Podcasts about Praetorian Guard

In this week's episode, we take a look at the Praetorian Guard of the Roman Empire, and consider how ancient history can inspire fantasy novels. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Silent Order series at my Payhip store: SILENT2025 The coupon code is valid through November 10, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 275 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is October 31st, 2025, and today we're talking about the Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome and how that can inspire fantasy novels. Also, Happy Halloween (or Happy Protestant Reformation Day, if you prefer). Before we get into all that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. First up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in my Silent Order series at my Payhip store: SILENT2025. And as always, both the coupon code and the links to my store will be in the show notes. This coupon code will be valid through November 10th, 2025. So if you need a new ebook for this fall as we come into winter, we have got you covered. And now for an update on my current writing and publishing projects. As I mentioned last week, Cloak of Worlds is now out and you get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and at my Payhip store. The initial response has been very strong and very positive, so thank you for that and I'm glad that people are enjoying and reading the book. Now that Cloak of Worlds is done, my next main project is Blade of Shadows, which will be the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series. I'm currently 44,000 words into it, which puts me on chapter 9 of 20, though I'll probably have more chapters in the final draft than I will in the first draft. I found people really do tend to prefer shorter punchier, shorter chapters. Anyway, I'm about 44,000 words into it. I think I'll be about 109,000 words, when all is said and done. So hopefully that will be out in November. I'm also 4,500 words into the next Rivah book, which is Wizard-Assassin. It'd originally been entitled Elven-Assassin, but I decided Wizard-Assassin sounded punchier, so we went with that instead. I'm about 4,500 words into that and if all goes well, it will come out in December, which will make it the final book I'll publish in 2025, though hopefully I'll be publishing more books in 2026 before too much longer. In audiobook news, Brad Wills is currently recording Blade of Flames and we've been listening to some proof chapters of it and are very excited about what we're hearing. Hollis McCarthy is starting work on recording Cloak of Embers. That'll be the 10th book in Cloak Mage, and hopefully we will have both of those audiobooks out before the end of the year, if all goes well. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and publishing projects. 00:02:33 Main Topic: Praetorian Guard of the Ancient Roman Empire Now let's move on to our main topic this week, which is the Praetorian Guard of the Ancient Roman Empire, and they were very bad at their jobs, but we'll get into that more very shortly. One of the fascinating (if occasionally depressing) aspects of history is how often institutions end up having the exact opposite outcome of what they were intended to do. The late science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle had something called Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy, which once the bureaucracy got large enough, it will inevitably start turning its main focus to perpetuating the bureaucracy rather than carrying out its actual mission. And we can see examples of that time and time again, and no doubt you yourself can think of many examples: schools that make their students dumber, military organizations that fail to defend, hospitals that make people sicker, bureaucracies that exacerbate the problems that they are created to solve, and so forth. This can also apply to social movements as well. My favorite example of this is Prohibition in America. The Temperance movement of the late 19th and early 20th century achieved its goal of banning alcohol sales in the United States during the Prohibition period, but the backlash and the consequences made it unpopular. And today, while alcohol is much more heavily restricted than it was at the end of the 19th century, the idea of banning alcohol in the United States is utterly implausible. The Praetorian Guard of Ancient Rome, the personal bodyguards of the Emperor, might be another example of such an institution that utterly failed at its primary goal. For over a thousand years, people have been asking why the Roman Empire fell, and I think that might actually be the wrong question. The better question is why did the Roman Empire last as long as it did, because it sure almost didn't. At the height of its power, the Empire controlled land on three different continents in an area larger than many modern states, and it had to maintain that control without anything resembling modern technology and organization. Think of the difficulties involved in governing a large multi-ethnic state in the 21st Century with modern technology and communications and imagine how much harder it was in the first century AD. Travel was difficult and dangerous even with the Roman road system. The account of St. Paul's shipwreck in the book of Acts must've been an all too common experience in the Roman Empire, given the number of Roman wrecks on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea. Messages could take weeks to reach their recipients, and there was no division between civilian and military authority. That meant if the Emperors wanted to do anything, they had to use the army to do it because the army was the only pool of skilled men loyal to the state. Since the Empire never really solved the problem of succession and the transfer of power, it didn't take long before ambitious men figured out that the man with the largest army could declare himself Emperor and the Roman Empire actually broke apart into three competing mini empires and almost fell apart entirely in the middle of the 200s AD. So as we can see, there were a lot of reasons the Roman Empire fell apart and the Praetorian Guard, the bodyguard of the emperors, was one of them. The Praetorian Guard certainly wasn't the sole reason the Roman Empire collapsed, but the guard most definitely didn't help. In the last century of the Roman Republic, one of the growing problems was that the armies were less loyal to Rome and more loyal to their general, who made sure they got paid and received grants of land upon discharge. To show their prestige and to guard against the danger of assassination from rivals, generals began collecting personal bodyguards. Since the Roman generals commanded from a tent in a legionary camp called a "praetorium," the general's private guards became called "praetorians." Obviously, the general wanted his best troops as his bodyguards so becoming a praetorian was a privileged position with higher pay and perks. This practice continued as the Roman Republic split apart into civil wars between the ambitious generals of the First and Second Triumvirates. The civil wars of the Roman Republic ended with Octavian, later known as Caesar Augustus, as the last man standing with sole control of what we now think of as the Roman Empire. Augustus is remembered as the first Roman emperor, but the office of Emperor didn't really exist at the time, not the way we think of it now. Rather, Augustus was essentially a military dictator, but after he won, he went to great lengths to conceal his power under cloak of legality by having the Senate invest him with various official powers and offices. In modern terms, it'd be like if the United States was ruled by a military dictator who simultaneously held the offices of President, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, the governorships of the five most populous states, all while claiming to be only the first citizen among equals. Essentially, Augustus invented the powers of the Roman emperor on the fly while being a military dictator and his successors followed suit. Julius Caesar famously pardoned his enemies and went around without a bodyguard to show his courage, which ended up getting him assassinated. Augustus, by contrast, was determined not to repeat that mistake. So after annihilating his enemies, he founded a personal bodyguard in what we know today as the Praetorian Guard. That's a modern term. The praetorians never called themselves the Praetorian Guard, and they always refer to themselves as the praetorian of whichever emperor they happen to be serving like the Praetorians of Augustus or the Praetorians of Claudius and so forth. Augustus seems to have seen some of the potential danger in the institution of the Praetorian Guard, and during his reign, they were scattered around Italy with ones guarding him rotated out every so often. The Praetorians in Italy, when not guarding the Emperor, tended to do odd jobs for the government that needed doing like policing, construction, surveying, settling boundary disputes, and so forth. However, Augustus's successor Tiberius concentrated the Guard in Rome, which made it even more dangerous. It also tied into another problem with the Roman Empire, one that it never quite managed to solve, which was the succession problem. Augustus was a military dictator who assembled a sort of ad hoc legality around his position with various offices and powers. But how would he pass that onto a successor or what if someone else decided they were the proper successor? Augustus had taken his office by force, so why shouldn't anyone else? The Praetorian Guard exacerbated this problem further. Was their loyalty to the office of the Emperor (which was tricky because that office didn't technically exist)? Was it to the man himself or to his heirs? Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Praetorian Guard eventually settled on the most practical answer to this question. Their loyalty belonged to whoever paid them the most money. There's a very high chance that Tiberius was murdered by the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, which means that the imperial bodyguard made it only two emperors [repeated for dramatic emphasis] before it started killing them. Tiberius's successor Caligula was famously insane and the Guard eventually got sick of him and participated in his murder. After Caligula's death, the guard declared Claudius as the new Emperor, who repaid them by giving them lavish donatives. That meant the Guard had gone from protecting the emperors to killing ones that didn't like, and then installing new ones. After the Senate turned against Nero and he committed suicide in 69 AD, the Roman Empire had its year of four emperors: Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and finally Vespasian, who won the civil war and became the new emperor. Each of the potential claimants had their own praetorians who fought against other praetorians. The original Praetorian Guard of Nero did not cover itself in glory, as their comfortable life in Rome did not make them effective as field soldiers and they lost against the toughened legionaries from the frontier armies who came to fight in the civil war. That said, during the reigns of the Five Good Emperors (Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus Aurelius) from 96 to 180 AD, we don't hear much about the Praetorian Guard. The most likely explanation is that these emperors were strong and capable rulers, so the guard had no reason to turn against them, and therefore any potential conspiracies that would've involved the Guard just didn't get off the ground. However, part of the reason the 100s AD were the apex of the Roman Empire is that Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius did not have sons, so they adopted a capable leader as their son and heir, thereby creating continuity of rule. Marcus Aurelius unfortunately had a natural son named Commodus, and after he died, Commodus became Emperor. Commodus was a spectacularly incompetent narcissist, nowadays famously known as the villain from the movie Gladiator. If anything, Gladiator toned down Commodus' brutality, though to be fair to Commodus, he didn't murder his father like the fictional version did in the movie. Commodus was eventually assassinated, and the Praetorian Guard hit its lowest point soon after. Pertinax became Emperor after Commodus, and there was hope he would be a Nerva-type figure, a respected elderly Senator who would adopt a capable heir the way Nerva did with Trajan. However, Commodus had used the Guard as his privileged force of personal thugs, and Pertinax tried to impose discipline upon them. The Guard most definitely did not care for that, so they murdered Pertinax and then auctioned off the title of Emperor to whoever would pay them the most. Soon after Septimius Severus seized control of the Empire and he summarily fired all the Praetorian and put his own veteran legionaries in their place. So the Praetorian Guard, which had been intended to guard the emperors, ended up murdering the Emperor on a regular basis and sometimes choosing a successor and even auctioning off the title of Emperor to the highest bidder. Septimius Severus was a brutal ruler and held the Empire together long enough to die of natural causes. His sons Caracalla and Geta were his successors, and Caracalla murdered Geta before he was assassinated himself by yet another plot from disgruntled praetorians. After that, both the Empire and the Guard declined precipitously. This was the period later historians would call the Crisis of the Third Century, when the Roman Empire fractured into the three competing mini empires I mentioned earlier. A depressing pattern rapidly took hold. The Praetorian Guard or the army would kill an Emperor and proclaim a new one. The Emperor would last until he tried to do something the army didn't like, such as imposing discipline and then the pattern would repeat. The Praetorian Guard was never really reformed, but like so many failed institutions, it gradually became obsolete. Part of the reason was that the Empire was subject to frequent barbarian invasions throughout the 200s. The Emperor was required constantly on the frontiers to supervise the defense with the field armies. The emperors developed a different kind of bodyguard called the "scholae palatinae", a mounted group of soldiers that would accompany him in the field as he moved about the Empire. The constant defensive warfare also resulted in a subtle shift within the Empire. Rome was no longer the center of power within the Empire. The center of power was actually wherever the Emperor happened to be at the moment. The city of Rome itself had become in many ways an expensive vestigial relic of another age. Some of the emperors only visited Rome once. Some of the shorter-lived ones never made it there at all, and the Emperors certainly did not rule from Rome. Because of these changes, the idea of the Praetorian Guard, a permanent bodyguard force based in Rome, had become obsolete. The actual end of the Praetorian Guard came after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 AD, the battle where the Emperor Constantine famously had the vision that led him to convert to Christianity. The Praetorian Guard sided with Constantine's opponent Maxentius, and since Constantine had no use for the Praetorian Guard and indeed would move his capital to the new city of Constantinople, he simply had the Guard disbanded and continued to rely on mounted cavalry units for his personal bodyguard. So the Praetorian Guard, after three centuries of frequent treachery and corruption, had come to an end. Amusingly, while the Guard was gone, the title of "praetorian prefect" remained in use in the Empire for the rest of its history, which came to show just how powerful the commander of the Guard could become. In the end, the Praetorian Guard was yet another example of institution that became a hindrance to the very goals it was founded to advance. This seems to be a curse of any organization, and the only cure is constant vigilance and strong leadership, two qualities, alas, that are all too rare at any age of history. Yet you can definitely see why I say history is the best source of material for fantasy writers. You could get like 20 different novels out of the events I discussed above. So that is it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe, stay healthy, and see you all next week.

