If we need a date when the West started to go seriously wrong, let's start with Rome in the early 5th century.
In 2020, we saw the enshrinement of techno-feudalism - one of the overarching themes of my latest book, Raging Twenties.

In lightning speed, the techno-feudalism virus is metastasizing into an even more lethal, wilderness of mirrors variant, where cancel culture is enforced by Big Tech all across the spectrum, science is routinely debased as fake news in social media, and the average citizen is discombobulated to the point of lobotomy.

Giorgio Agamben has defined it as a new totalitarianism.

Top political analyst Alastair Crooke has attempted a sharp breakdown of the broader configuration.

Geopolitically, the Hegemon would even resort to 5G war to maintain its primacy, while seeking moral legitimization via the woke revolution, duly exported to its Western satrapies.

The woke revolution is a culture war - in symbiosis with Big Tech and Big Business - that has smashed the real thing: class war. The atomized working classes, struggling to barely survive, have been left to wallow in anomie.

The great panacea, actually the ultimate "opportunity" offered by Covid-19, is the Great Reset advanced by Herr Schwab of Davos: essentially the replacement of a dwindling manufacturing base by automation, in tandem with a reset of the financial system.

The concomitant wishful thinking envisages a world economy that will "move closer to a cleaner capitalist model". One of its features is a delightfully benign Council for Inclusive Capitalism in partnership with the Catholic Church.

As much as the pandemic - the "opportunity" for the Reset - was somewhat rehearsed by Event 201 in October 2019, additional strategies are already in place for the next steps, such as Cyber Polygon, which warns against the "key risks of digitalization". Don't miss their "technical exercise" on July 9th, when "participants will hone their practical skills in mitigating a targeted supply chain attack on a corporate ecosystem in real time."

There was Joe Biden, all masked-up at the Virtual Climate Summit Meeting, the only world leader with his face covered, like he was fixing to rob the joint. In reality — if such a place in space-time still exists — Joe was sitting all by himself in an otherwise empty room in front of a video camera, all vaxed-up, too, as is everybody else who comes and goes in the White House. So, what was the mask all about? Surely not the virus. Does Ol' White Joe bethink himself some kind of international Lone Ranger?

This was only one of countless mysteries orbiting around the dimming star that is Joe Biden. The biggest one, the planet Jupiter of all puzzlements, is how the guy managed to get elected occupant of the oval office. Or, more to the point, how did others manage to get him elected? I mean, considering those few embarrassing campaign forays from the basement to a bunch of empty parking lots back in the fall of 2020, not to mention the supernatural victory on Super Tuesday that rescued his pitiful old ass from the glue factory of broken-down political war-horses.

We may be about to find out as Arizona's State Senate finally got around to approving a full audit of the November 3rd vote in Maricopa County, comprising Phoenix and its asteroid belt of suburbs, which amounts to more than two-thirds of the state's population.

President Biden is canceling projects to build a wall along the southern border using diverted defense funds and will use some funding to counter environmental damage from the wall's construction.

Then-President Trump had diverted billions in defense and military construction funds toward building the wall, using emergency powers after Congress refused to fully fund the project directly. A Biden administration official said Friday:

"Consistent with the President's Proclamation terminating the redirection of funds for border wall, no more money will be diverted from other purposes to building a border wall. Today, the Department of Defense will begin cancelling all wall projects using the diverted funds, and will take steps to return remaining unobligated military construction funds to their appropriated purpose as permitted by law."

A Defense Department spokesperson said the funds would be returned to accounts designated for "schools for military children, overseas military construction projects in partner nations, and the National Guard and Reserve equipment account," but added that the department was reviewing projects to determine priorities.

Upon entering office, Biden canceled the state of emergency Trump had declared along the southern border and paused construction on the wall in order to conduct a review, though the 60 day period for the review's completion has long passed.

Republicans in Congress have accused Biden of illegally halting congressionally approved funds, and the Government Accountability Office is preparing a report on whether the pause was legal under the Impoundment Control Act.

Russian officials responsible for tracking financial crimes like money laundering and funding foreign militants have added the political operations of jailed anti-corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny to a list of extremist groups.

The decision made headlines on Friday, after Rosfinmonitoring, Moscow's state agency monitoring illicit transactions, included "the social movement of Navalny's headquarters" in their list of "active terrorists and extremists," along with 510 other organizations. Far-right political factions and radical religious groups are among those registered by the officials.

Under Russian law, a group can be included on the list on the grounds that it is involved in illegal financial activity if justified by prosecutors, criminal investigators, or government departments.

A case against Navalny's political campaign headquarters is currently being heard behind closed doors, with authorities seeking to have its operations banned under extremism laws. A judge is also considering whether to extend the same measures to two organizations set up by the jailed activist, the Anti-Corruption Foundation and the Foundation for the Protection of Citizens' Rights, both already designated as foreign agents by the country's Ministry of Justice over links to overseas funding.

Florida on Thursday passed new voting laws that place restrictions around vote-by-mail and ballot drop boxes.

Florida's state legislature passed a bill that specifies who can drop off a ballot at a drop box and where drop boxes can be placed. It also stipulates that drop boxes cannot be moved 30 days before the election and that an election official must be around when the drop box is opened, NBC News reported.

Along with drop boxes, voters will have to request to vote by mail more frequently. The bill also gives new powers to election observers and specifies that private funds cannot be used to pay election officials.

Other changes include giving Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) the power to appoint officials to local offices if the positions are left by those running for state office.

