Phish, the Sphere, the Cage, Your Kids, and What Comes Next

Posted on by

The Portal

Notes From Inside The Rehearsal Venue

Joshua Stylman's avatar
JOSHUA STYLMAN

I went to Phish at the Sphere. Yes, I know this may shock, and possibly even disappoint, people who have been following my writing. I most definitely broke a few of my own rules to get there.

Putting aside my own long and complicated relationship with this band, the trip to the Sphere was the kind of thing I’d normally write a piece warning people about, and yet, I went anyway. I wanted – maybe even needed – to see what I’d see. So, I accepted the invitation from a friend to join him and some others for two nights in Vegas.

The friends I traveled with are people I love but haven’t seen in a while. We met up with a larger group there, some old friends, some new, most of whom I hadn’t seen since the world got really weird. Some are aware of my tendencies to dive into rabbit holes, others were meeting me for the first time and had no idea what my deal was. Overall, the crew I was hanging with is far more technology-optimistic in a way I am no longer. The disagreement was real and we held it lightly. My sense is that most think I overread the world and ascribe intent to what they perceive as naturally emergent behavior.

The trip started with me being asked for ID at the airport. When I showed my license and was told I needed a “Real ID” I pulled out a passport. One of the guys on my flight watched and asked, Why can’t you get a digital one? Not hostile at all but genuinely confused why I hadn’t taken this step yet, assuming I would eventually. When I explained that I am abstaining because I’m afraid of The Authentication Layer, he couldn’t parse the friction. I tried to explain and he tried to follow. We both gave up politely and moved on.

We spent the day hanging out before the show. Some of the conversations bled into some interesting areas. Things like whether or not we should use sunscreen, or homeschool our kids. Each one got some goofy stares and some head scratching. I always try to walk a fine line between having civil, thoughtful conversations with people and becoming a zealot proselytizing a worldview. I got some looks back of affection and mild concern, but it was all in good fun and good faith. For what it’s worth, I’m pretty comfortable being the butt of the joke.

At some point I’d said something about being a little wary of the venue itself, which elicited blank stares. The conversation got around to why exactly, and I tried to explain and made it worse. I made a joke about graphene nanobots being sprayed on us from the rafters. They looked at me like I was a lunatic. Which of course I am.

•••

I should mention that I’m not a Vegas guy. In fact, I hadn’t been in over twenty years. The place is crazier than I remembered. Even from a nice hotel, you spend the weekend in a running joke about the women in the lobby (Is she working?) and the larger local economy of constructed experiences. The casino floors timed to the daylight you can’t see. The entire city built to make you forget there’s a desert outside.

Vegas has been the rehearsal venue for synthetic reality for decades. Paris built on top of a desert, Egypt next door to Italy, a skyline that copies skylines. This city taught Americans to drive across the country to spend a weekend inside a curated version of somewhere else. Baudrillard called this hyperreality forty-five years ago and used Vegas as the exemplar, a place where the copy precedes the original and the original stops being the point. The Sphere is what Vegas was always trying to be. It won’t stay in Vegas, however, Sin City is the natural destination of the prototype.

•••

That’s the context I carried into the room.

Some of my dissident friends mocked me for going. Of course, I get it. I knew what I was signing up for intellectually but I wanted to understand it experientially – and maybe even spiritually. I wanted to see whether what I’d been writing about lived in my body the way it lived on the page, and I wasn’t going to find that out from a YouTube clip.

If I were running a venue like this, I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t use it as an R&D lab. Seventeen thousand bodies in a controlled sensory environment, every chair instrumented, every face on camera, every response measurable in real time. Anyone interested in the human condition understands that’s a dataset. To be clear, I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here, just that the capability is plainly there.

By tomorrow somebody could theoretically be remote-controlling me through a chair I was sitting in willingly. I went anyway. A lot of the people in that room, including some of my friends, think what’s being built is wonderful, even essential. They think we’re all getting smarter, more connected, more capable – perhaps they’re right. But the capability is the capability, and walking through those doors was me consenting to the trade. I don’t regret it, not even a little. It was worth seeing for myself.

•••

So, how could I possibly describe the experience of being in the Sphere? Anyone who’s been there already knows. Those who haven’t will know soon enough. I’m not talking about the building itself, which is utterly fascinating. What I’m referring to is the thing the building is doing.

The fidelity is past the point where your nervous system can sort it in real time. The visuals are one layer. There’s also air currents you can feel on your face, timed to what you’re seeing. The chair vibrates with the bass in a way that isn’t speakers. It’s the room becoming part of the instrument. You don’t watch the show. You’re inside it.

The Sphere is not just a bigger screen or a better venue – it’s a new medium entirely.

I’ll admit, the first night I barely watched the band. I was staring up. I caught myself halfway through the set and felt vaguely guilty about it, like I’d shown up to a friend’s wedding and spent the ceremony looking at the chandelier. The second night I trained myself to stay locked in on the stage. Believe it or not, I actually had to work at it. The room itself wants your attention, it commands it, and, in a way, the band has to compete with the room they’re playing in.

Phish threaded the needle masterfully. The improvisation was there and the crowd was alive. They pulled off what most acts won’t be able to, because Phish fans came in with forty years of muscle memory for what a real moment is supposed to feel like, and the band knows enough not to let the visuals do the work the music is supposed to do.

If you were there to see Phish, you saw Phish. It just wasn’t the Phish I’d been seeing since the early 90s. Usually I’m locked into the interplay between band and crowd, the feedback loop that makes a jam band a jam band. This time the room was a third party in that conversation, and a loud one.

Somewhere in the middle of the second set, during a long slow build, I looked over at the friend who’d asked about the digital ID. Eyes closed, not staring up. He was listening. For a brief moment, he glanced at me and grinned and went back into it. We were having the same night. I just couldn’t stop noticing the room.