Last time we spoke about the Japanese encirclement of Nanjing. As battles erupted around Lake Tai, the Chinese troops used guerrilla tactics and artillery to resist the technologically superior Japanese. However, internal strife and logistical issues began to weaken their defense. On December 1st, Japan's Central China Area Army was ordered to assault Nanjing, and despite heavy resistance, the Japanese forces swiftly captured key towns. By December 7th, with Japanese troops closing in, Chiang Kai-Shek prepared to evacuate the capital. Anxiety and fear gripped the city as civilians witnessed horrific atrocities in the countryside, where Japanese soldiers unleashed violence against unarmed populations. The defense of Nanjing became symbolic of Chinese perseverance against oppression. As the city faced inevitable destruction, hope rested on the courage of its defenders and the belief that they could rally against the relentless tide of attack, knowing their plight was drawing the world's attention amidst a brutal conflict.   #166 Enemy at the Gates of Nanjing  Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. War was steadily creeping toward Nanjing, and the remaining residents understood this grim reality. Starting December 8, the distant sounds of artillery began to echo through the city. The following day, the first shell from a Japanese battery struck downtown, detonating at Xinjiekou square. Amid the chaos and anarchy engulfing much of Nanjing as the population dwindled, looting became rampant. Chinese soldiers were reportedly seen stealing from abandoned stores. Daily life had largely ground to a halt. To this desolate and partially lawless city, refugees from the war continued to arrive. However, on December 8, the influx of refugees came to an abrupt halt. All gates in the city wall were locked, only to be opened for urgent military needs. Even soldiers injured in battles near the city were reportedly denied entry, left to perish just minutes away from desperately needed medical care. As the Japanese forces tightened their grip around Nanjing, more civilians sought refuge in the safety zone. American missionary Ernest Forster wrote in a letter to his wife “I wish you could witness the influx of people into this area from other parts of the city. All the roads leading here are lined with groups transporting whatever possessions they can carry, tireless rickshaws, some even pulled by students, wheelbarrows, trucks, baby carriages, anything with wheels.” On the evening of December 7, bonfires lit by soldiers of Japan's 16th Infantry Division near Unicorn Gate were clearly visible from Purple Mountain, which was defended by the elite Training Division of the Chinese Army. The bonfires presented an enticing target for this division, established as a model to inspire the rest of the Chinese forces, who remained eager to prove themselves even as defeat loomed. Commander Zhou Zhenqiang of the Training Division's 1st Brigade suggested a counterattack and had a plan in place. His brigade would launch a frontal assault while the 3rd Brigade, stationed to his left, would execute a flanking maneuver to encircle the unsuspecting adversary. Although this strategy had potential, it was never put into action. The Nanjing garrison dismissed the proposal, citing that “too many of our troops are already worn down,” according to Tang Shengzhi's staff. They warned that if the counterattack failed, there wouldn't be enough soldiers left to defend Nanjing. Consequently, the Training Division was compelled to dig in and await the enemy's arrival. While Chinese defenders were ordered to hold their ground, the 16th Japanese Infantry Division approached Purple Mountain. The slopes of the mountain were cloaked in conifers, interspersed with dense bamboo thickets that created almost jungle-like combat conditions. As one Japanese soldier of the 20th regiment noted  “Just a few paces ahead, you couldn't see anything. Even worse, you didn't know where the enemy was. When we heard gunfire, we shot back at random. Bullets were flying everywhere.” As the Japanese soldiers ascended the slope, they were halfway to the mountain's summit when they encountered white smoke and the characteristic cracking of burning bamboo. The Chinese troops, benefiting from a favorable wind, had set fire to the bamboo. Swiftly, the Japanese soldiers drew their swords and bayonets, cutting a wide firebreak through the bamboo to halt the flames. At the forefront of Purple Mountain was a key defensive position known as Old Tiger's Cave, located just east of the mountain. As long as this location remained in Chinese control, the Japanese could not capture the mountain itself. Understanding its significance, Chinese commanders stationed a battalion of well-equipped and highly motivated soldiers from the Training Division's 5th Regiment there. Fighting erupted in the afternoon of December 8, when the Japanese commenced a fierce artillery barrage on Old Tiger's Cave, followed by an infantry assault aimed at taking the hill. Under the cold-blooded command of their leaders, the Chinese battalion employed disciplined and concentrated fire, inflicting heavy casualties on the advancing Japanese troops, who were unable to advance that day. The following morning, the Japanese intensified their assault, combining artillery fire and aerial bombardment on Old Tiger's Cave. Their infantry again attempted the treacherous climb, hoping smoke grenades would obscure the defenders' line of sight. Once more, they were thwarted, facing additional pressure as a neighboring Chinese unit launched a counterattack against the Japanese right flank. The successful defense came at a significant cost; by the afternoon, over half of the battalion defending Old Tiger's Cave had become casualties. Given the hill's exposed position and difficulties in resupply, the officers of the Training Division reluctantly decided to abandon the position. The battered battalion, now without its commander, retreated to the second-highest peak of Purple Mountain. While the loss of Old Tiger's Cave was a setback for the Training Division, it also conferred certain advantages. The Chinese soldiers withdrew to a series of prepared defensive lines through terrain they knew intimately. This stronghold centered on Xiaolingwei, a town where the Training Division had moved into new barracks over four years prior. The battalion's soldiers were familiar with every creek, hamlet, bamboo grove, and pond in the region. The Japanese faced a daunting challenge ahead. Due south of Nanjing, the 6th Japanese Division had finally caught up with the 114th Division and was deployed to its left for the final push toward Nanjing. Between the division and the city wall lay a terrain of hills and low mountains dominated by two prominent features known as General's Peak and Ox Head Peak. The task fell to the division's 13th Regiment to proceed north along the highway, while the 23rd Regiment maneuvered left around the mountains before advancing north along the Yangtze River. The division's artillery regiment, functioning at only half its typical strength due to two of its four battalions remaining in the Hangzhou Bay area, was ordered to concentrate its firepower in support of the 13th Regiment as it navigated the terrain beneath the mountain peaks. Unfortunately, the regiment's advance became mired in unexpected Chinese resistance, and with the artillery deployed too far behind to provide adequate support, divisional command decided to halt the advance until the following day, December 9. Under the cover of darkness, the artillery units were repositioned closer to the front, and the artillery commanders established their command on a hill nearby. At dawn, they began firing at the Chinese positions with much greater precision than the previous day. Meanwhile, a column of tankettes rolled down the road between General's Peak and Ox Head Peak in support of the 13th Regiment. The first tank when it came under attack from hidden mountain guns. The enemy scored several hits on the tank, forcing the driver to crawl out of the burning vehicle. The driver's pants were engulfed in flames, and as men attempted to extinguish the fire, enemy machine gun fire ripped into the driver's chest, killing him instantly. The second vehicle also came under fire from shells and burst into flames. The commander and his driver attempted to escape the turret but were trapped when another shell hit, engulfing them in flames. Unaware of the unfolding disaster, the column continued its advance, and two more tankettes were destroyed. This skirmish proved costly, resulting in the loss of four vehicles and seven men. Despite the heavy losses, the coordinated operations involving infantry, armored vehicles, and artillery gradually succeeded in dislodging the Chinese from their positions. By nightfall on December 9, the first Japanese soldiers arrived in the town of Tiexinqiao, just south of Nanjing. Meanwhile, the 23rd Regiment continued its advance north along routes west of the mountain range. This maneuver required the regiment to abandon the relatively solid road it had used thus far, opting instead for primitive trails ill-suited for wheeled transport. The major drawback of this shift was the slow transportation of artillery. The consequences became evident when one of the regiment's battalions was ordered to dislodge enemy positions on a low peak known as Hill 154, situated astride the main route of advancement. With no artillery support available, half the battalion's strength, two companies remained in the rear to safeguard the artillery pieces as they were being repositioned. The battalion ordered the remaining two infantry companies to mount an assault on Hill 154. In place of artillery, they were instructed to utilize small-caliber knee mortars. As the Japanese forces advanced towards Hill 154, the Chinese defenders opened fire with everything at their disposal, heavy and light machine guns, rifles, and mortars. The Japanese were quickly pinned down, moving slowly toward the summit under the cover of fire from the knee mortars. A breakthrough occurred when a Japanese light machine gun crew spotted a large group of Chinese soldiers repositioning on the hill. A sustained burst of fire from their weapon struck true, sending dead and wounded Chinese soldiers tumbling down the slope. Seizing the opportunity, the Japanese platoon commander sprang to his feet and charged up the hill, followed closely by the machine gunner, with the rest of the platoon trailing 10 to 20 yards behind. As they advanced, they encountered four Chinese soldiers raising their rifles to shoot. The Japanese machine gunner was quicker, firing from the hip and killing all four in an instant. The remainder of the skirmish descended into chaos. The Japanese soldiers captured the hill and took aim, firing carefully and lethally at the backs of the defeated Chinese as they fled northward. Other Japanese troops swept through the trenches with fixed bayonets, mercilessly killing all Chinese soldiers present, those who were injured, those who attempted to surrender, and even those feigning death. As Japan's 10th Army advanced on Nanjing from the south, the Shanghai Expeditionary Force was making its way in from the east. The tactical situation was fluid, fast-changing, and unpredictable, with Japanese spearheads penetrating deep into Chinese-held territory, often bypassing large enemy troop formations that would then courageously launch counterattacks from the rear. On December 8th, the 16th Division was advancing into some mountainous terrain north of Jurang where their vanguard ran into an ambush. 200 Japanese soldiers were having lunch over a 300 foot hilltop position when suddenly Captain Akao Junzo heard his comrade shout “Thousands of enemies are coming up from behind! They are heading right towards you!” Rushing outside, Akao witnessed what appeared to be a wall of Chinese soldiers marching down the valley from the rear. He dashed to the next building, bursting through the door to find his soldiers preparing lunch, he shouted at them “The enemy is here! Come with me!” The soldiers dropped their cooking utensils, grabbed their rifles, and followed Akao up the hillside behind the farm buildings. Initially, the fighting seemed evenly matched. However, the Japanese quickly brought up their two heavy machine guns, set up just 50 yards apart. Firing at a rate of 500 rounds per minute, they caught the Chinese troops in a devastating crossfire. Nine light machine guns soon joined the fray. Within moments, the cohesion of the Chinese formation collapsed, and as some soldiers broke ranks and began to retreat, Akao's men eagerly pursued them with fixed bayonets. A young, aggressive officer led the charge, wildly swinging his sword until it snapped in two. Akao watched with satisfaction. This was the kind of warfare he and his men had trained for tirelessly, month after month, and they executed their tactics with precision. However, his attention soon shifted to the hill across the valley where he had previously posted the observation squad. The entire hill was now crawling with Chinese soldiers, all firing at the peak where the small group of Japanese soldiers was entrenched in what appeared to be a desperate battle. Determined to reclaim the hill, Akao led part of his men in a charge uphill but found themselves pinned down by Chinese gunfire halfway up. A force of three squads had arrived, bringing with them what was urgently needed: knee mortars. They were accompanied by the officer with the broken sword. Akao directed the mortar fire towards the top of the hill, watching as each explosive shell detonated among the dense cluster of Chinese soldiers. Taking advantage of this momentary confusion and disarray, Akao and his men rapidly climbed the hill with swords drawn. Upon reaching the peak, they found only a few Chinese soldiers remaining. One of them pointed a handgun at the officer with the broken sword. Realizing he had no means of defending himself, the officer could only shout, “Bastard!” This unexpected outburst caused the Chinese soldier to hesitate for a brief moment before pulling the trigger. That split second marked the difference between life and death. Another Japanese officer, whose sword remained intact, lunged forward and cut down the would-be shooter. Following this, Akao and his men discovered the beleaguered Japanese squad. The soldiers' bodies had been mutilated almost beyond recognition. Some had their eyes gouged out, others had their noses or ears sliced off, and many were missing hands and feet. There were no survivors. In the early hours of December 9, just before dawn, advance units of the Japanese Army's 36th Regiment, consisting of infantry and light tanks, encountered fierce resistance from a battalion of the Chinese Training Division stationed at Hongmaoshan Hill, located southeast of the Nanjing city wall. A prolonged exchange of fire ensued, forcing the Chinese defenders to withdraw after sustaining heavy casualties. The Japanese, eager to capitalize on their advantage, followed closely. As the first light of dawn cut the horizon, they faced the imposing silhouette of the Nanjing city wall, which appeared more like a natural formation than a man-made structure. Despite their exhaustion, the soldiers erupted in victorious cries of "Banzai" and advanced energetically toward an enormous gate in the wall, this was the “Guanghua Men” or “the Gate of Enlightenment”. The Chinese defenders reigned fire, and artillery upon the Japanese columns. At that time, the gate remained shut; the moat surrounding the city was 500 feet wide and up to 15 feet deep, while the city wall towered 40 feet high. The approach to the gate was obstructed by an antitank ditch and five rows of Spanish riders, these are portable wooden frames wrapped in barbed wire. Along the road from the gate to the moat, additional rows of barbed wire further fortified the defenses. Two mountain guns, hastily transported through the rugged terrain during the 36th regiment's rapid advance to Nanjing, were positioned at the Antiaircraft Academy and commenced firing directly at the gate. While they succeeded in damaging the heavy wooden doors, it quickly became apparent that the gate had been reinforced from behind with solid beams and densely packed sandbags, so robust that, as one Japanese soldier noted, “even a row of ants wouldn't be able to make it through.” Shelling alone would not suffice to break through the defenses, prompting the call for engineers to venture into the open, exposed to enemy fire from the top of the wall, to attempt clearing the obstacles and detonating explosives at the base of the gate. While their comrades provided cover fire to keep the defenders suppressed, the engineers maneuvered past the Spanish riders to plant their explosives at the foot of the gates. An ear-splitting explosion shattered the morning air, but when the dust settled, the gate remained largely intact. To the Japanese attackers, the Chinese defenders appeared firmly entrenched; however, the reality was that they were nearing a breaking point. The artillery shelling, coupled with several Japanese air raids earlier in the day, had resulted in over 100 casualties surrounding the gate. Reinforcements were hastily summoned from nearby city sectors, including a platoon of military police cadets led by Lieutenant Xiang Hongyuan. Armed with six ZB vz 26 machine guns, the cadets commandeered a series of buses and made their way to the Gate of Enlightenment.  The hours before sunset dragged on with a tense stalemate around the Gate of Enlightenment, as neither side managed to achieve a decisive advantage. The Japanese engineers made two more perilous attempts to blow up the gate, only to find their explosives insufficient to breach the strong defenses. In a bold move, the Chinese defenders launched a risky assault outside the wall to incinerate a flour mill taller than the city wall, which, if captured, could provide the Japanese with an excellent observation point. The Chinese infantry, sprinting towards the building with jerry cans and wood, became easy targets for the Japanese fire. Despite suffering heavy losses, enough soldiers managed to reach the mill and set it ablaze. As the battle for the gate intensified on December 9, the elite 88th Division of the Chinese military became increasingly involved. The division's 262nd Brigade, comprising the 523rd and 524th Regiments, was tasked with defending the city wall between the Gate of Enlightenment and the Chinese Gate. One battalion from the 524th Regiment was dispatched to bolster the defenses at the Gate of Enlightenment. As the Japanese attacks escalated, this battalion incurred around 300 casualties. One notable instance saw 17 surviving members of a company withdraw from the battlefield, led by a platoon commander after both the company commander and his deputy had been killed. The 36th Japanese Regiment had two battalions positioned on either side of the gate, with a third held in reserve. However, that reserve battalion soon uncovered that their rear was just as perilous as the front. They were consistently attacked by Chinese stragglers from the countryside, who aimed to break through to the city gate. A Chinese unit also maintained control of a hill southwest of the Antiaircraft Academy, directing fire at Japanese soldiers within the campus. This ongoing threat from Chinese stragglers made it extremely challenging for the forward regimental positions to communicate with brigade headquarters at Qiweng Bridge farther behind. Several messengers lost their lives while trying. Ultimately, all communication shifted to wireless methods. On December 9 at noon, a solitary Japanese bomber appeared above Nanjing, but rather than its usual payload of bombs, it carried leaflets. Signed by General Matsui, the leaflets boldly declared the futility of resistance for the Chinese defenders. With Nanjing surrounded, the message conveyed that the Japanese had the power to bring the conflict directly to the Chinese. Instead, the leaflet urged surrender, stating, “The deadline for a response is tomorrow, that is the 10th”.. The Chinese were instructed to submit their response by noon to the Japanese lines near Sun Yat-sen Gate. The leaflet warned that if the Chinese did not comply, the Japanese would have no choice but to launch an assault. The tone was stern and intimidating: “The Japanese Army shall show no mercy toward those who offer resistance, treating them with extreme severity, but shall harm neither innocent civilians nor Chinese military personnel who manifest no hostility.” It emphasized the dire consequences that awaited anyone who did not lay down their arms. In response, Chinese General Tang Shengzhi reiterated his order for all troops under his command to fight to the last drop of blood. At around noon on December 10, a lone car approached Nanjing's city wall along the road from Jurong. Inside was Muto Akira, the vice chief of staff for the Central China Area Army, accompanied by another senior officer and an interpreter fluent in Chinese. Upon reaching the Japanese line near Sun Yat-sen Gate, they halted and waited. Their mission was to meet with representatives of the encircled Chinese garrison and receive their response to the previous day's request for surrender. As the minutes ticked by, there was no movement from the other side. After an hour of waiting, the three Japanese officials concluded their visit had been in vain. The vehicle turned around and retraced its path. Earlier that  morning, the Japanese had deployed a large balloon over the city wall, carrying a large white banner with a simple message in Chinese: “Give up this hopeless fight. Open the city gates and surrender!” However, this effort seemed to prove useless. As the morning progressed, Chinese shelling intensified, confirming that there was no intention among the defenders to surrender. The absence of a formal reply by the established deadline served as confirmation that the Japanese had no choice but to prepare for a massive frontal assault on the fortified city walls. Matsui wrote in his diary that day “Today at noon, we still hadn't received a reply from the Chinese to my offer of surrender. So I issued an order for the two armies to launch the attack on Nanjing beginning this afternoon. The resistance put up by the enemy is almost symbolic at this stage. It will certainly have no real effect.” The Japanese advance was set to occur along the entire front, targeting Chinese positions at Yuhuatai, the Gate of Enlightenment, Tongji Gate, and the heights of Purple Mountain. Still, one final option remained: the proposal for a three-day truce sent to both the Chinese and Japanese governments by Rabe and other foreign representatives from the day before might still be acceptable. However, this hope was dashed later that afternoon. Tang issued an order at 7:00 pm, calling for a fight to the bitter end. He warned that anyone leaving their post without permission would face severe punishment, and those failing to prevent others from withdrawing would also be penalized. Additionally, he dispatched Song Xilian and his 36th Division, his closest equivalent to a Praetorian Guard, to patrol the Yangtze docks and thwart any attempts to escape across the river. “We must defend the city with all our strength. We cannot give up an inch of our soil.” The battle for the Gate of Enlightenment remained fiercely contested. Soldiers of the 9th Japanese Infantry Division, surrounded by Chinese forces, found themselves questioning whether they were the ones laying siege or if it was the other way around. The division's 36th Regiment, entrenched directly in front of the gate, was effectively cut off from the rest of the division, lacking even a telephone line to the 18th Infantry Brigade's headquarters at Qiweng Bridge in the rear. The area was swarming with Chinese stragglers trying to return to their units. Japanese infantrymen who exposed themselves in the open risked being fired upon from all directions by unseen adversaries. Things changed at 8:00 am when the brigade's deputy commander climbed into an armored vehicle at Qiweng Bridge and led a supply column through terrain that was only partially under Japanese control. The column, carrying 500 artillery shells and machine gun ammunition, arrived without incident, replenishing the 36th Regiment, which was dangerously low on supplies. Soon after, signal troops established a telephone link to the regiment, enabling communication to flow freely. B 4:00 pm a breach had finally appeared in the outer gate. The Japanese artillery units could now see well-fortified sandbag positions inside the gate, which would also need to be destroyed, but for now, they had overcome their first obstacle. Cheers erupted among the batteries. Tang Shengzhi understood the significance of the Gate of Enlightenment in the battle for Nanjing. He had entrusted its defense to remnants of the elite German-trained 87th Infantry Division. He also deployed survivors from the 156th Division and dispatched armored cars to the section of the city wall and rolled artillery near the gate to provide close tactical support. Then suddenly cries of banzai rang out as a Rising Sun flag hoisted above the city gate. Major Ito Yoshimitsu, the commander of the 1st Battalion positioned near the Gate of Enlightenment had ordered his 1st Company to ascend the debris-laden slopes flanking the gate that had accumulated during hours of shelling. As the soldiers of the 1st Company infiltrated the gate, Ito quickly instructed the 4th Company to follow closely behind. By the time the Chinese forces recognized the critical breach in their defenses, it was too late. The two Japanese companies secured the gate and moved up to 100 yards inside the city, establishing positions in several buildings. They had created a foothold. A few miles southwest of the Gate of Enlightenment, the elite german trained 88th Chinese Infantry Division, was embroiled in fierce combat. They were defending the rugged hills in front of the Chinese Gate known as Yuhuatai, which were crucial to holding Nanjing. As General Sun Yuanliang, the division's commander, succinctly put it, “The enemy won't die by himself!” The division deployed its 527th Regiment to Yuhuatai alongside two artillery companies, while keeping the 528th Regiment in reserve. Although the 88th Division had once been part of the pre-war elite, it had suffered significant losses during months of grueling fighting, first in and around Shanghai and then during the retreat to Nanjing. The division now comprised only 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers, of which 3,000 were newcomers brought in to replenish their depleted ranks.  The division did possess one notable advantage over its opponents: the terrain. Yuhuatai was a nightmare for attackers. Military planners had long assumed invaders would assault from the south, leading to the fortification of the area. Consequently, the defenses included extensive antitank ditches, concrete-reinforced pillboxes, and rows of barbed wire, all designed to thwart an invasion. Moreover, Yuhuatai had frequently served as a training ground, allowing the 88th Division's soldiers to jump into prepared trenches during maneuvers. When the 6th Japanese Division arrived at Yuhuatai on December 10, it became immediately clear to its officers that the Chinese had transformed the area into a formidable stronghold. Strategically placed Chinese machine gun nests pinned down Japanese infantry, rendering them unable to advance or retreat. To counter this, the 6th Division set up its artillery to provide close tactical support, even at great risk. A battery commander was killed while maneuvering his guns to target a heavily fortified Chinese position. Despite the added firepower, the Japanese forces advanced slowly through the hilly landscape and sustained heavy casualties. They faced repeated obstacles from barbed wire barricades, which could only be dismantled by soldiers exposing themselves to pinpoint enemy fire. The Chinese defenders often fought to the last man; one Japanese officer noted that a pillbox had been locked from the outside, leaving the soldiers inside with no chance to escape. The experience of a company from the 6th Division's 23rd Regiment was typical. They found themselves pinned down in an antitank ditch, barely able to move. At the slightest motion, a vigilant Chinese machine gunner from a pillbox 50 yards away unleashed carefully aimed bursts of fire. Gradually, however, Japanese shelling began to weaken the Chinese positions, prompting the defenders to retreat one by one, even forcing the machine gunner to withdraw. When the Japanese troops finally emerged from cover, they spotted the fleeing gunner in the distance. Eager for revenge, they fired at him as he crossed a low ridge. He initially collapsed, only to rise again and continue fleeing. This cat-and-mouse chase occurred several times, and the Japanese soldiers couldn't tell whether they had hit him. Later that day, as they advanced further, they discovered him dead, still clutching his machine gun. The 6th Division faced the familiar issue of advancing too rapidly and bypassing Chinese units that still posed a threat. A 1,600-foot hill in the path of the 47th Regiment remained occupied by Chinese soldiers, who continued firing into the backs of the advancing Japanese troops. The Japanese forces managed to take the hill in the evening of December 10 and held it throughout the night despite repeated Chinese counterattacks. On the Chinese side, the 88th Division's 527th Regiment was engaged in particularly heavy fighting, but unlike their Japanese counterparts, they struggled with inadequate artillery support. Reluctant to risk valuable materiel, a concern that was rarely matched by a similar regard for personnel, Chinese commanders had positioned their artillery behind a low hill for protection against direct Japanese fire. However, this placement also meant they had no clear view of the enemy. Equipment lost in battle could not be replaced, but men lost were another matter. By the evening, the battle for the Gate of Enlightenment was reaching a critical point. Chinese commanders deployed every available unit to close the gap in their defenses created by the Japanese 36th Infantry Regiment, which had managed to establish a tenuous foothold near the gate. The pressure was immense, as there was no doubt that dire consequences awaited if the gate were lost. By midnight, a squad of southern Chinese soldiers from the 156th Division devised a ruthless plan to eliminate the remaining Japanese defenders, they intended to burn them out. Climbing the wall overlooking the Japanese positions with timber and cans of gasoline, they dropped burning logs onto the Japanese troops below at 1:00 am, trapping them under the heavy, flaming debris and inflicting devastating injuries. This cruel assault may have been driven by revenge, as many in the 156th Division had witnessed their comrades burned alive on the hilltop outside Nanjing just days earlier. By the morning the fight for the Gate of Enlightenment devolved into a stalemate. Nanjing was facing a siege. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. General Tang Shengzhi led a defiant defense of Nanjing and  despite despair, civilians fortified the city, aware that its fall could shatter Chiang Kai-Shek's government. By early December, the Japanese were gradually surrounding the capital. Assaults were made against her walls and now it seemed the capital was about to face a brutal siege.

