-old Jacob Webster, is actually comparing current conditions to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s… Jacob Webster, a 23-year-old farmer near Deer Creek in Grant County, spent a recent Sunday evening surveying his wheat fields in north-central Oklahoma. His leather cowboy boots were taller than much of the wheat, some of which is yellowing. He’s never seen a worse crop, he said.

What’s alarming about this statement is the fact that the Dust Bowl was a major environmental disaster that occurred during the Great Depression in the United States producing a period of severe dust storms and drought that affected the Great Plains region, primarily in the 1930s. The combination of poor land management practices, prolonged drought, and high winds caused massive soil erosion, resulting in vast dust storms that swept across the region.

This event had devastating effects on agriculture and the livelihoods of farmers and rural communities. The topsoil, essential for farming, was eroded and blown away, leaving the land barren and unproductive. Crops failed, livestock suffered, and many farmers were forced to abandon their farms and migrate to other regions in search of work and better living conditions.

The Dust Bowl worsened the economic hardships already faced during the Great Depression. The agricultural crisis caused by the Dust Bowl, combined with the stock market crash of 1929 and subsequent economic downturn, created widespread poverty and unemployment across the country.

Is this yet, another warning to America that time is running out and the great empire that once demonstrated strength and power is near her end? Could we experience another “Great Depression” along with disasters we’ve experienced in the past? We better hope the politicians in Washington are able to once again put a quick band-aid on this hemorrhaging wound of the economy because the lifeline of America is looking bleak