•••

Here is what my friends would say, and they’d have a point: Every generation panics about the medium that arrived after they got their tastes set. Radio was going to ruin children. Television was going to rot us. Rock and roll was the devil. The internet was going to atomize us. Video games were going to make a generation of killers. Smartphones were going to destroy attention. Every panic produced a body of essays exactly like the one I’m trying to write right now, and many of those essays have aged badly. The kids who grew up inside the new medium developed muscles their parents didn’t have. The medium got absorbed into life and life kept going.

The Sphere is amazing. Their kids and mine are going to live inside experiences I can’t anticipate and will probably envy. The future is going to be more textured, not less. Loosen up and enjoy the show, right? I need to let that perspective sit because it’s a possibility that my friends might be right.

And yet some of the people – including many I respect – would tell this group of friends they’re being too generous. They’d say we lost the thread years ago, that the door closed quietly, that it isn’t whether the muscle adapts but whether it’s worth adapting to a world this far from what was given to us.

I’m somewhere between those two and the side of the room I’m closer to shifts on any given day. The bigger question is whether it’s preventable or preordained.

Most of what I want to say sits in the gap between them. Not collapse but rather drift. The cage is the cumulative shape of what you stopped noticing. Each layer of the engineered reality stack arrives as a gift. None of the individual gifts looks like a problem. They add up over a long enough time horizon, and the time horizon is the thing nobody tracks because there’s no incentive to.

•••

I keep coming back to what the Sphere showed me. The layer between my senses and the world can be written. Not metaphorically but quite literally. By people I don’t know, with goals I can’t see, at resolution my body cannot reject. My eyes report cosmos, my skin feels the wind and my spine was grooving to the bass. None of it is the world the body is in. All of it is real to the body that’s in it.

That’s the thing the prior panics didn’t have to account for. Radio put a voice in your living room. Television manufactured an image of events you didn’t witness. Streaming tuned a personalized version of the world to keep you watching. Each layer added definition, and each layer worked at a level above the body. The body remained the floor. Even when you’d been lied to about everything else, you still knew when you were hungry, cold, tired, in love, in danger. The body was the last instrument we had for reality-testing that hadn’t been engineered.

The Sphere is the proof of concept that the substrate can be too. The muscle my friends are counting on to adapt is the muscle that’s being engineered.

Once the floor can be engineered, reality-testing from the inside stops working. You’d need someone outside the room to tell you what’s outside the room.

•••

The Sphere is the cage with the seams showing. The dome, the chairs, the air timed to the visuals, you can see the architecture because that’s what you bought a ticket to see. The other ones have been sanded down. The personalized feed that learned what makes you happy/angry. The smart speaker listening for keywords. The maps app deciding what counts as a road. The smoothing of every public square. Programs to study how visual and sensory environments shape mass psychology have been running for decades. You’ve been beta-testing the portal for years. The Sphere is just the version where you can still see the seams, because for once the architecture was being revealed.

This is what entertainment is for in a managed society. Not distraction but rehearsal. Huxley nailed it almost a century ago:

A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.

Compliance through pleasure is more stable than compliance through coercion, because there’s nothing to push back against. You don’t resist what feels good. The Sphere is the rehearsal venue for a sensory layer that’s coming whether or not you want it. It’s the last venue where you can still physically walk out of the room.

•••

I’ve now been sitting with this for a couple of days and what I can’t shake is that the Sphere isn’t really the subject. It’s just the place where I could see it.

The subject is the shift itself. What all of us can feel underneath everything right now, even when many of us, including the people I was with, may disagree about what it actually is. Even my most tech-optimistic friends feel it. They may have different names for it and different feelings about it and different bets on where it lands. But none of us is walking around right now feeling like the world we’re in is the same world we were in five years ago. Something is moving under our feet, and the Sphere is one of the places where the movement breaks the surface long enough to be photographed.

That’s why I went. Not just for the concert itself, although that was a gift. It was to check the reading. To see whether what I’d been writing was real or whether I was making it up. To stand inside the loudest version of the thing I’d been describing and find out whether my body confirmed it or whether I was Cassandra, or whether I was just the guy at the bar overexplaining what a concert meant.

My body confirmed it. So did my friend’s body. We just had very different reads on what to do with the confirmation.

•••

Maybe I’m wrong about all of this.

Maybe I’m pattern-matching. I’m well aware I do that. After all, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Maybe the lineage I just drew is a story I’m telling myself because I’ve been writing about engineered reality for a few years and everything I see now looks like the thing I’ve been writing about. Maybe my friends are right and I’m the one who needs to chill.

I want to sit with that too.

There was a stretch on the first night when the visuals went somewhere I can only describe as cosmic. Depth past depth, the room dissolving into something my brain processed as standing inside a galaxy. I thought about my kids. How I’d want them to feel that at least once. Not a movie about space but inside it. That’s a real gift and I felt it.

That’s the trap. The gifts and the cage are the same technology. The question is who’s holding it, what they’re authoring, and whether anyone left in the room remembers what unauthored space is supposed to feel like.

•••

On the way out of the second show, the friend who’d asked about the digital ID was a few steps ahead of me. Loose, happy, talking with someone else about the slow build, hands moving. He turned around, saw me, gave me the same grin from the floor, what a night. We were stepping out of the loud version of the portal into the quieter one (if you can call Las Vegas Blvd quiet). He didn’t notice. He’s not wrong. He may be more right than I am.

I went home not knowing whether I’d seen the future and it was beautiful, or seen the future and it was a cage, or whether those are the same thing.

What I do know is that I had a great time. That’s probably the part that scares me most.

from:    https://stylman.substack.com/p/the-portal

No To Pesticide Manufacturers

Posted on by

The use of pesticides on our farms is dangerous.  Many of these toxins are cancer causing, and there must be accountability if not some kind of modification of the use, at the very least fair warning of potential hazards.