The bill was passed in the state House 77-40 and in the Senate 23-17, according to NBC News.

The bill was amended to be less strict, with the original version banning drop boxes completely.

In his first major speech as Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin on Friday called for developing a "new vision" for American defense in the face of emerging cyber and space threats and the prospect of fighting bigger wars.

Reflecting President Joe Biden's promise to put diplomacy first in dealing with foreign policy problems, Austin said the military should provide leverage that diplomats can use to prevent conflict. His comments suggested a contrast with what critics call the militarization of U.S. foreign policy in recent decades. He said:

"U.S. military isn't meant to stand apart, but to buttress U.S. diplomacy and advance a foreign policy that employs all of our instruments of national power."

He chose to spell out his ideas at Pearl Harbor, at the center of U.S. military power in the Indo-Pacific region, reflecting U.S. concerns that China's rapid modernization and growing assertiveness make it a powerful adversary. Notably, Austin in his speech did not explicitly mention China or North Korea.

In his first four-plus months as defense secretary, Austin has focused less on big policy pronouncements and more on immediate issues like the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and internal issues like extremism in the military, as well as launching broad reviews of defense strategy.

Germany's domestic spy agency is monitoring anti-lockdown protesters, claiming they are potentially involved in a plot to subvert the country.

According to a Reuters report, the BfV spy agency is concerned that the demonstrations are being used as a cover for far-right extremists and people who believe in "conspiracy theories" about COVID-19 to incite violence. The report states:

"Authorities fear that far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists who either deny the existence of Covid or downplay its threat to public health are exploiting lockdown frustrations to stir anger against politicians and state institutions five months before a general election."

While the government asserts that the movement has been radicalized, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party characterized the surveillance as government overreach. A BfV spokesperson said:

"Organisers of demonstrations which are mainly led by protagonists of the Querdenker movement have an agenda that goes beyond protesting against the state's measures against the coronavirus."

Earlier this month, a judge in Weimar, Germany who ruled that two schools should be prevented from enforcing face mask mandates was subjected to a police raid of his home and had his cellphone confiscated. As we highlighted earlier this year, German authorities revealed that they would be incarcerating COVID rulebreakers in detainment camps usually reserved for refugees.

Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial continues as the PM attempts to form a new government following the March elections. He's accused of a range of crimes including breach of trust, pay-to-play corruption, and bribery. Among the individuals accused of involvement is James Packer, a well-known Australian businessman.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his son Yair, wife Sara, and Yossi Cohen - the Netanyahu loyalist who became chief of the Mossad - befriended, manipulated, and emotionally abused Australian billionaire James Packer as the mentally troubled businessman worked to establish ties with Israel's political elite, a deep-dive investigation by Haaretz citing court testimony and individuals familiar with the situation has alleged.

A few thoughts on the connection between post-modernism and the new American communo-fascism are in order. The evolution from post-modernism to neo-communism, communo-fascism, or liberal fascism — whatever label one prefers — was predetermined by the similarity of the two in terms of their methodologies and imperatives for controlling indeed monopolizing discourse and thus consciousness. This explains why postmodernism in the West and thus the U.S. is a wholly liberal-leftist affair.

The elements that postmodernism and communism have in common is instructive particularly for understanding the instrumental contradictions used by the DP and other American leftists to shut down free speech and create a totalitarian information space and national discourse. [For more detail on the parallels between postmodernism and communism, see Mikhail N. Epstein, "Postmodernism, Communism, and Sots-Art," in Mikhail N. Epstein, Alexander A. Genis, and Slobodanka M. Vladiv-Glover, Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet Literature, 2nd edition (New York, Oxford: Berghahn, 2016), pp. 51-94, used herein pp. 54-68.] Perhaps the fundamental element of post-modernism is the replacement of reality by a manufactured reality by way of 'simulacrum' — a conjured 'fake' event for media reproduction that should establish a new reality separate from and indeed wholly replace actual reality, which postmodernism stipulates, however self-contradictorily, does not exist because all 'reality' is but a construct. Since there is no objective 'reality' of any sort, there is only a dominant environment created through a set of simulacra developed by one or another group of people. Here, post-modernism's obsession with power becomes crucial. Since all 'realities' are reflective of power structures, reality becomes merely the arena for the naked struggle of power and really nothing more. Racism, sexism, feminism, white supremacism are merely flags manipulated to shape the reality to suit one's power preferences: who rules, who is ruled, how and why rulers rule the ruled. Since all discourse and culture in the postmodernist view is the pursuit of power or a reflection of its structure and/or a preferred structure, the postmodernist production of reality is designed to control consciousness almost solely for the purpose of gaining and holding power. Concepts such as justice, markets, freedom, democracy, equality, brotherhood, racism are flags, the colors and shapes of which can be changed as the pursuit of power requires. They are mirages as malleable and constructed as non-existent non-reality 'reality' and can and should be manipulated in creating an alternative, soon-to-be sole 'reality' to control culture and discourse and the populations that imbibe and participate in them. Ultimately, reality is nothing more than power and its pursuit.

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Friday said that he opposes a bill to make Washington, DC, the 51st state — effectively killing a push by fellow Democrats that would all but guarantee them two more seats in the Senate.

Manchin said that he believes a constitutional amendment is required, rather than a House-passed bill that would shrink the federal district and admit the remainder of DC as a new state.

A constitutional amendment won't happen. It would require two-thirds support in each chamber of Congress and ratification in three-fourths of states.