1.  #LONDINIUM90AD LIVE AT 6 PM ET SUNDAY: 8/31:  GAIUS & GERMANICUS DEBATE:  The Tiberius Model: Aged Leadership and Succession in the American Empire.  Gaius and Germanicus, speaking as 1st-century Romans from Londinium, discuss the "Tiberius model" to analyze challenges in 21st-century American leadership, particularly concerning the age of leaders and succession. They note that empires, much like history, often repeat themes or "rhyme". Tiberius, despite being Augustus's successful stepson and a capable general, showed little interest in being emperor after 14 AD, eventually assigning duties to Sejanus (head of the Praetorian Guard) and retiring to an island. His later years were chaotic, and his reign was followed by disruption. Germanicus describes Tiberius as "careless and irresponsible" and narcissistic, which "played havoc with the stability of Rome". The speakers draw direct parallels to recent and current American presidents, including Joe Biden and Mr. Trump, highlighting the inherent risks of age in leadership. Historically, Romans preferred a a "young and vigorous" emperor, with older rulers like Andronicus II often leading to disaster, though Nerva served as a transitional exception. In America, they recall FDR's fourth election in 1944 as retrospectively "not responsible" due to an unfixed succession plan, leading to "great turmoil" in 1945. In contrast, successful succession planning is exemplified by Eisenhower choosing a young Richard Nixon (39 years old at the time) as his running mate, providing a vital "plan B". Gaius notes that Joe Biden's presidency represented a "Tiberius moment" not only because of his age but also due to the "aged" leadership within the Democratic Party, making Kamala Harris "as infirm a choice as was Caligula" for succession. Mr. Trump is commended for being candid about his legacy and preparing for succession, which Gaius considers "sensible and grown up". The conversation emphasizes that the U.S. has effectively become an "emperor system," where the "health of the emperor is also so directly connected to the health of the nation". This makes the age issue one of "transcendent importance," teasing out the transition to this emperor system for all to see. They also acknowledge that younger generations (Gen X, millennials, Gen Z, and the alpha generation) need to understand these critical discussions about leadership and aging.  1872 EXCAVATING ROMAN FORUM. #LONDINIUM90AD LIVE AT 6 PM ET EVERY SUNDAY: GAIUS & GERMANICUS DEBATE. FRIENDS OF HISTORY DEBATING SOCIETY. @MICHALIS_VLAHOS. PRODUCED BY CHRIS NOEL.