 

House strips controversial pro-pesticide policies from farm bill

BY RACHEL FRAZIN – 04/30/26 10:46 AM ET

The Hill’s Headlines — April 30, 2026

The House on Thursday voted to strip pro-pesticide policies, which have been a source of controversy and GOP infighting, from the farm bill.

The amendment to take the provisions out of the farm bill, which sets the nation’s agriculture policy for five years, was adopted in a 280-142 vote.

It was led by Reps. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) and Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) and was expected to get significant bipartisan support.

One controversial measure the amendment addressed would have made it harder for Americans to sue pesticide makers, preventing states and courts from penalizing the companies for failing to include warnings on their labels about health effects that go beyond those formally recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The amendment also dealt with two other provisions that would have barred localities from adding regulations that go beyond those imposed by states or the EPA, as well as block the need for additional permits for pesticide use.

The policies received significant pushback from both Democrats and Republicans aligned with the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement — and complicated the farm bill’s path.

In the days leading up to the bill’s passage, Luna said on the social platform X “we will slaughter the farm bill” unless the provisions were removed.

House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn Thompson (R-Pa.) defended the provision, arguing that  states want to go and “have something that is specific to their state, maybe it’s based on the ecology of their state, or whatever it might be, they just have to submit it to the EPA, and the EPA will add it into the labeling.”

The Supreme Court this week took up a similar issue and could rule that existing laws already bar failure-to-warn lawsuits if the EPA does not recognize a particular health impact.

from:    https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/5856958-pesticide-amendment-farm-bill/

How Much Does that Cost?????

Posted on by

What Is Surveillance Pricing Anyway?

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

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • The FTC found that companies collect personal information about online shoppers and use it to tweak the prices they pay for products.
  • Your browsing habits, geographic location, and more may influence the prices you pay.
  • You can protect yourself from surveillance pricing by clearing cookies and browsing incognito.
  • Consider using a virtual private network, or VPN.

Key Findings on Surveillance Pricing

The initial report from the FTC on surveillance pricing reveals that online retailers frequently use personal data, such as browsing history and location, to target consumers with different pricing for the same products.

Based on documents from firms like Mastercard and Accenture, the FTC showed how intermediaries adjust prices by tracking various consumer behaviors. This can include the type of product, mouse movements, and unpurchased items left in shopping carts.1

This ongoing study underscores the potential widespread, data-driven pricing practices used to reshape how products are sold and how much consumers pay for them.

How Consumers Are Affected by Surveillance Pricing

Instead of having fixed prices for products, surveillance pricing allows retailers to adjust the price or promotion of a product based on individual data and consumer behaviors. If the data suggests that the consumer is willing to pay more, the price will be higher.

“Surveillance pricing means consumers lose the ability to compare prices accurately because what they see may be tailored to their behavior, location, income level, or even browsing history. Should someone be charged a higher price just because they live in a certain zip code, or because they made a bad online purchase last year? Thanks to surveillance pricing, that’s the world we’re living in,” said Michael Mezzatesta, economics and climate educator, and founder of Better Future Media.

Who’s Paying the Price?

About 273 million Americans, or 80.4%, now shop online, according to a survey by Capital One. Collectively, they spent about $1.36 trillion online in 2024.2

“Since surveillance pricing happens mostly online, most people will have no idea they’re being shown different prices based on hidden algorithms, making it nearly impossible to make informed purchasing decisions. In the worst cases, this practice erodes trust in markets, where fairness should be a given, not a privilege reserved for those with the best data protection habits,” Mezzatesta said.

How to Protect Yourself

Consumers can not easily recognize when they are victims of surveillance pricing because it’s designed to be invisible. But there are clues to be seen by those who are wary.

“There are clues consumers can use to tell when surveillance pricing might be at play. For example, if consumers notice fluctuating prices after repeated visits to a site, or different prices across different devices–or their peers are seeing different prices–those are all signs they are likely experiencing surveillance pricing influenced by personal or device data,” said Mezzatesta.

Proactive Steps to Take

To protect themselves from surveillance, consumers can take several proactive steps to safeguard their personal information and ensure fair pricing.

  • Use a VPN: A virtual private network, or VPN, masks your location and browsing activity to prevent targeted pricing. There are free VPNs while a subscription service costs about $10 per month.3
  • Clear Browser Cookies Regularly: Clearing the cookies from your device regularly limits the ability to track your online behavior because the data has been deleted.
  • Browse in Incognito Mode: Your browsing history and personal data aren’t saved when browsing in Incognito mode.
  • Compare Prices Across Devices: Check prices on different devices to spot potential price differences.

“The bigger issue is that individuals shouldn’t have to outsmart an opaque system just to get fair treatment and transparent pricing. This is where regulation needs to step in,” Mezzatesta said.

Current regulations, such as the FTC Act and the California Consumer Privacy ACT (CCPA), aim to protect consumers by promoting transparency and control over personal data.45 However, these laws do not fully address surveillance pricing, leaving gaps in consumer protection.

Is This Price-Fixing?

The FTC defines price fixing as “an agreement (written, verbal, or inferred from conduct) among competitors to raise, lower, maintain, or stabilize prices or price levels.”6 Basically, companies can’t set prices or terms after setting up an agreement with their competition because consumers expect the basic laws of supply and demand to apply. But then the question becomes, is surveillance pricing “price fixing”?

“The simplest solution is to make algorithmic price fixing illegal. And there is a legal precedent for this: Under US antitrust laws, price fixing due to corporate collusion is illegal.7 The issue is that the development of automated price-setting algorithms has created loopholes in existing law,” Mezzatesta said.

Mezzatesta asserts that corporations will need new rules regarding collecting and using personal data because of the rise of big data algorithms. He claims that’s how we ensure the algorithms don’t discriminate against specific sets of consumers.

