Jeremy Hammond on trusting information sources

I often get asked what sources I trust, and my usual answer is: none of them. While it can be a practical necessity to take a source's word for something, we should avoid doing so unless the source has a proven track record of honest and accurate reporting on that specific topic. And just because a source provides good information and insights on one topic doesn't mean it's good on others. A source assessment is required to separate the wheat from the chaff for individual sources, just as it's necessary when comparing different sources against each other. 

Instead of relying too much on any specific sources, it's to get your information from as wide a variety of sources as possible. Seek out alternative perspectives that challenge your own. Avoid the trap of selecting sources to follow because their information confirms your own paradigm. Be cognizant of your own confirmation biases and the limits of your knowledge, and remain open to the possibility that everything you think you know is wrong. Treat your conclusions and beliefs as hypotheses to be tested against opposing perspectives. 

Critically assess each source with consideration for their potential biases. Maintain healthy skepticism and check key claims against cited sources. There mere inclusion of footnotes or links in an article can make a story or argument appear well supported, but this is commonly an illusion. Oftentimes, cited sources fail to support or even directly contradict claims for which they are cited. As you consume news media, identify the agenda being served and consider whether any political or financial interests might conflict with the aim truth-telling. 

Through that process, you'll develop a wider overview of the informational landscape and won't miss the forest for the trees. Determine common ground by identifying key claims that are uncontested. Then synthesize conflicting claims to reconcile the contradictions. Apply your source assessment to determine what seems most credible, and hypothesize an explanation that best fits the available evidence. Conflicting claims can be often be easily reconciled, for example, by simple recognizing that at least one of the sources is demonstrably lying. Through this analytical process, you'll come away with a new working hypothesis to test against new information as you continue to expand your knowledge about the topic. 

With an infinite number of topics to focus on and limited time, you'll also learn to distinguish distracting noise from matters of real importance, and the more you develop these types of analytic skills for news consumerism, the better you'll get at it and the easier it'll become, so you'll eventually be able to rather quickly and easily assess information and draw reasonable conclusions. The effort you put into developing these skills will pay dividends as you acquire actionable knowledge and avoid becoming deceived by the incessant political propaganda that permeates our information environment.

~ Jeremy R. Hammond, independent journalist, www.jeremyrhammond.com

 

Scott Horton on the Iran War: "It's an asymmetric fight"

 They [the Iranians] have more offensive missiles than we have defensive missiles.  And so it only makes sense, from their point of view...  We have bases in Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi and Oman, and the Iranians have hit every single one of them.  In the first day, they attacked every single one of those countries, including economic targets..., all up and down the [Persian] Gulf.  So far they're not hitting oil, but they're hitting 5-star hotels.  They're causing all kinds of damage.  They closed the Straight of Hormuz.  So it's not quite worst case scenario, but it's pretty bad already.  And it only makes sense that they would decide for strategy to make this hurt the United States enough that it hurts Donald Trump enough that he doesn't do this anymore...  It's an asymmetric fight, so Iran just has to hang in there long enough for Trump to be humiliated enough that he really has to stop and that, I guess from their point of view, feels so stung that he doesn't want to try it again for the next 2 1/2 years.

~ Scott Horton, "The Moronic Neocon War With Iran, With Scott Horton, Jon Hoffman and Brandon Buck," Tom Woods Show, 40:50 mark, March 2, 2026

 

Allan C. Brownfeld on conflating Judaism with the state of Israel

After Israel's creation, the organized Jewish community embraced it and made it "central" to Jewish identity.  Israeli flags were displayed in synagogues, lobbying groups were created to promote Israel's interests, making it the largest recipient of U.S. aid in the world.  The Palestinians were displaced and, in 1967, their land was occupied.  In reality, the Palestinians have become the last victims of the Holocaust, for which they bear no responsibility whatever. 

What we have witnessed since 1948 can only be considered a form of idolatry, making the State of Israel, not God and the Jewish moral and ethical tradition, "central" to Jewish identity.  This is reminiscent of the story of the Golden Calf in the Bible. 

[...]

Where the future will lead is impossible to predict.  One hopeful possibility is that the movement toward universalism and the rejection of nationalism which proceeded dramatically in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries - and was interrupted by the rise of Nazism, World War II, and the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine - will once again move forward in the future.  There is now every indication that this will be the case.  The current divisions in American Judaism certainly point in this direction.

~ Allan C. Brownfeld, American Council for Judaism, introduction to Coming to Palestine, pp. vii-viii

 

Ron Paul on the Iran invasion

Iran had been warning for months – since the last US/Israeli surprise attack in June – that if they were attacked again they would not hold back on US bases in the region and that they would close the Straits of Hormuz. Trump and Netanyahu attacked anyway, and Iran has done what it said it would do. 