Episode Notes Well maybe I'm eating this sht, but at least I get to sht in someone else's mouth too. We talk the news of the last few weeks/months. The formation of Kyle's Praetorian Guard is underway - soon he will get into whichever bathroom he so desires. Free Palestine, End the Genocide.

In this Podcast, Craig, Gaurav and their guest Victor discuss the Year or War of the four Emperors.   In a time of chaos, after the death of Emperor Nero, the Roman Empire found itself engulfed in a brutal power struggle known as the Year of the Four Emperors. It began with Galba, the governor of Hispania, leading a rebellion against Nero, catalyzed by discontent among the provinces. As Nero fled, declared an enemy of the state, he took his own life, paving the way for Galba's ascension. Galba, however, struggled to maintain power. His failure to pay the Praetorian Guard alienated key supporters, leading to his assassination. Otho, one of Galba's trusted allies, soon seized the throne, but his reign was short-lived as he faced opposition from Vitellius, who rallied the legions and successfully marched on Rome. The battle for control culminated in fierce confrontations, with legions loyally switching sides. Ultimately, Vitellius claimed victory and adorned the Imperial purple, yet his decadent reign could not sustain. He was overthrown by Vespasian, a seasoned general who had garnered support from the eastern provinces. Vespasian's rise marked the end of the chaos. He established stability, founding the Flavian dynasty that would last for decades. This tumultuous period not only reshaped leadership in Rome but also highlighted the fragility of power, etched forever into the annals of history as a superb reflection of ambition, betrayal, and courage in the heart of the Roman Empire.

From Gladiator to Rome Total War to I, Claudius, today the Cohortēs praetōriae are one of the most distinctive military units of Imperial Rome. It was their job to protect the Roman Emperor and his household, a task for which they hold a somewhat ‘chequered' record (especially when we focus in on the Praetorian Prefects). But what do we know about this unit's origins? How did this powerful force become protectors of the Emperor and his household? What other functions did they serve? And how did they differ from the standard Roman legions in their structure?To talk through the rise of the Praetorian Guard, with a specific focus on the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, Tristan caught up with historian Lindsay Powell at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex. Lindsay is the author of several books about the Early Roman Imperial Period. His latest book, Bar Kokhba: The Jew Who Defied Hadrian and Challenged the Might of Rome, is out now.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.All music from Epidemic SoundsSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here.This episode first aired in October 2021.

Appreciating just how dangerous our situation is right now. They are experts in language and controlling the language. The revolution is more important than honesty. Going for a ruck in the neighborhood. Stopping the Kamikaze planes. The communist is purposeful with his language. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Serving at the pleasure of the Praetorian Guard. Commies sniffing out who’s likely to be a friend and who’s likely to be a foe. Jesse’s blackpill moment. We wont stop spending til there’s a financial crash. Government spending is the reason why your standard of living is lower than your parents. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

From prison in Rome, Paul writes about how his imprisonment has actually served to advance the Gospel. Through being chained to rotating guards from the elite Praetorian Guard, Paul had unique opportunities to share Christ. Even when others began preaching Christ from wrong motives like envy and rivalry, Paul still rejoiced because Christ was being proclaimed. His response demonstrates putting the Gospel's advance above personal comfort or recognition, showing how to find joy in Christ being made known regardless of circumstances. WATCH FULL SERVICE ON YOUTUBE DOWNLOAD PDF SERMON NOTES HERE

Following the bloody assassination of the twenty-eight year old Emperor Caligula, Rome found herself without a leader. Who then should fill the enormous power vacuum left by the death of an emperor? Should Rome return to a Republic? Then, one overlooked candidate - a scion of the hallowed family of Augustus long lurking in the wings of imperial power - unexpectedly rose to the fore: Claudius, Caligula's uncle. Famed as a drooling idiot all his life, Claudius' apparent shortcomings had kept him safe from the ruthless ambitions of his family and enemies. But his life of anonymity would now be brought to an abrupt end, with a shocking coup led by the Praetorian Guard. The Praetorians, one of the most potent forces in Rome, feared the loss of the emperor's patronage, and so pulled him out from the curtain behind which he had been hiding, carried him to their camp, and declared him emperor. The reign that ensued - described in gory, glistening, salacious detail by the Roman historian Suetonius - would see Claudius dismantle his mask of imbecility to reveal himself clever and studious, but easily duped by his advisors, freemen, and wives alike. It would see him claim the conquest of Britain, increase the strength of the Roman army, fall foul of the senate, play cuckold in one of the most famous sexual scandals of all time, and marry his niece. All the while, the shadows of Nero's rise to supreme power were lengthening… Join Tom and Dominic for the mighty conclusion of their journey through the lives of Rome's first Caesars, as described in rich, technicolour by Suetonius, climaxing with the epic reign of Rome's most unexpected emperor: Claudius. Pre-order Tom Holland's new translation of 'The Lives of the Caesars' here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/279727/the-lives-of-the-caesars-by-suetonius/9780241186893 _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Editor: Jack Meek Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

Danny and Derek are back with Patrick Wyman, host of the Tides of History podcast and author of The Verge: Reformation, Renaissance, and Forty Years that Shook the World, for the second part of their discussion about Ridley Scott's Gladiator films. This episode explores father-son relationships, Numidia, why the original film outshines the sequel and most depictions of Rome since, the military campaigns depicted in the movies, different types of gladiators, the Praetorian Guard, treacherous personal trainers, and more. Subscribe now for the full episode! Read Patrick's piece for Slate, "The Case for Gladiator II". Be warned, this is full of spoilers.

Listeners react to Denver mayor Mike Johnston's Machiavellian fever dream of calling upon Denver Police as his own Praetorian Guard against ICE federal agents seeking to apprehend criminal aliens in the upcoming Trump administration.

The true nexus of power in the Roman Empire wasn't in the Emperor's box but in the shadowy ranks of the Praetorian Guard. First established in 27 BCE by Caesar Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, they acted as his personal army and security escort. But it didn't take long for their influence in Rome to become more insidious … they became kingmakers and power brokers with the ability to topple a dynasty at the drop of a hat. They were the ones who decided who lived and who died.Dan and Dr Simon Elliot, a leading voice in Roman History, walk the streets of Rome where Praetorian conspiracies and assassinations spilt imperial blood on the stones of the eternal city… This is episode 4 of 4 in our mini-series 'Gladiators'.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  

Join the Brothers as they discuss the Praetorian Guard, and the infamous Death Korps of Krieg! In this vox we will discuss their origins, some of their more famous battles and hypothesis on what the Krieg actually are! --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ian-crombie00/support

Preview: Nero: Agrippina the Younger: Conversation with author Anthony Everitt, author of "Nero," regarding Agrippina's ambition to become the emperor of Rome along with or in place of her son, Nero. More later. undated Claudius begs the Praetorian Guard  not to slay him after Caligula was  murdered by the same Praetorian Guard.