“Additionally, enforcement mechanisms should be in place to prevent predatory pricing that exploits consumer data to extract maximum profit from the public. At a minimum, companies should be required to disclose when prices are being personalized, and on what basis.”89

The Bottom Line

Online shopping offers unmatched convenience, making it a preferred choice for many consumers. However, shoppers want to feel comfortable purchasing online without worrying about unfair pricing.

Unless stronger consumer protections are passed into law, you will need to stay vigilant and take steps to ensure your data is not exploited.

from:    https://www.investopedia.com/surveillance-pricing-11701007

What’s in Your Pasta?

Posted on by

Prego is selling a surveillance device that records your family dinner conversations and sends them to the Library of Congress. It sold out immediately.

Profile photo of Mister Retrops

Mister Retrops
PASTABIG BROTHER IS WATCHINGSPYING
Image for article: Prego is selling a surveillance device that records your family dinner conversations and sends them to the Library of Congress. It sold out immediately.

Prego Pasta Sauce announced they were teaming up with StoryCorps to create a device that would store pasta while also eavesdropping on, recording, and, according to some reports, uploading your family’s dinner conversations to the Library of Congress.

 

It gets even crazier.

The devices sold out almost instantly!

(Probably picked up by some guys in an unmarked van).

 

To be fair, though, Prego promised the devices won’t upload your conversations without permission. And it seems pretty innocent.

The Prego x StoryCorps Connection Keeper is a simple, AI-free, screen-free device designed to help families create an audio scrapbook of the moments that matter most. It captures the everyday conversations you wish to preserve — your kids’ voices, the ‘how was your day’ chats, the laughter and stories shared around the table — so you can revisit them for years to come. With just the press of a button, families can record meaningful moments in real time. The device is not connected to the internet and does not use Wi-Fi or AI, allowing you to capture memories without phones, screens, or distractions getting in the way.

But seriously, despite their best assurances, I’ve got enough to worry about with my AI-infested phone.

The last thing I need is to have to wonder whether there are spies in my pasta.

from:    https://notthebee.com/article/somehow-this-prego-pasta-sauce-surveillance-device-sold-out-immediately?from_social=twitter

Time to Support Thomas Massie — Another Reason

Posted on by

One Good Man can make all the difference and that is why thousands of bad guys with deep pockets are working hard to get him out of office.  It is time for all concerned Americans to act!!!

 

“Israeli Lobby” Spends $10 Million to Defeat Representative Thomas Massie from Kentucky

May 8, 2026 Tucker Carlson and The New American 9

US Republican Representative Thomas Massie votes against war, bombs and foreign aid, which makes him unpopular with Israel. Massie’s voting record has adhered to the US Constitution.

Massie said that the Israeli lobby has spent $10 million and has fully funded his opponent, Republican Ed Gallrein in a primary race. Massie said the lobbyists are “trying to buy a congressional seat in Kentucky.” He named the donors: the Republican Jewish Coalition, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), and a super PAC called MAGA KY that is funded by megadonors Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson. The Evangelical Christians United for Israel (CUFI) group is also working against Massie.

.

Watch full interview here:

A House primary race that is threatening to become the most expensive in Kentucky history has become a battle between neocon megadonors and an emerging right-wing/libertarian coalition.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie told podcaster Tucker Carlson this week that his race has tightened up significantly. “It’s a single-point lead for me,” said Massie. “They’ve spent $10 million against me. … It’s going to be close.”

Betting markets had Massie up by 10 points just a few weeks back. Since then, ads for his opponent, a former Navy SEAL-turned-farmer named Ed Gallrein, have exploded on social media as well as traditional media.

But one place Kentuckians have yet to see Gallrein is the debate stage. He has avoided numerous requests to tangle in the arena of ideas, including from friendly local radio hosts, as we previously reported. Massie told Carlson his opponent won’t debate because he doesn’t hold any genuine positions. He reminded listeners of President Donald Trump’s previous comment, that in Gallrein, he wanted a “warm body to beat Massie.”

Israeli Lobby Backing Opponent

Carlson reiterated that, unlike past races in which Massie won by large margins, this one is close only because of “the money poured into this race from outside of Kentucky.” In Massie’s words, “The real reason that this race is a serious race and I may lose is because a foreign lobby has fully funded — to the extent that they’ve never done in any Republican race ever before — my opponent.”

“Where did that money come from?” Carlson asked.

“It’s come from billionaires. At least 95 percent has come from the Israeli lobby,” Massie said. He named the Republican Jewish Coalition, AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee), and a super PAC called MAGA KY that is funded by megadonors Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer, and John Paulson. Massie noted that MAGA KY is “neither MAGA nor Kentucky.” What these people are doing, essentially, is “trying to buy a congressional seat in Kentucky.”

According to Massie, another group that is working against him is Christians United for Israel. “Their position is more war, it’s more strife, it’s more bombs, it’s send more foreign aid — and those are the things I’ve been voting against.”

Federal Election Commission filings do not reflect updated fundraising and spending for either Massie or Gallrein.

Opposition to Foreign Aid

The congressman said his worst sin, what really triggered the ire of the neocons, has been his opposition to foreign aid. “It turns out that I’ve never voted for foreign aid … for Israel, for Egypt, for Ukraine….”

Massie’s voting record, a rare feat of constitutional adherence, corroborates this claim. Moreover, he was among the few Republicans to oppose Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites last summer and to take the country to war this year.

Other dissident positions Massie has taken that have triggered the wrath of Trump and the neocon lobby are his votes against bloated government funding packages and his push for Jeffrey Epstein transparency.

Massie said he has raised about $5 million from thousands of donations that average $94. He added that he too has a super PAC that supports him. Usually, he added, he raises no more than $400,000 for these races. But this one is obviously different.