Now the Strait of Hormuz is closed, oil is about to go out of control, and the global economy – along with the US dollar – seems about to implode.

On March 6th, President Trump refused a UK offer of help, saying we don’t need help when we’ve already won the war. Five days later, at a rally in Kentucky, President Trump repeated that “We’ve won the Iran war!”

It was his “Mission Accomplished” moment, because this weekend, just days after declaring victory against an “obliterated” Iran, Trump began begging other countries to send ships to help the US open the Strait of Hormuz.

Thus far every country has declined, understanding that such a mission has little chance of success.

Tragically, the war thus far has claimed at least 14 servicemembers. It is likely the toll is far worse than they are telling us. Every US military facility in the region is either damaged or destroyed. Billions of dollars of radar and other equipment are destroyed. Our allies in the region, because they allowed their territory to be used to attack Iran, have also seen massive retaliatory destruction. 

This is surely one of the worst military disasters in US history. There are no military options available beyond the unthinkable: the use of nuclear weapons.

The only viable option that remains is one that was often urged in the Vietnam War: Just get out. Now! No return to US bases, no security guarantees to Gulf States. End the US empire in the Middle East and elsewhere. If not, it’s only going to get worse.

~ Ron Paul, "Just Get Out! Now!," LewRockwell.com, March 17, 2026

 

Kevin Duffy on the American exceptionalism bubble

The U.S. is leading the world towards chaos, divisiveness and aggression while China is the leading it towards stability, openness and restraint. 

This is obvious to most of the world yet 95% of Americans remain deluded by the fog of "U.S. exceptionalism."

~ Kevin Duffy, X post, March 16, 2026

 

Kevin Duffy on the death of Paul Ehrlich, author of 'The Population Bomb'

Funny how life has come full circle, at least in my lifetime.  The experts who once worried about: 

- global cooling -> now obsess about global warming

- world poverty -> now fear the economic rise of China 

- overpopulation -> now issue dire warnings about countries with declining populations

~ Kevin Duffy, Twitter/X, March 16, 2026

(Paul R. Ehrlich, 1932-2026)

1968

 

Time magazine on Eileen Gu and U.S.-China geopolitics

Questions about Gu’s citizenship status, rather than the dramatic victory [in the freestyle skiing big air competition at the 2022 Beijing Olympics], dominated the post-event press conference.  Olympians must be citizens of the country they represent, and China does not allow dual citizenship.  But no evidence suggests that Gu has renounced her American citizenship.  So did China make an exception for Gu?  During an hours-long interview in the Scharnitz rental house she’s sharing with [her mother] Yan, Gu declines to engage on the citizenship question.  “I don’t really see how that’s relevant,” she says.  (The Chinese Olympic Committee did not respond to a request for comment.) 

She tried not to take the backlash personally.  “There are geopolitical factors at play, and people just hate China generally.  So it’s kind of difficult when I’m lumped in with this evil monolith that people want to dislike,” says Gu.  “It’s never really about me and my skiing.”  In late 2024, the Chinese government announced that around 313 million people had taken up ice and snow sports, or related leisure activities, since the 2022 Olympics.  “I’ve made a lot of positive impact at nobody’s expense,” says Gu.  “And I genuinely mean this without a hint of sardonic humor: use the time and creativity that it takes to craft some of these insults to think about what your talents are, and how you can use them to make the world better.” 

She doesn’t believe it’s her place to comment on, say, China’s checkered human-rights record.  For example, the U.S. government has accused China of abuses against its majority-Muslim Uighur population.  “I’m not an expert on this,” she says.  “I haven’t done the research.  I don’t think it’s my business.  I’m not going to make big claims on my social media.”  But as a Stanford international-relations major, she could surely do her homework on this issue, no?  “I’m just more of a skeptic when it comes to data in general,” says Gu.  “So it’s not like I can read an article and be like, ‘Oh, well, this must be the truth.’  I need to have a ton of evidence.  I need to maybe go to the place, maybe talk to 10 primary-source people who are in a location and have experienced life there.  Then I need to go see images.  I need to listen to recordings.  I need to think about how history affects it.  Then I need to read books on how politics affects it.  This is a lifelong search.” 

So if she’s asked about Donald Trump’s China tariffs during an Olympic press conference in Italy, don’t expect a weighty answer.  “I would just say, ‘I didn’t know I got promoted to trade minister,’” says Gu.  “It’s irresponsible to ask me to be the mouthpiece for any agenda.”

~ Sean Gregory, "‘I Don’t Believe in Limits.’ How Eileen Gu Became Freestyle Skiing’s Biggest Star," Time magazine, January 22, 2026

February 9, 2026