President of the Mises Institute and author of “How Capitalism Saved America”, Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo joins us to uncover the current state of capitalism and if it still exists in America. Earlier in the episode, Keith discusses the inaccuracy of economic predictions, citing examples like the 2023 recession that never happened, the negative impact of misinformed predictions on investment decisions and business growth.  Persistent housing price crash predictions have been consistently wrong despite global pandemics and higher mortgage rates. Dr. DiLorenzo advocates for #EndTheFed to reduce inflation and restore free market principles. Learn how voluntary exchange between buyer and seller through market prices communicates information and influences production. Resources: Learn more about Austrian economics and Ludwig von Mises through visiting mises.org  Show Notes: GetRichEducation.com/521 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  You get paid first: Text FAMILY to 66866 For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search “how to leave an Apple Podcasts review”  GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREmarketplace.com/Coach Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— text ‘GRE' to 66866 Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Automatically Transcribed With Otter.ai     Keith Weinhold  00:00 Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, reviewing some terrible economic predictions and why it matters to you. Then the President of the Mises Institute joins us. Does capitalism still exist in the US and what would happen if we ended the Fed, today on get rich education.   00:24 Since 2014 the powerful get rich education podcast has created more passive income for people than nearly any other show in the world. This show teaches you how to earn strong returns from passive real estate investing in the best markets without losing your time being a flipper or landlord. Show Host Keith Weinhold writes for both Forbes and Rich Dad advisors, who delivers a new show every week since 2014 there's been millions of listener downloads of 188 world nations. He has a list show. Guess who? Top Selling personal finance author Robert Kiyosaki, get rich education can be heard on every podcast platform, plus it has its own dedicated Apple and Android listener phone apps build wealth on the go with the get rich education podcast. Sign up now for the get rich education podcast, or visit getricheducation.com   Corey Coates  01:09 You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is get rich education.   Keith Weinhold  01:25 welcome to GRE from Syracuse, Sicily to Syracuse, New York, and across 188 nations worldwide, you're listening to one of the longest running and most listened to shows on real estate investing. This is Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold, now a lot of media companies and pundits and influencers like to make predictions. Listeners like learning about predictions and by engaging just a little of that each of the past few years on one of the last episodes of the year. Here, I forecast the national home price appreciation rate for the following year, many media outlets, pundits and influencers have made terrible, just absolutely terrible, predictions about interest rates and other financial forecasts. Last year, a majority of Pro prognosticators firmly forecast six or eight Fed rate cuts this year, for example, well, we're going to have far fewer, and that's because high inflation kept hanging around. Then there's the 2023 recession that never happened, yet both Bloomberg and the economist actually published some rather ignominious headlines, as it turned out, they published these in the fall of 2022 Bloomberg, big headline was forecast for us, recession within year hits 100% in blow to Biden, well, That was false. That didn't come true. I mean, 100% that doesn't leave you any room for an out. And then also published in the fall of 2022 The Economist ran this headline why a global recession is inevitable in 2023 All right, well, they both believed in a recession, and they believed in it so deeply that it got fossilized. Well, an economic archeologist like me dug it up.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  03:31 We are going to die   Keith Weinhold  03:35 well, but I didn't risk my life like Indiana Jones did there. This archeology, it only involves some Google searches. Well, here's the thing. What's remarkable about America staving off a mammoth recession and leaving all the other g7 nations in the economic dust is the fact that merely predicting a recession often makes it come true. Just predicting one often turns a recession into a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah, recession forecast headlines alone, they can spook employers from making new hires and slow down manufacturing, and it can also disillusion real estate investors from expanding their portfolios. Well, the US economy grew anyway, besides the farcical prognostications about myriad interest rate cuts in a quote, unquote definite 2023 recession that never happened. You know, there's also a third forecast that so many got wrong. And you probably know what I'm gonna say. I've brought it up before, because this hits our world, those erstwhile and well still ever present housing price crash predictions. I mean this facet of the gloom boom really ramped up from 2020 One until today, even a global pandemic, new wars and a triplicate mortgage rates couldn't stop the housing price surge and the rent surge. A lot of doomsdayers just couldn't see, or they didn't even want to see that a housing shortage would keep prices afloat. They didn't want to see it because they get more clicks when they talk about the gloom government stimulus programs also buoyed prices, and deep homeowner equity cushions will still keep prices afloat. Ever since 2021 here on the show, I've used that rationale and more to explain that home prices would keep appreciating, but that the rate of appreciation would slow down, and it has slowed down since 2021 see YouTubers tick tockers. They notoriously use woe begone housing crash headlines, because that gets more clicks and then some of the rationale behind this. The reasoning is just dreadful, like, what goes up must come down, all right? Well, this is like, why does it matter? Who cares about wrong predictions anyway? What's the point? Well, people become misinformed. People waste their time on these things and see no one loses money on dismal economic predictions. But the damage is done, because when investors don't act well, then they didn't get the gain that they should have had. Businesses didn't get the gain that they should have had when they could have made new investment and hired new employees sooner. And of course, a recession is going to happen sometime. They occur, on average, every five to six years. It is just a normal part of the business cycle will collectively these three faulty economic predictions, rate cuts, a recession and a housing price crash. I think if you bundle them all up combined, it could be as bad as one doomsday prediction about worldwide starvation or the Mayan apocalypse. Remember that the wide to K bug, the acid rain, even that the internet is just a fad that ran a buck 30 years ago. World War Three is eminent, robots overtaking humans, or how about running out of crude oil. I mean, we're definitely all supposed to have jet packs in flying cars by now, right? But yet, did anyone have the clairvoyance to predict the stock market crash of 1929 or September 11 terrorist attacks, or Trump's surprise, 2016 presidency or Bitcoin hitting 70k A while back, or the coronavirus. So really, overall, the bottom line here with predictions is that no one knows the future. Control what you can maintain equanimity, add good properties, gradually raise rent, reduce expenses, create leverage and expect inflation truly the best way to predict the future is to create it in just that way. Well is the USA capitalistic nation today. That's what we'll discuss later with this week's guest. When Chuck Todd hosted the show Meet the Press, he interviewed AOC about this. Yes, I'm talking about us. House Rep from New York, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, what she say? You   08:34 have said you are democratic socialist. Can you be a Democratic socialist and a capitalist? Well, I think it depends on your interpretation. So there are some Democratic socialists that would say, Absolutely not. There are other people that are democratic socialists that would say, I think it's possible. What are you? I think it's possible. I think you say to yourself, I'm a capitalist, but I don't say that. You know, if anything, I would say, I'm I believe in a democratic economy, but.   Keith Weinhold  09:03 okay, well, I'm not sure if that clears it up at all. And I've listened to more of that clip, and it just makes things more confusing. But I think that most people have trouble drawing a line between capitalism and neighboring economic systems. Where exactly do you draw that line? I don't know exactly where to draw it. When I think of capitalism, I think of things though, like removal of interventionist central planning and allowing the free market to run with few guardrails. And then there's an issue like labor unionization. I don't really know about something like that. This is a real estate show. I'm still forming an opinion on a topic like that. In you know, some of this gets political, and that's beyond the scope of get rich education. The Fed was created in 1913 that central planning, its central banking from 1987 to. 2006 Alan Greenspan reigned as Fed chair. Those were his years, and he became even more interventionist. And then his successor, Ben Bernanke, maybe even more so with quantitative easing and such. Let's talk about, should they end the Fed and capitalism with this week's expert guest. You very well may have heard of the late, famed Austrian American economist Ludwig von Mises today, the Mises Institute carries on his legacy, and this week's guest is none other than the President of the Mises Institute. He's also the number one best selling author of how capitalism saved America and his newer book with a title that I love, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Economics. Hey, it's great to have you here. It is. Dr Thomas DiLorenzo.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  11:00 pleased to be with you. Thanks for having me.Th   Keith Weinhold  11:02 Well, Dr DiLorenzo, for those that don't know, just tell us a bit in an overview about Austrian economics and what Ludwig von Mises stood for.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  11:02 Well, Ludwig von Mises was the preeminent critic of socialism and fascism in Europe, and in his day, he fled the Nazis literally hours before the Gestapo broke into his apartment in Geneva, because he was the preeminent critic of fascism and socialism, and he was also Jewish, and so he had to get out of town. And he miraculously ended up after wandering through Europe with his wife in New York City, and he taught at New York University for many years, until he died in 1973 and but the Austrian School of Economics is a school of thought. It has nothing to do with, necessarily, with the Government of Austria, the country of Austria, just this the founder of a man named Carl Menger happened to be from Austria, but probably the most famous or well known among Americans would be Friedrich Hayek, who won the Nobel Prize in 1970s he was a student of Ludwig von Mises and critics of interventionism, critics of socialism. We teach about free markets, of how markets actually work and how governments don't work. And that's in a nutshell, that's what it's about. And you could check out our website, mises.org, M, I, S, E, S.org, you can get a great economic education. We have a lot of free books to download. Some of them are downloaded 30 or 40,000 times a month. Still, it's even Mises old books like human action, first published in the 1960s and so you can get a great education just by reading our website.   Keith Weinhold  12:42 Well, congratulations, that's proof that you're doing an excellent job of carrying on the Mises legacy into the present day, a lot of which is championing capitalism. Do we have capitalism in the United States today?   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  12:59 I was an economics professor from 40 years before I got this job as President of the Mises Institute. And I used to say we had islands of socialism in a sea of capitalism at the beginning of my career. But now I'd say it's the opposite, that we have islands of capitalism in a sea of socialism. And socialism, this data is not defined anymore as government ownership. That was, you know, about 100 years ago, the socialism. It's basically government control of industry and in addition to government ownership. So the instruments of the welfare state, the income tax and the regulatory state, is our version of socialism, or central planning, if you will. And it's the Federal Reserve the Fed, which is a government agency that orchestrates the whole thing, really, it's a big, massive central planning industry that controls, regulates basically every aspect of any kind of financial transaction imaginable. They list in their publications over 100 different functions of the Federal Reserve. It's not just monetary policy. It's a big regulatory behemoth, and so that's that's what the Fed is. That's what I think we have today. A friend of mine, Robert Higgs, a well known economic historian, says our system is what he calls participatory fascism. And fascism was a system where private enterprise was permitted, but it was so heavily regulated and regimented by the government that industry had to do what government wanted to do, not what its customers wanted it to do, so much, and a large part of our economic system is just like that, and we get to vote still, so that's where the participatory and comes in, and the pin of Robert Hinz.   Keith Weinhold  14:41 yeah, maybe at best, I can think of today's system as capitalism with guardrails on but the guardrails keep getting taller. And I think of guardrails as being, for example, regulatory agencies like the Fed in FINRA. In the FDA.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  15:01 It is the beginning of my career. You know, I studied economics and a PhD in economics, and there was a big literature on what's called regulatory capture. And it was sort of a big secret among US economic academics. There was all this research going on and how the big regulatory agencies created by the federal government in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, were captured by the industries that they were supposed to be regulating. Right? The theory was they would regulate these industries in the public's best interests. But what has happened from the very beginning is they were captured by the industries, and they benefit the industry at the expense of the public. But today, that's caught on thanks to people like Robert Kennedy Jr, frankly, has been a very popular author. He sold a gazillion copies of his book on Anthony Fauci, and in it, he explains in tremendous detail how the Food and Drug Administration was long ago captured by the pharmaceutical companies. And he's not the only one. I think that that is being more and more recognized by people outside of academic economics, like me, and that's a good thing, and that's sort of the worst example of crony capitalism. It's not real capitalism, but crony capitalism making money through government connections, rather than producing better products, cheaper products and so forth.   Keith Weinhold  16:21 I watched RFK Jr speak in person recently, and I was actually disappointed when he effectively dropped out of the upcoming presidential race. And I do want to talk more with you about the Fed shortly, but with all these regulatory agencies and how I liken them to guard rails. You know, I sort of think of it as a watchdog system that's failing. You mentioned the FDA. I know RFK Jr brought them up an awful lot, the Food and Drug Administration that are supposed to help regulate what we put inside our own bodies in our diet. But these systems are failing. We have regulatory agencies in industry, industry in regulatory agencies. I mean, look at the obesity rate. Look at all the ultra processed food that's allowed. Look at all the seed oils that are allowed in food that people actually think are healthy for them. So this system of capitalism with guardrails is failing almost everywhere you look.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  16:22 I wouldn't call it capitalism. I wouldn't use the word capitalism at all, other than crony capitalism, people can relate to that. You know, a lot of these regulatory agencies were lobbied for in the first place by industry. That while the very first one was the Interstate Commerce Commission, it was in the 1880s it was meant to regulate the railroad companies. The first president was the president of a Railroad Corporation, the head of the Interstate Commerce Commission. So talk about the fox guarding the hen house. That was from the very beginning. And so in a sense, this word capture theory of regulation, which Kennedy has used, they weren't really captured. They always were created by the government. The same is true of all the so called Public Utilities. It was the corporations, the electric power companies, the water supply companies, that lobbied for governments to give them a monopoly, a legal monopoly, in electricity, water supply and all these things that were called natural monopolies, but there was nothing natural about them. There was vigorous competition in the early 20th century in telephone, electricity, water supply, and that was all set aside by government regulation, creating monopolies. For example, in electric power, there's an economist named Walter primo who wrote a book some years ago showing that always have been several dozen cities in America that never went this way, that always allowed direct competition between electric power companies. And what do you know, better service and lower prices. As a result, they did dozens of statistical studies to demonstrate this in his book.   Keith Weinhold  18:58 Okay, well, that's a great case study. Why don't we talk about what things would look like if we took down one of these agencies? We're a real estate investing in finance show. Sometimes it's a popular meme or hashtag to say, end the Fed. What would it look like if we ended the Fed?   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  19:18 Well, the Fed was created in 1913 in the same era, with all these other regulatory captured agencies were created, right? And it was created basically to cartelize and create a cartel for the banking industry to make it almost impossible to go bankrupt. They've been bailing out foolish bankers for 111 years. And of course, the biggest example was that as the crash of 08 after they they handed Goldman Sachs and other big investment banks billions of dollars. That was a direct assault on capitalism itself, because capitalism, as you know, is a profit and loss system. It's not a I keep the profits. You pay for my losses system. You're the taxpayer. But that's what happened with that. So the Fed would. Fall into that the Fed is actually the fourth central bank in America. We had three other ones. First one was called Bank of North America. Its currency was so unreliable, nobody trusted it went out of business in a year and a half. And then we created something called the Bank of the United States in 1791 same thing. It created boom and bust cycles, high unemployment, price inflation, corrupted politics. It was defunded after 20 years, and then it was brought back to fund the debt from the war of 1812 and so we had a Second Bank of the United States. It did the same thing, boom and bust cycles, price inflation, corrupted politics. Benefited special interest, but not the general interest, and President Andrew Jackson defunded it, and so we went without a central bank from roughly 1840 until 1913 so we've had experience of that. And what we had been was competing currencies, and that would be sort of a stepping stone. If we got rid of the fed, we wouldn't have to abolish the Fed altogether. We could amend the charter to the Fed to say you're no longer permitted to buy bonds. Can't buy government bonds anymore. That's how they inflate the money supply, right? By buying bonds. That's totally unnecessary. And we could just just that would be a great step forward, and we would sort of whittle away our $80 trillion debt, if you count again upon count the unfunded liabilities of the federal government,   Keith Weinhold  21:26 if we did end the Fed, what would the price of money? Which are interest rates really look like? Would a new market rate be sent by individuals and companies on the free market like Bank of America, with a customer or borrower settling on an interest rate that they both agree to.