According to Massie, polling metrics shows that he’s doing well with every age group except the 60-and-over crowd. This aligns with other trends suggesting the baby boomers are propping up the neocon apparatus. To make matters worse, he said, Fox News, the outlet Republican baby boomers watch, has been avoiding him. Whereas he’s appeared on multiple Fox shows in the past, he’s had no luck this time. He posited the reason is because Fox wants to maintain their favorable standing with the White House, and having Massie on would endanger that.

AI-generated Lie

On a semi-related note, Carlson and Massie discussed an AI-generated opposition ad that portrays him holding hands and dining with U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) before entering a hotel. “This is worse than adultery,” the narrator says. “It’s a complete and total betrayal of President Trump and Kentucky conservatives.”

The video includes a disclaimer saying it’s AI, but the point of the ad is obvious. As Massie commented, “They’re hoping the older generation won’t realize it’s an AI generated lie.”

The primary election is May 19. If Massie loses, the entire country loses.

Read full article here…

Here is the fake AI video put out by Massie’s enemies:

 

About that Bombing of the Georgia Guidestones

Posted on by

Who Was RC Christian, the Man Who Commissioned the Georgia Guidestones?

May 8, 2026 The Why Files and Joe Rogan 4

In June 1979, a well-dressed man using the pseudonym Robert C. Christian asked Joe Finley, president of Elberton Granite Finishing Company, to build a monument to rival the magnitude and awe of Stonehenge. The granite monument stood 19’3″ high. Many found the Guidestones offensive as they proclaimed that the way to a perfect society is through a one-world government, genetic and racial purity, and massive global depopulation.On July 6, 2022, a bomb exploded on the monument that had stood on the property for over 40 years, partially destroying it.

Many people suspect that Ted Turner was the source of the Georgia Guidestones, but there is evidence that it was another man whose address on an envelope was unintentionally revealed in a documentary by a bank owner who corresponded the creator of the Guidestones.

.Warning: vulgar language

The Georgia Guidestones were heavily damaged in a bombing on July 6, 2022, and the debris was removed by the local government later that day. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation reported that the structure had been completely demolished for safety reasons. No time capsule was found while excavating the stones.

The person responsible for the explosion has not been identified or captured by police.

Joe Rogan’s guest was suspicious that there was not a detailed investigation to find the culprit who bombed the monument.

A critic wrote, “If it was a citizen hero that demolished it, that hero would have been found by now. The fact that the destruction was never investigated and no one was ever arrested; plus the fact that the media dropped it immediately, makes me think that those who created it are also the ones who destroyed it. It had become very inconvenient for them.”

Warning: vulgar language

For more information, read this article from CNN.

Bayer/Monsanto (Glyphosate/RoundUp) Wants to Poison People with NO LIABILITY

Posted on by

Thomas Massie Says Bayer/ Monsanto Has Our Country ‘Under Siege’ as It Seeks Protection from Lawsuits

February 27, 2026 Thomas Massie and The New American 3

Bayer acquired Monsanto in 2018 for $66 billion. US Representative Thomas Massie said that our entire country is under siege by Bayer, a German company that spent over $9 million lobbying the executive and legislative /congressional branches in order to gain immunity from lawsuits alleging Roundup Ready herbicide is toxic and causes cancer. He said that the Constitution guarantees people a trial if they have been harmed. He added that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, worked for a lobby firm, Ballard Partners, that registered to lobby for Bayer in December 2024. Ballard Partners contributed $50 million to Trump’s campaign in 2024.

Massie said that Trump’s recent executive order declaring that the production of the chemical glyphosate from Bayer is a ‘national defense priority’ was issued for the purpose of protecting the company from any liability. The EO contains the false claim that agricultural productivity would suffer without glyphosate.

Bayer/ Monsanto contends that the EPA has reviewed glyphosate for decades and reached the same conclusion “again and again” that Roundup does not cause cancer. The company further argued that even if a state jury wants a cancer warning, federal law bars Monsanto from unilaterally adding it. If Monsanto wins on preemption, the impact could be sweeping: whenever the EPA has approves a pesticide label, it would effectively elevate a federal agency’s risk-determination above the authority of state courts and juries.

Massie Warns of Lobbyist Siege Over Bayer’s Glyphosate Protections

Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie accused Bayer of spending over $9 million in 2025 lobbying for exemptions from lawsuits over glyphosate, the world’s top herbicide sold as Roundup and tied to non-Hodgkin lymphoma cases.
He criticized a recent Trump executive order labeling it critical for national defense, which could shield producers from liability, alongside a Justice Department brief backing Bayer in an upcoming Supreme Court case.
Massie, joined by Rep. Chellie Pingree, introduced a bill to repeal those protections amid debates balancing health risks against farming needs, with HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calling for a shift to regenerative methods.

From The New American:

Monsanto Asks Supreme Court to Preempt State Roundup Cancer Claims

Monsanto has filed its opening brief at the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to wipe out a Missouri verdict that held the company liable for failing to warn that Roundup causes cancer.

The case lands in a political moment favorable to Bayer AG, Monsanto’s German parent company. Last Wednesday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order framing the glyphosate supply as a national-defense issue and directing federal prioritization of domestic production. It also contains language that effectively protects producers from regulatory and legal pressure by emphasizing that government action should not “place the corporate viability” of domestic producers “at risk.” The brief explicitly quotes that order, repeating its demonstrably false claim that agricultural productivity would suffer without glyphosate.

Last December, the Trump Justice Department entered the case as amicus curiae – “friend of the court” – urging the SCOTUS to adopt Monsanto’s position.

Join the Coalition! Become an affiliate member today! Click Here!