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  21:44 You know, the Fed uses sort of Soviet style economics, price control. The economists and are all getting all over Kamala Harris for recommendations for price controls on rent and other things. Well, the Fed price control. They control the price of money. That's what they do. And so there's a big, kind of a comical thing that here you have all these economists, if they were to teach economics in the week one, they would teach about the bad effects of price controls, and then they get a job at the Fed, and they spend their whole career enforcing price controls on money, and the interest rate would be determined by supply and demand for credit and inflationary expectations. That's what the market does. And you wouldn't have these bureaucrats at the Fed tinkering around with interest rates, creating tremendous arbitrage opportunities for Wall Street investors. With all the movements and interest rates, you'd have much more stable interest rates, and and you wouldn't have this ridiculous system where the Fed says we need to always have forever at least 2% inflation. And of course, they never meet that, and they lie about it. I don't believe for one minute that the price inflation right now is 3% or under 3% that's ridiculous, right? And so things should be getting cheaper. Everything should be getting cheaper because of all the technology we have. My first PC I bought in the early 80s for $4,000 and it was a piece of prehistoric junk compared to my cell phone today, that almost for free. Almost everything should be like that agriculture, but the reason it isn't is the Fed keeps pumping so much money in circulation, that it pumps up the demand for goods and services, and that's what creates price inflation. And by its own admission, that's what it does, even though it's charter, it's original charter said they're supposed to fight inflation. All of a sudden, about 10 years ago or so, they announced, south of blue, we always have to have at least 2% inflation. Congress had nothing to do with that. President had nothing to do with that, and the people of America had nothing to do with that. It was dictators like Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke that just make these announcements. And where does that come from when we live under the dictatorship of the Fed? And of course, the people who are hurt the most by the Fed are elderly people are living on relatively fixed incomes and are forced to become Wall Street speculators they want to make any more money other than their fixed income, where, you know, during the days of Greenspan, when they're pursuing zero interest rates, maybe the mortgage industry like that, but the people on retirement income were starving as a result of that. So it's been sort of an economic war on the retired population.   Keith Weinhold  24:24 Things should get faster and cheaper to produce, like you said. However, there's definitely one thing that's not getting faster to produce, that's housing build times. Housing build times have actually gone up, which is sort of another discussion unto itself. But we talk about the Fed and then setting prices. People wouldn't stand for setting the price or having price controls on oil or lumber or bananas, but yet we set the price of money itself. People have just become accustomed to that. Yet it's that money itself that we use to buy oil and lumber and bananas the fed with that dual mandate of stable prices and maximum employment. If we did abolish the Fed, what would happen to the rate of inflation?   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  25:12 Well, we would have less inflation. It's supposed to what we replace it with. There's some system would be a replacement, but we wouldn't have the boom and bust cycles that we have now. There's been research in the past 100 years or so of the Fed, and what the academic researchers have concluded is that the Fed has made the economy in general more unstable than it was before we had the Fed and price inflation. That's a joke. The dollar is worth maybe three cents of what it was in the year 1913 right when the Fed was created. So it has failed on all accounts. And so if we got rid of it, we would reverse that. The idea would be to start out with a competing money system. And I'll tell you a quick story is, you know the word Dixie from the south, you know land of Dixie that was named after a currency by a New Orleans bank called the Dix D, I x 10 in French, and it was 100% gold reserve. It was backed by something real and valuable, and it was so popular as even used in Minnesota. But that's why the whole south, the states in the South, were using this currency, because it was so reliable. But during the Civil War, the national currency acts imposed taxes on the competing currencies and taxed them out of business and established the greenback dollar, as it was called, as the Monopoly money of the country. We didn't get a central bank during the Civil War, but we got that. And so that's the kind of system that we would have. Friedrich Hayek wrote a whole book about this, about competing currencies, called the denationalization of money. He poses that as a good stepping stone to a freer market in money. And like you said, Money is the most important thing. Is most more important than bananas or shoes or any of these other things that we might have price controls on.   Keith Weinhold  27:01 All right, so we're talking about the case for ending the Fed. What is the counter argument? I mean, other than the government wanting control, is there a valid, or any academic counter argument for keeping the Fed in place?   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  27:16 The Fed has an army. I call it the Fed's Praetorian Guard of academics. There was a research article published by an economist named Larry White at George Mason University several years ago, and he found that 75% of all the articles in the academic journals regarding money, monetary policy and so forth, are by people who are basically paid by the Fed, one way or the other. Either they're fed economists, or they've been invited to a conference by the Fed, or they're an intern some relationship with the Fed. The late Milton Friedman once said, If you want a career as a monetary economist, it's not a good idea to criticize the biggest employer in your field. So there's a lot of nonsense about that. And so yes, you'll have all sorts of rationales, but it basically comes down to this, that we think we can do central planning better than the Russians did under communism, because the Fed is basically an economic central planning agency, and there's no reason to believe Americans are better at it than the Russians or anybody else. And it basically comes down to that, you know, studying the past 111 years that's showing Well, yeah, they've been trying that for 111 years. They've made the economy more unstable, and they have failed miserably to control inflation. And why should we give them another chance? Why should we continue along this road? We shouldn't So, yeah, there'll be all kind of excuses the late Murray Rothbard, who was one of the founders of the Mises, who once answered this question by saying, It's as though people said, Well, say the government always made shoes. 100 years ago they took over the shoe industry. People would be saying, who will make shoes if the government doesn't make shoes? The government has always made shoes, right? But the government has not always monopolized the money supply. It's only like I said, we abolished three Feds in our history. In American history, they weren't called the Fed, but they were central banks. And the Fed is called a central bank, and we've done that three times. We've abolished more central banks than we have kept in American history.   Keith Weinhold  29:17  We're talking with Dr Thomas D Lorenzo. He is the president of the Mises Institute. About, is there really any capitalism left more when we come back, this is Get Rich Education. I'm your host. Keith Weinhold,  hey, you can get your mortgage loans at the same place where I get mine, at Ridge lending group and MLS 42056, they provided our listeners with more loans than any provider in the entire nation, because they specialize in income properties, they help you build a long term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. You can start your pre qualification and chat with President Caeli Ridge personally. Start now while it's on your mind at RidgeLendingGroup.com, that's Ridgelendinggroup.com. Your bank is getting rich off of you. The national average bank account pays less than 1% on your savings. If your money isn't making 4% you're losing your hard earned cash to inflation. Let the liquidity fund help you put your money to work with minimum risk, your cash generates up to an 8% return with compound interest year in and year out. Instead of earning less than 1% sitting in your bank account, the minimum investment is just 25k you keep getting paid until you decide you want your money back. Their decade plus track record proves they've always paid their investors 100% in full and on time. And I would know, because I'm an investor too. Earn 8% hundreds of others are text family to 66866, learn more about freedom. Family investments, liquidity fund on your journey to financial freedom through passive income. Text, family to 66866.   Kristen Tate  31:11 This is author Kristen Tate. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold, and Don't quit Your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  31:27 welcome back to get rich education. We're talking with Dr Thomas DiLorenzo. He is the president of the Mises Institute. You can learn more about them @mises.org and Dr DiLorenzo. Frederick Hayek, an economist that you mentioned very well known and a student of Ludwig von Mises, he believed that prices are a communication mechanism between a buyer and a seller. Say, for example, there's a new style of single family rental home that everyone wants to rent. So therefore the rent price goes up when other builders see that the rent price goes up, that brings in more builder competition, and with more competition, that brings rent prices down, and then the world is filled with abundant housing, rather than a scarcity of housing. So that's how I think of a free market system within capitalism as working, as defined through Hayek.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  32:22 You know, the consumer is king. Von Mises once wrote about the same point where he said that people mistakenly believe that it's the bankers and the CEOs and the businesses that control what gets produced and so forth, but it's really the consumer. You build a housing development then people don't want those houses. You'll find out real fast who's in charge. It's not the mortgage brokers. It's not the bankers. It's not you, it's the consumer. That's the free market system, and if you do without it, and not using the free market system, whether it's for money or anything else, is kind of like trying to find your way around a strange city with no street signs, and the prices are the street signs that tell us what to do, exactly like you said, if there's strong demand for a certain type of housing, that'll drive the price up, and that'll tell the home builders, we can make money building more of these. And they will do that. Nobody tells them. The Chairman of the Fed doesn't have to tell them that the President doesn't have to tell them that Congress doesn't have to issue a declaration telling them to do that. That was the Soviet Union where they tried that. And that's the great thing about the market, is that the consumer can tell the richest man in the world like Elon Musk, go play in the traffic. Elon Musk, if they don't like his cars or whatever he's producing, even though he's the richest man in the world. And he understands that he's a pretty successful businessman, I would say, and so so he understands that the consumer is his boss.   Keith Weinhold  33:53 Well, what else do we need to know? You have published a lot of celebrated books, from how capitalism saved America to the politically incorrect guide to economics. What else might a real estate investor or an economic enthusiast need to know today? Oh,   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  34:10 well, I think everybody needs to be their own economist. You can listen to the talking heads on TV and on podcasts and all that, but educate yourself and become your own economist. Because a lot of the people on TV, as you might see on the news, they have an ax to grind, or they have a sort of a hidden financial interest beyond what they're saying, Be your own economist. And that's why I'm selling my website, which is everything on it, it's for free, mises.org, and there are quite a few others too. You don't have to go to school, you don't have to get a degree. You can get a good economic education, for example, on money. We're in the middle of giving away 100,000 copies of a book called What has government done to our money. I'm Murray rothbar. You go to our website, scroll down to the bottom, and you can fill out a form online, and we'll send you free books and. You can educate yourself that way. And so just in general, I think that's what people need to do. I taught MBA students for many years who are people in their 30s or maybe even early 40s, who didn't have economics degrees, but they were really into it, and for the first time in their careers, they decided maybe I should understand how the economic world that I live in and work in every day operates rather than going through your life and your career without you. Might know all about real estate sales, but it's also useful to know about the economy in general and how things work.   Keith Weinhold  35:35 And when one becomes their own economic student and they take that on, I think it's important for them, like you touched on to not just consume the economic news that's on CNBC or other major media, because that doesn't really tell you how to create wealth. It might inform you, but it doesn't necessarily tell you how to take action. For example, on this show an educational channel, you might learn about a story about rising inflation like we had starting three or four years ago. And here we talk about how, okay, if inflation is going to be a long term economic force, you may or may not like what the Fed is doing, but rather than save money, borrow money, outsource that debt service to the tenant on a cash flowing asset like a single family home or an apartment building. And that inflation that you're learning about on CNBC will actually benefit you and debase your debt with prudent leverage on a property, for example, so not just consuming the news, but learning and educating yourself and acting.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  36:34 Oh, sure, well It just so happens that last night, I was talking to a friend of mine who's a real estate professional. They're all talking about, Oh, are we going to have a slight drop in interest rates? And I reminded them that there will be a part of the market if they see it, if we do have a slight drop in interest rates, we'll look at that and say, well, maybe this is a new trend. And so I'll sit back and I'll wait. I'm not going to buy now, because I think the interest rates are going to go down even further in the next six months there were, there would be some segment of the market that thinks that way. And so that's just one little thing. Another thing I would mention is that one of the basic tenets of free market economics is that voluntary trade is mutually beneficial. People buy and sell from each other, because both sides benefit. And that's very important for any business person to keep in mind as you structure business deals, because you know about business deal that is successful is basically, I will give you what you want, and you give me what I want, and we're both happy. And that's that's one of the main tenets of how the market works. Voluntary exchange is mutually beneficial. So think about how to make it mutually beneficial, and you'll succeed in making a deal.   Keith Weinhold  37:45 Well, it's been an excellent discussion on Is there any capitalism left, and how would it look like if we turned the course and created more capitalism here in the United States? It's been great having you on the show.   Dr Thomas DiLorenzo  37:58 Thank you.   Keith Weinhold  38:05 Yeah , again, Learn more @mises.org or look up books by Dr Thomas DiLorenzo. His viewpoint is that there are now merely islands of capitalism in a sea of socialism where those conditions were inverted last century. We've got to end the complex between the government and corporations that these watchdogs are basically powerless when the fox is guarding the henhouse. Dr dilorezzo says we could change the Fed charter so that they couldn't buy bonds, which should reduce inflation. So he does offer a way forward there, a solution.  In capitalism, he consumer is king. This is a good thing. You yourself are empowered because you get to vote with your dollars. So therefore what you buy more of society will see and make more of but a prosperous, progressive economy that should be able to produce goods and services that are constantly cheaper because they get more and more efficient to make with innovation, but centrally planned inflation makes them more expensive, at least in dollar denominated terms. So progress should make things cheaper? Well, then everything should take fewer dollars to buy, homes, oil, bananas, grapes, but it doesn't, and it won't anytime soon, like I mentioned in the interview, there single family build times are taking even longer. That's not more efficient, and they're sure not getting cheaper. In fact, the National Association of Home Builders tells us that from permit to completion in 2015 it took 7.2 months to build a single family home. By 2019 it was up to 8.1 months and then. Last year, the time required to build a single family home from permit to completion was 10.1 months. That's not the side of an efficient economy. So basically, therefore, in the last eight, nine years, the time to build a home has gone from 7.2 months up to 10.1 months. That is a drastic increase in a short period of time. Just amazing. And we now have data after covid as well, broken down by region. The longest build time, by the way, is in New England, where it is 13.9 months to build a home from permit to completion. Gosh, such inefficiency. But despite all that stuff that you might find discouraging like that, I want to go out on a good news note here some encouraging sentiment for you, if you champion free markets, then invest in us rental property down the road, there is no centrally controlled ceiling on what you can sell your property for. Most places don't have rent control. In fact, there's been no federal rent control on private property since World War Two. And somewhat ironically, you benefit. You actually benefit from government backed loans at these low fixed rates, and now they're moderate fixed rates. You often get these through Fannie Freddie or the FHA. See you benefit from that particular government backing as a savvy borrower for rental property. And on top of this, you use the GRE inflation triple crown to flip over that not so capitalistic inflationary force. You flip it upside down and use it to your benefit, profiting fantastically from inflation. So you know how to take the situation you're given and use it to your advantage rather than your detriment. Big thanks to Dr Thomas DiLorenzo today, longtime econ professor and current Mises Institute president, more ways to build Real Estate Wealth coming up here for you on the show in future weeks, as always, with the dash of economics and wealth mindset. Until then, I'm your host. Keith Weinhold, Don't Quit Your Daydream.   42:28 Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of get rich Education LLC, exclusively,   Keith Weinhold  42:56 The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth, building, getricheducation.com.  

The Rosgvardiya, the National Guard, is the final backstop of Putin's rule, the public order force on which he relies to control the streets.* However, facing growing protest at home and engaged in pacifying occupied Ukraine, they and their commander, the thuggish Viktor Zolotov, are under pressure. How well are they coping?*Admittedly, arguably the FSO, the Federal Protection Service, is closer to the Praetorian Guard of Roman times, but I cannot pass up on a nice alliteration...The podcast's corporate partner and sponsor is Conducttr, which provides software for innovative and immersive crisis exercises in hybrid warfare, counter-terrorism, civil affairs and similar situations.You can also follow my blog, In Moscow's Shadows, and become one of the podcast's supporting Patrons and gain question-asking rights and access to exclusive extra materials right here. Support the Show.

On this episode of “What the Frock?”, Rabbi Dave and Friar Rod explore the rise and fall of the Praetorian Guard, the elite unit that served as both protectors and power brokers in ancient Rome. From their inception under Emperor Augustus to their notorious involvement in political intrigues and assassinations, the Praetorian Guard played a crucial role in shaping the fate of the Roman Empire. Through detailed historical analysis, Dave and Rod draw parallels to contemporary issues of power, loyalty, and corruption. Join us for a captivating journey into the heart of Roman history and the lessons it offers for today's world.

The New Praetorian Guard? The Demoncrat's Gulag Tortures, 4 X/Twitter Clips, COVID Vaccine Autopsy Lancet Study, Election Fraud Deniers. Supreme Court sides with Jan 6  Protesters.    4 X/Twitter Clips: Post Election fraud deniers. 10,000+ illegal aliens used the “exact same” Social Security number and voted in the Nov 3, 2020 election. This is just in Arizona. Congress knew this and certified a criminal enterprise on Jan 6. Sheri™ @FFT1776   Post They cannot find one unvaccinated kid who is autistic. Brandon Taylor Moore @LetsGoBrando45   Post WOW! This lady absolutely nails it! Must watch!  Pismo  @Pismo_B   Post Another COVID "conspiracy theory" becomes reality as a bombshell study CENSORED by The Lancet has now been peer-reviewed. What were they trying to hide, you ask? Lots and lots of vaccine deaths. After analyzing 325 COVID vaccine autopsy cases, the now peer-reviewed study found that “a total of 240 deaths, which is 73.9%, were independently adjudicated as DIRECTLY DUE to or significantly contributed to by COVID-19 vaccination.” The Vigilant Fox  @VigilantFox  The Vigilant Fox is highly recommended by ACU.      Real America with Dan Ball By One America News Network Supreme Court sides with Jan 6  Protesters,  The American Gulag Tortures.  Jun 28 2024   Real America with Dan Ball   The New Praetorian Guard? https://youtu.be/LJksNkwwX_c?si=qdlS-xOPXB3XWCXF Bill Whittle 187K subscribers 21,927 views Mar 11, 2024 Steve Green brings us shocking news of the US Military's new, woke training materials… and suffice it to say they don't paint a picture of a country worth dying for. Is this a move toward a 3rd World military, whose only real purpose is to protect the junta that pays for it? Join our crack team of elite anti-elitists by becoming a member or making a one-time donation right here: https://billwhittle.com/register/     Check out our ACU Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/ACUPodcast --------------------------------------------------------------------    HELP ACU SPREAD THE WORD!  Please go to Apple Podcasts and give ACU a 5 star rating. Apple canceled us and now we are clawing our way back to the top. Don't let the Leftist win. Do it now! Thanks. Also Rate us on any platform you follow us on. It helps a lot. Forward this show to friends. Ways to subscribe to the American Conservative University Podcast Click here to subscribe via Apple Podcasts Click here to subscribe via RSS You can also subscribe via Stitcher FM Player Podcast Addict Tune-in Podcasts Pandora Look us up on Amazon Prime …And Many Other Podcast Aggregators and sites ACU on Twitter- https://twitter.com/AmerConU . Warning- Explicit and Violent video content.   Please help ACU by submitting your Show ideas. Email us at americanconservativeuniversity@americanconservativeuniversity.com   Endorsed Charities -------------------------------------------------------- Pre-Born! Saving babies and Souls. https://preborn.org/ OUR MISSION To glorify Jesus Christ by leading and equipping pregnancy clinics to save more babies and souls. WHAT WE DO Pre-Born! partners with life-affirming pregnancy clinics all across the nation. We are designed to strategically impact the abortion industry through the following initiatives:… -------------------------------------------------------- Help CSI Stamp Out Slavery In Sudan Join us in our effort to free over 350 slaves. Listeners to the Eric Metaxas Show will remember our annual effort to free Christians who have been enslaved for simply acknowledging Jesus Christ as their Savior. As we celebrate the birth of Christ this Christmas, join us in giving new life to brothers and sisters in Sudan who have enslaved as a result of their faith. https://csi-usa.org/metaxas   https://csi-usa.org/slavery/   Typical Aid for the Enslaved A ration of sorghum, a local nutrient-rich staple food A dairy goat A “Sack of Hope,” a survival kit containing essential items such as tarp for shelter, a cooking pan, a water canister, a mosquito net, a blanket, a handheld sickle, and fishing hooks. Release celebrations include prayer and gathering for a meal, and medical care for those in need. The CSI team provides comfort, encouragement, and a shoulder to lean on while they tell their stories and begin their new lives. Thank you for your compassion  Giving the Gift of Freedom and Hope to the Enslaved South Sudanese -------------------------------------------------------- Food For the Poor https://foodforthepoor.org/ Help us serve the poorest of the poor Food For The Poor began in 1982 in Jamaica. Today, our interdenominational Christian ministry serves the poor in primarily 17 countries throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Thanks to our faithful donors, we are able to provide food, housing, healthcare, education, fresh water, emergency relief, micro-enterprise solutions and much more. We are proud to have fed millions of people and provided more than 15.7 billion dollars in aid. Our faith inspires us to be an organization built on compassion, and motivated by love. Our mission is to bring relief to the poorest of the poor in the countries where we serve. We strive to reflect God's unconditional love. It's a sacrificial love that embraces all people regardless of race or religion. We believe that we can show His love by serving the “least of these” on this earth as Christ challenged us to do in Matthew 25. We pray that by God's grace, and with your support, we can continue to bring relief to the suffering and hope to the hopeless.   Report on Food For the Poor by Charity Navigator https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/592174510   -------------------------------------------------------- Disclaimer from ACU. We try to bring to our students and alumni the World's best Conservative thinkers. All views expressed belong solely to the author and not necessarily to ACU. In all issues and relations, we hope to follow the admonitions of Jesus Christ. While striving to expose, warn and contend with evil, we extend the love of God to all of his children. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

For this special One on One, Sebastian talks to Lee Smith, author of "Plot Against the President" and "The Permanent Coup," about the fallout from Hunter Biden's "guilty" verdict, and what it means for the Deep State.Support the show: https://www.sebgorka.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Nathan wonders how the Praetorian Guard was structured. Was it used in traditional combat or taken on campaigns? While not directly related to ancient warfare, why did the emperors continually use the Praetorian Guard despite their history of treachery, intrigue, and assassination? Join us on Patron patreon.com/ancientwarfarepodcast  

Steve Green brings us shocking news of the US Military's new, woke training materials… and suffice it to say they don't paint a picture of a country worth dying for. Is this a move toward a 3rd World military, whose only real purpose is to protect the junta that pays for it? Join our crack team of elite anti-elitists by becoming a member or making a one-time donation right here: https://billwhittle.com/register/

Steve Bannon says we have a crisis on our hands as big as any that has hit this nation in its history. If you saw the debacle news conference thrown together to try to get in front of the firestorm over the Special Counsel report on Joe Biden's cognitive decline, non compos mentis (of unsound mind), you know we have a Constitutional crisis. Special Counsel Robert Hur gave us the indictment document of Joe Biden. Bannon thinks Comer and Jordan should have a formal emergency hearing on Monday, demanding Hur explain to the nation in detail what his investigation found. Biden's ghostwriter should be called in to explain why he deleted recordings of Biden reading classified documents to him. And Comer and Jordan should begin the formal process of impeaching Biden as Commander-in-Chief not only for his mishandling of classified documents but also for his inability to perform as President. We have a national crisis. A formal investigation will uncover a lot of documentation and Bannon believes the Left has known about his decline for years and has covered it up. Bannon doesn't see the Dems moving to remove Biden any time soon given that the Praetorian Guard of the media has come out and taken a hard line in Biden's defense and there is now silence. Kamala Harris is a catastrophe for the Democrat Party. They know she polls worse than Biden which would mean a blowout in November. It's important to show our righteous indignation that this is now beyond partisan politics and has nothing to do with President Trump. This is about what's good for the country. Call the Capitol Switchboard, tell your Senators and Representative remove Biden: (202)224-3121.GUEST: STEVE BANNON, STEVE BANNON'S WARROOMSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

#Bestof2022: #Britannia: When Caligula proposed and Claudius conquered. Matt Steinglass  @mattsteinglass. @TheEconomist https://www.economist.com/europe/2022/03/05/a-roman-fort-in-holland-is-linked-to-the-conquest-of-britain "Caligula seems to have visited the region to inspect the preparations. Wine barrels stamped with his seal have been found near Utrecht and Valkenburg. But by the time the fleet left northern France, he was dead, and Claudius would reap the glory. Invasions are often vanity projects launched by insecure, hedonistic autocrats. They seldom go as planned." Claudius pleading for his life as the Praetorian Guard approaches following Caligula's murder.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