Roundup’s main active ingredient, glyphosate, has already been linked to cancer in multiple legal disputes and peer-reviewed studies. Juries have awarded billions in damages against Monsanto over Roundup-related claims, and about 61,000 lawsuits remain active.

Additionally, last Tuesday, Bayer announced a proposed $7.25 billion class settlement intended to resolve current and future Roundup claims, a move the company described as part of a broader strategy to contain ongoing litigation.

The Case

The core legal question of the case Monsanto Company v. Durnell is whether FIFRA, the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, blocks state failure-to-warn verdicts when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) — one of many unconstitutional federal agencies long captured by corporate lobbyists — has repeatedly approved labels without a cancer warning.

Argument is set for April 27.

Federal Primacy

Monsanto’s brief opens with a blunt thesis about federal primacy. It argues that EPA has reviewed glyphosate for decades and reached the same conclusion “again and again”:

EPA has exhaustively studied glyphosate … and concluded again and again in registering countless versions of Monsanto’s Roundup products that glyphosate does not cause cancer.

That conclusion is the spine of the preemption argument. Monsanto says EPA not only declined to require a cancer warning, but that a warning “stating otherwise is neither required nor permitted under FIFRA.”

The company then contrasts that federal judgment with what happened in Missouri:

A Missouri jury hearing a state-law failure-to-warn claim had other ideas.

The jury, Monsanto says, demanded “precisely the kind of cancer warning on Roundup’s label that EPA considered and rejected.”

In the case in question, Anderson v. Monsanto Co., the jury sided with a Missouri man who alleged that prolonged occupational exposure to Roundup caused his non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It found Monsanto liable for negligence, defective design, and failure to add a warning label about the product’s cancer risks. The decision cited internal documents and scientific studies suggesting that Monsanto was aware of potential carcinogenic risks associated with glyphosate-based formulations but failed to communicate those risks to users.

“The Label Is the Law”

The brief repeats a phrase that has become almost a slogan in pesticide regulation:

Once EPA approves a label, the “label is the law!”

That matters because Monsanto’s second preemption theory is impossibility. The company argues that even if a state jury wants a cancer warning, federal law bars Monsanto from unilaterally adding it. In the brief’s words:

Manufacturers cannot distribute pesticides with labels that differ substantially from the label approved by EPA.

So the state verdict, Monsanto argues, orders an outcome that federal law blocks. It calls this a basic impossibility conflict:

Simultaneous compliance with federal and state law would be impossible.

If EPA approves a label without a cancer warning, and if EPA views such a warning as false or misleading, then state tort law is not just different. It is a trap, argues the company.

Uniformity, the “Crazy Quilt,” and “Lay Juries”

Monsanto’s brief argues that pesticide labeling cannot be governed by 50 different jury systems without wrecking national uniformity and market availability:

To ensure ‘[u]niformity’ in pesticide labeling, FIFRA expressly preempts any state-law labeling requirement that is ‘in addition to or different from those required under’ the statute.

It then invokes the Supreme Court’s own language about the “crazy-quilt” of conflicting state rules, saying that is exactly what Congress enacted the uniformity clause to stop.

Then the broadside, repeating:

Once EPA makes that judgment, the label is the law. It cannot be second-guessed by lay juries applying the law of 50 states.

And the brief points to a claimed market consequence that Bayer has already made real:

Cascading tort liability has forced Monsanto to remove glyphosate from the residential consumer market while threatening its availability for farmers.

That is the outcome Trump’s executive order tries to prevent. As quoted in the brief:

“reduction or the cessation of domestic production” of “glyphosate-based herbicides would … hav[e] a debilitating impact on domestic agricultural capabilities.”

Significance of the Case

If Monsanto wins on preemption, the impact could be sweeping. A ruling that FIFRA blocks label-based failure-to-warn claims whenever the EPA has approved a pesticide label would effectively elevate a federal agency’s risk-determination above the authority of state courts and juries. It would hand Bayer a powerful mechanism to knock out large categories of Roundup cases by arguing that once Washington has spoken, states are barred from reaching their own conclusions, even through traditional tort law.

If Monsanto loses, states would retain the authority to protect their own citizens through product liability law, including through so-called lay juries tasked with weighing evidence in open court. It would preserve the ability of state courts to impose liability where they find harm, even when federal regulators have approved a product’s label. In that sense, the case tests whether federal pesticide regulation sets a floor for safety, or a ceiling that forecloses any further accountability at the state level

from:    https://needtoknow.news/2026/02/thomas-massie-says-bayer-monsanto-has-our-country-under-siege-as-it-seeks-protection-from-lawsuits/

Vaccine Shedding — Add Your Voice!

Posted on by

What We Now Know About COVID Vaccine Shedding

Numerous data sources have corroborated that the COVID vaccines shed in a consistent and replicable manner

A Midwestern Doctor's avatar
A MIDWESTERN DOCTOR
MAR 01, 2026

Story at a Glance:

•After the COVID-19 vaccines hit the market, stories began emerging of unvaccinated individuals becoming ill after being in proximity to recently vaccinated individuals. This confused many, as the mRNA technology in theory should not be able to “shed.”

•After seeing countless patient cases which can only be explained by COVID vaccine shedding, a year ago, I initiated multiple widely seen calls for individuals to share suspected shedding experiences.

•From those 1,500 reports, clear and replicable patterns have emerged which collectively prove “shedding” is a real and predictable phenomenon that can be explained by known mechanisms unique to the mRNA technology.

•Likewise, after being blocked from publication for over a year, recently, a scientific study corroborating the shedding phenomenon was finally published.

•This article will map out everything that is known about shedding (e.g., what are the common symptoms, how does it happen, who does it affect, does it occur through sexual contact, can it cause severe issues like cancer) along with strategies for preventing it.

When doctors in this movement speak at events about vaccines, by far the most common question they still receive is, “Is vaccine shedding real?”

This is understandable as COVID-19 vaccine shedding (becoming ill from vaccinated individuals) represents the one way the unvaccinated are also at risk from the vaccines and hence still need to be directly concerned about them.

Simultaneously, it’s a challenging topic as:

•We believe it is critical to not publicly espouse divisive ideas (e.g., “PureBloods” vs. those who were vaccinated) that prevent the public from coming together and helping everyone. The vaccines were marketed on the basis of division (e.g., by encouraging immense discrimination against the unvaccinated), and many unvaccinated individuals thus understandably hold a lot of resentment for how the vaccinated treated them. We do not want to perpetuate anything similar (e.g., discrimination in the other direction).

•We don’t want to create any more unnecessary fear—which is an inevitable consequence of opening up a conversation about shedding.

•In theory, shedding with the mRNA vaccines should be “impossible,” so claiming otherwise puts one on very shaky ground.

Conversely, if shedding is real, we believe it is critical to expose as:

•Those being affected by it are in a horrible situation, particularly if everyone is gaslighting them about it and insisting it’s all in their head.

•It provides one of the strongest arguments to pull the mRNA vaccines from the market and prohibit the widespread deployment of mRNA technologies in the future.

For those reasons, Pierre Kory and I have spent almost three years trying to collect as much evidence as possible to map out this phenomenon with the following data sets:

•Dozens of extremely compelling patient histories1,2,3 from Kory and Marsland’s medical practice, including many responding to spike protein treatment.
•My own experience with patients and friends affected by shedding.
• I read large numbers of reports of shedding in (now deleted) online support groups.
•Roughly 1,500 reports from individuals affected by shedding we were able to collect.
•Extensive menstrual data compiled by MyCycleStory.
•A peer-reviewed study indicating COVID vaccine shedding affects menstruation (which was almost impossible to get published).

From that and the hundreds of hours of work that went into it (particularly reviewing and sorting the 1,500 reports), we can state the following with relative certainty:

1. Shedding is very real (e.g., each of those datasets is congruent with the others), and many of the stories of those affected by it are very sad.
2. People’s sensitivity to it dramatically varies.
3. Most of the people who are sensitive to shedding have already figured it out.
4. Mechanistically, shedding is very difficult to explain. However, now that new evidence has emerged, a much stronger case can be made for the mechanisms I initially proposed a year ago.

Note: if you have a shedding experience you would like to share (or wish to read through them), please do so here, where they are compiled.

To Read the Rest of the Story and Support A MIDWESTERN DOCTOR, go to the source:    https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/what-we-now-know-about-covid-vaccine?publication_id=748806&post_id=189534063&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

C’Mon Bill and Hill — Never Even Saw Epstein

Posted on by

Bill and Hillary Clinton Denied Knowledge of Epstein Crimes in Closed Testimonies

March 2, 2026 Jimmy Dore, Bill Clinton and ZeroHedge 1

During her recent testimony in a hearing over connections to Jeffrey Epstein, Hillary Clinton denied ever meeting Jeffrey Epstein and said she only knew Ghislaine Maxwell casually. Epstein arranged meetings between Hillary and the Rothschilds in 2013. Jimmy Dore contrasted Hillary’s denial with resurfaced emails, fundraising event references, and Maxwell’s confirmed attendance at Chelsea Clinton’s wedding, arguing these details undermine her credibility.He also highlighted past comments in which Hillary dismissed or criticized women who accused Bill Clinton of misconduct, framing this as contradictory to her current posture toward victims. The segment amplifies claims from Nancy Mace that Clinton was “screaming” during the closed-door testimony and suggests broader political hypocrisy surrounding the Epstein scandal.

Bill Clinton said: “My brief acquaintance with Epstein ended years before his crimes came to light, and … I never witnessed during our limited interactions any indication of what was truly going on,” said the 79-year-old former president, adding “I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing.”

Bill Clinton claimed to have no knowledge of any criminal activity by Jeffrey Epstein

– Jeffrey Epstein visited the White House 17 times
– Bill Clinton flew on the Lolita Express 27 times
– Jeffrey Epstein involved in a Hillary Clinton Fundraiser
– Epstein help setup the Clinton Global Initiative and the Clinton Foundation
– Hillary Clinton claims PizzaGate is fake
– Hillary Clinton and Jeffrey Epstein had a close relationship
– Women were given plea deals as adults for trafficking minors with Epstein
– Actor Kevin Spacey has come out opposing Trump looking into the Epstein files and Clintons

Bill Clinton’s public statement following his closed testimony.

From ZeroHedge:

‘I Did Not Have Relations With That Man, Jeffrey Epstein’: Bill Clinton Tries Ol’ Lewinsky Trick On American Public

Former President Bill Clinton on Friday told lawmakers that he had no clue about crimes carried out by Jeffrey Epstein, the late sex offender who visited the Clinton White House at least 17 times while Bill was president, before letting Clinton fly on the ‘Lolita Express’ dozens of times.

“I saw nothing, and I did nothing wrong,” Clinton said in a statement prepared for a closed-door deposition in Chappaqua, New York. “I know what I saw, and more importantly, what I didn’t see.”

“My brief acquaintance with Epstein ended years before his crimes came to light, and … I never witnessed during our limited interactions any indication of what was truly going on,” said the 79-year-old former president, adding “I had no idea of the crimes Epstein was committing.“

Which is weird, because Epstein had a picture of Clinton in a blue ‘Monica Lewinsky’ dress and red pedo club shoes on his wall…

 

Clinton became the first former president forced to testify to Congress – and did so just one day after his wife, Hillary Clinton, testified before the same panel.

While Clinton was interviewed in a closed-door session, the GOP chairman of the committee, James Comer, said they would be asking Bill about trips he took on Epstein’s plane, and the White House visits Epstein made while Clinton was president.

Another GOP lawmaker on the panel, Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, said that Clinton would be “thoroughly asked” about pictures of him featured in the Epstein files – including one of him soaking in a jacuzzi, and another of him swimming with Ghislaine Maxwell.

According to the Epoch Times, an FBI document stated that a person whose name was redacted and was not an Epstein victim reported that she was invited to an orgy with Clinton, but did not attend. Law enforcement emails said that an Epstein victim said she met Epstein through another victim who had traveled with Epstein and Clinton to Africa.

Clinton flew on Epstein’s plane in 2002 and 2003, according to previously known flight logs and photographs. He has said previously through a spokesperson that those trips involved work for the Clinton Foundation and that he never went to Epstein’s island, although he briefly went to Epstein’s home in New York and logs showed Epstein went to the White House while Clinton was president.

As Bloomberg notes, ‘Clinton took several trips on Epstein’s private plane before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to Florida state charges that included procurement of a minor to engage in prostitution. Epstein also donated $1,000 to Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and $20,000 to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 US Senate campaign. A charity controlled by Epstein contributed $25,000 to the Clintons’ private foundation.’

Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, told the BBC earlier this month that Bill was only flying on the Lolita Express “for his charitable work.” 

Like this?

 

from::::https://needtoknow.news/2026/03/bill-and-hillary-clinton-denied-knowledge-of-epstein-crimes-in-closed-testimonies/

Who Wanted War with Iran???? Let’s Check the Numbers

Posted on by

Democrats Secretly Help Trump Start War in Iran. Thomas Massie Aims to Force a Public Vote on War

March 2, 2026 Thomas Massie, Jimmy Dore, MTG, Strength In Numbers and Max Blumenthal 9

Democrats Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, and Senator Chuck Schumer have both taken over $1.7 million from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby
The United States and Israel launched a new round of military strikes against Iran on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026. Trump has called on Iranians to rise up and overthrow their government; critics say this is evidence that Iran cannot be defeated militarily.

Congressman Thomas Massie announced that he will work with Democrat Representative Ro Khanna to force a Congressional vote on war with Iran. He wrote: “The Constitution requires a a vote, and your Representative needs to be on record as opposing or supporting this war.”

A senior policy aid to Senator Chuck Schumer revealed that Democrat Congress members who are aligned with Israel support Trump’s new war with Iran as Republicans are set to absorb the domestic backlash ahead of the midterms. However, Massie’s war powers vote threatens to force Democrats to publicly declare whether they support giving Trump unilateral authority to wage war.

A YouGov snap poll fielded Feb. 28, the day of the strikes, found 34% of Americans approve of the US attacks on Iran, with 44% disapproving and 22% unsure. A new regime change war is politically toxic.

.Trump campaigned on isolationism and “no new wars.”

According to Grok, “reports from Reuters, NYT, CNN, Al Jazeera and others confirm: Israel launched pre-emptive strikes on Iranian targets today (Feb 28 2026), with US coordination and Trump announcing “major combat operations.”

Last year, on June 22, 2025, the United States military, under President Trump, conducted airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities as part of the Twelve-Day War. President Trump claimed that the strikes “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities.

From Marjorie Taylor Greene:

From Strength in Numbers:

Trump starts a war with Iran that few Americans support

The United States and Israel launched a new round of military strikes against Iran on Saturday, Feb. 28, and so the most important numbers this week are the ones measuring whether the country is behind the war its president just started. It is not.

I also have a recap of a massive week of Strength In Numbers publishing — including our February poll release, two deep dives on party strategy, and a flash poll on Trump’s State of the Union address.

On deck this week: Tuesday’s Deep Dive will cover exclusive new Strength In Numberspolling data that shows voters hold contradictory opinions on a variety of social and economic issue areas. Given measurement error in surveys, how you ask questions matters a lot for the implications polls have for the public and party strategy.

For now, let’s dig into the numbers on Iran.

I. Trump starts a war with Iran that nobody wants

Last June, after the U.S. bombed strategic military targets in Iran, I published an article compiling polls that showed just 16% of Americans supported “getting involved in the Israel-Iran conflict,” including just 19% of Trump voters. Then, the public didn’t want a war with the country, with 60% of adults opposing military action.

Eight months later, the public still doesn’t support military action in Iran.

A YouGov snap poll fielded Saturday — the day of the strikes — found 34% of Americans approve of the U.S. attacks on Iran, with 44% disapproving and 22% unsure. The partisan breakdown reflects strong polarization in opinion: Republicans approve 69–12, Democrats disapprove 70–10, and independents lean heavily against — 52% disapprove, 20% approve.

  • Save

This level of support for a foreign war is incredibly low. In comparison, a Gallup poll in November 2001 found 92% of Americans approved of military action in Afghanistan. And a Pew poll in late March 2003 found 71% supported the decision to use force in Iraq. The YouGov snap poll from Saturday puts approval of the Iran strikes at 34%.

Looking at opinions broken down by party tells a similar story. After 9/11, the partisan gap on Afghanistan was essentially nonexistent — 96% of Republicans and 90% of Democrats approved of a U.S. invasion of the country. And when Operation Iraqi Freedom began in Iraq in March 2003, 93% of Republicans supported the war vs 59% of Democrats.

On Iran, Republicans’ support for the president’s attack is much lower. According to YouGov’s snap poll, just 69% of Republicans vs 10% of Democrats support Trump’s actions.

Read full article here…

From Max Blumenthal on X:

Blumenthal noted that Trump’s Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles is a former paid advisor to Netanyahu’s 2020 re-election campaign.

Blumenthal posted this message on February 27, 2025, the day before the US and Israel bombed Iran.

from:    https://needtoknow.news/2026/03/democrats-secretly-help-trump-start-war-in-iran-thomas-massie-aims-to-force-a-public-vote-on-war/