The Year of Five Emperors - Part 1 : Pertinax by Robert EckertThis is a thoroughly researched, panoramic view of a pivotal year in mid-imperial Roman history. It can still be seen how the old Roman society functioned, but it is beginning to break down. The viewpoint shifts from chapter to chapter to show what is happening not only in the capital, where the Praetorian Guard, the City Legion, and the Senate are vying for control, but also at the frontiers: in the far northwest, the Caledonians are willing to consider joining but only on their own terms, and they will not be dishonored; in the north-center, the Germans are not currently as active as they have been before, and will be again, but need watching; in the east, the Parthian Empire is crumbling, but for Romans to take advantage they need to settle the question of who would get credit for any triumph. The pervasive role of religion is also illustrated: the traditional Roman religion with all of its gods, rituals, and omens still is the most common belief, with deities from other nationalities in the Empire incorporated into the pantheon with varying degrees of comfort; but the more skeptical philosophy of Stoicism replaces it as a moral guide among large segments of at least the more educated population; and Christianity is growing in influence, still technically illegal but generally tolerated in practice; while Jews and Samaritans maintain their distinctive ways in isolation. The Empire and the society, and the story, are tied together by an intricate web of patronage and friendship relationships: no two people in the rather small upper class are more than a couple connections away from each other, and no-one from lower down the scale can rise except by becoming connected.Robert N. Eckert has degrees in philosophy, law, and mathematics, and lifelong interests in linguistics and history. He won a set of Encyclopedia Brittanicas in 7th grade for an essay on who the speakers of Proto-Indo-European might have been. In the 1970s he transcribed the Tanakh (original Hebrew text of the Old Testament, from the Leningrad Codex) into an ASCII file (with codes for the cantillations as well as vowel-points and consonants): all online Hebrew OTs derive from this file. In 1980 discovered an unexcavated archaeological site in Turkish Kurdistan. Eckert currently tutors statistics and calculus in the Detroit area.https://www.amazon.com/Year-Five-Emperors-Part-Pertinax-ebook/dp/B0CBD5QP4Q/?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_w=s7ery&content-id=amzn1.sym.ed85217c-14c9-4aa0-b248-e47393e2ce12&pf_rd_p=ed85217c-14c9-4aa0-b248-e47393e2ce12&pf_rd_r=141-8309265-5160862&pd_rd_wg=4GTbS&pd_rd_r=04e179a4-63bc-4e63-b3c5-52a2c97685ff&ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dskhttps://roberteckertbooks.com/http://www.BooksidePress.comhttp://www.bluefunkbroadcasting.com/root/twia/81723bsp1.mp3  

Broadcasting from the Free State of Florida. Joe Biden went overseas to meet with NATO and conducted himself like you would imagine anyone with advanced cognitive decline would--mumbling, looking lost, and shuffling aimlessly. If the Praetorian Guard media was any kind of actual 1st Amendment protected organization they would be calling for immediate 25th Amendment actions, but instead we get told he's a modern day Eisenhower by Chris "Thrill Up the Leg" Matthews. A "queer" surgeon goes on the internet to admit to surgically mutilating the genitals of young boys who don't even understand sex. In a moral society this man would be in prison, instead he is practicing medicine at the Oregon Health & Science University. Joe Biden gets shut down when he tries to keep interfering with your free speech by coordinating with social media companies to silence conservative voices. Bud Light may be phased out at Costco according to some who have seen a "death star" asterisk applied to price labels indicating the item will not be restocked once current supplies are gone. Just think, Budweiser used to be at the pinnacle of advertising success with the Bud Bowl and Spud McKenzie. Now they are heading toward the dustbin of history just to score a few woke points. Hollywood will be going dark soon as writers and now actors have gone on strike. Apparently the all-feeling, all-loving Leftists who run Hollywood don't really care if writers starve or lose their home--in fact that is their plan. https://DoctorTommy.com/podcast

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Everyone we are going to start uploading the audio of some youtube episodes to the podcast channel. This is the first of that Series. The episode will post likely on tuesday, wednesday, or thursday of the week depending on the amount as well as filming so please enjoy. Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his death in AD 68. He was adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius at the age of 13 and succeeded him on the throne. Nero was popular with the members of his Praetorian Guard and lower-class commoners in Rome and its provinces, but he was deeply resented by the Roman aristocracy. Most contemporary sources describe him as tyrannical, self-indulgent, and debauched. After being declared a public enemy by the Roman Senate, he committed suicide at age 30. Travel to Italy With Me here Travel to Japan With Me here Bonus episodes as well as ad-free episodes on Patreon. Find us on Instagram. Join us on Discord. Submit your relatives on our website Join the Book Club on http://chirpbooks.com/history Get some delicious COFFEE Podcast Youtube Channel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

05/10/2023 PODCAST Episode #620-623 - TODAY'S GUESTS: Calvin Thomas, Phill Kline, Andy Biggs, David Penn, Morgan Griffith, Tom Homan, Jeff Bruzzesi, Bryce Reeves, Sheriff David Clarke + America Speaks - YOUR CALLS! at 1-888-480-JOHN (5646) and GETTR Live! @jfradioshow #GodzillaOfTruth #TruckingTheTruth Want more of today's show? Episode #620 Fredericks Blasts Cortes As "Phony Populist," "Turncoat," "Backstabber" Episode #621 D.C.'s Deep State Praetorian Guard Insulates Biden Episode #622 Morgan Griffith Predicts "DOJ Will Do Nothing" With Biden Crime Family Allegations Episode #623 The Biden Crime Family Exposed - GOP Alleges Biden Took Cash As VP https://johnfredericksradio.libsyn.com/

For nearly 30 years Judicial Watch has been holding successive governments and administrations to account. Tom Fitton has been at the helm as President since 1998 and is known as one of the most fearless conservative activists whose desire to seek truth makes him one of the biggest enemies to governments who cover up facts for their own benefit. No other organisation in America uses the Freedom of Information law in such a logical joined up way and is never afraid to use the courts to force the disclosure of hidden documents. Time and time again the veil is lifted and the public see the truth and often Judicial Watch are behind this reveal. It was an absolute honour to speak with Tom, so join us as he unpacks some of the requests they have made and how they often have to fight to see the truth exposed. Tom Fitton is the President of Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption. Founded in 1994, Judicial Watch seeks to ensure government and judicial officials act ethically and do not abuse the powers entrusted to them by the American public. With 20 years of experience in conservative public policy, Tom Fitton has helped lead Judicial Watch since 1998 and overseen its tremendous growth and success in recent years. Under Fitton's leadership, Judicial Watch was named one of Washington's top ten most effective government watchdog organizations by The Hill newspaper. Mr. Fitton provides Judicial Watch with strategic guidance and leadership on Judicial Watch's comprehensive efforts to fight government corruption. He is a nationally recognized expert on government corruption, immigration enforcement, congressional and judicial ethics, and open government. A former talk radio and television host and analyst, Tom is well known across the country as a national spokesperson for the conservative cause. He has been quoted in TIME, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Associated Press, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, and most every other major newspaper in the country. He has also appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, FOX News Channel, C-SPAN and MSNBC. Mr. Fitton has authored numerous articles such as “Judicial Activism Hurts our Courts,” “What Bill Clinton Knew About bin Laden,” “Following Terrorism's Money Trail,” “Senate Abandons Judicial Nominees,” “Every Town is a Border Town,” “Obama's Records Problem” and “Jesse Jackson Exposed.” Judicial Watch also publishes the monthly 375,000+ circulation Verdict newsletter and runs the cutting-edge Internet site JudicialWatch.org, which includes the oft-cited Corruption Chronicles blog. Mr. Fitton gained national attention as a political analyst, previously working for America's Voice and National Empowerment Television. He is a former employee of the International Policy Forum, the Leadership Institute, and Accuracy in Media.Mr. Fitton holds a B.A. in English from George Washington University. A Republic Under Assault: The Left's Ongoing Attack on American Freedom (Judicial Watch) available from Amazon in hardcover, e-book and in audiobook... https://www.amazon.co.uk/Republic-Under-Assault-American-Judicial/dp/1982163658/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=tom+fitton&sr=8-3 Follow Tom and Judicial Watch... WEBSITE: https://www.judicialwatch.org/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/JudicialWatch https://twitter.com/TomFitton?s=20 GETTR: https://www.gettr.com/user/JudicialWatch https://gettr.com/user/tomfitton TRUTH: https://truthsocial.com/@JudicialWatch https://truthsocial.com/@TomFitton TELEGRAM: https://t.me/JudicialWatch Interview recorded 4.5.23 *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on GETTR https://gettr.com/user/BoschFawstin and Twitter https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20  To sign up for our weekly email, find our social media, podcasts, video, livestreaming platforms and more... https://heartsofoak.org/connect/ Please subscribe, like and share! Transcript   (Hearts of Oak) Hello Hearts of Oak and welcome to another interview coming up in a moment with Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch. I had the privilege of meeting Tom over in CPAC six weeks ago and we talk about many things. What Judicial Watch do is use freedom of information and I haven't seen it used so effectively as Judicial Watch do and Tom has been the president for 25 years and we go into a whole range of issues that, without Judicial Watch, the public would not be aware of the truth. So we go into Biden targeting Christians and an FOI that Judicial Watch have just put in on the FBI and they're targeting of Roman Catholic churches. Universities control from abroad. This is a story about a university receiving half a billion from Qatar. Is that good? Is that bad? And how does it influence the education sector. The growing power of the CCP, we look at CCP police stations in New York and you saw maybe six weeks ago there was an arrest of two people. Actually it was Judicial Watch that initially put in that FOI. Without their work you wouldn't have seen the arrest and the exposure of that. Election integrity, they put in many different FOIs in regards to states, and states have been forced to clean up their electoral rolls. They've just put an FOI on Trump raid records to reveal all of those. I think 8,000 records need to be revealed. Judicial Watch have put that in. Gain of function. Again, a lot of stuff has been exposed. Hunter Biden. There are so many issues which they address, and without them, these would not be exposed to the public. So Tom shares many of those stories and talks about how actually what they do can be used abroad and replicated because many countries around the world have an FOI system, certainly in the UK and Europe. And I think we need to be aware of what we can do as citizens and actually use the institution, the legal system that we have to force the government to account. So tune in, listen to Tom share his 25 years worth of experience heading up as President of Judicial Watch. And hello, Hearts of Oak. Today it is an honour to talk to the President of Judicial Watch, Tom Fitton. Tom, thank you for your time today.   (Tom Fitton) You're welcome, Peter. Thank you for having me. Not at all. And you can follow Tom on Twitter. All the handles are there on the screen, @TomFitton and judicialwatch.org, at @JudicialWatch on Twitter. And his latest book, just to give you an idea, published in 2020 is A Republic Under Assault, the left's ongoing attack on American freedom, which really addresses the deep state voter fraud, illegal immigration. And there's a lot packed into that. So I'd encourage our viewers after this, if they want to delve a little bit more deeply into some of the things that Tom has discussed, the book is available everywhere. Now, Tom, for our non-US viewers, could you maybe take a moment and introduce yourself before we get into the work of Judicial Watch?   Well, thank you, Peter, and I won't presume our fellow Americans here in the United States know who we are. So, we're a non-profit educational foundation. We're essentially a government watchdog group. We use often a law here in the United States, it's the bulk of our litigation, called the Freedom of Information Act, which is an open records law that allows federal level access to records. And of course, states do it as well. They have similar laws, so we sue there. So we've been able to uncover all sorts of records about corruption issues that the media isn't terribly interested in pursuing, the Congress is arguably incapable of pursuing, but the American people desperately want to know about. And one of the things we do is we represent whistle-blowers, those who've been victimized by the government for daring to blow the whistle on government misconduct, meaning government officials, and then of course the victims of government misconduct as well. And so in doing so, we not only advance the rule of law, but we educate Americans and and other concerned citizens across the world, frankly, about the importance of clean government, honest government, and transparent government. Well, I think just on you, one thing I read on your Wikipedia, which is always good fun to read, and that in 2022, researchers found that Fitton was the third most prolific purveyor of election misinformation on Twitter during the late months of 2020. That's quite a badge of honour, isn't it? I was hoping for at least a silver medal. Well, the left is obsessed with depicting anything they dispute or hate as quote disinformation and of course, the communist left, which is on the rise here in the United States. They really like compiling lists. So I'm all sorts of lists that I'm sure they'll go to if they advance the revolution far enough along, to put me in jail or worse, but these are serious times and I'm half joking, but I, that book title is prescient, isn't it? Republic Under Assault. I often confuse it because I can, it sounds like a Star Wars movie title to me, but our Republic is under assault. And we have this constitutional system here in the United States that the left has decided is not convenient to them anymore. And so they've let folks who don't follow the rule of law and don't care about protecting the institutions that protect our Liberty, they're running the show for, in my view, an entire political party with the acquiescence, if not too often the allegiance of the other political party, the Republicans. On your website, and I've worked with FOIs here, we have a similar system in the UK, but how you have used them is on another level. I think on the, on your website the document archive section there are 27,000 documents. I mean that is a huge resource of information and it really is a window on government corruption that you've just made available to the public to use as they see fit. Yeah, I don't, it would be difficult to overstate the nature of our work in terms of the scope in what we've been able to uncover. We have thousands of Freedom of Information Act requests, I could come up with a number which may or may not be correct, but it's thousands and it would be shocking if the actual number was certified for you. And I know it's hundreds of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, so there's no one more, there's no one who does more litigation to uncover what the government's up to, not only here in the United States, but worldwide. And you know, I know it's this is more of an international audience is that, you know, we're kind of unusual here in the United States, given our work. Now, I'm pleased to say, because of our aggressive heavy lifting on FOIA, others now know about it as a way to get access to information. But it's relatively unique here in the United States to just have a group focused on uncovering and battling government corruption. And to me, it's a great testament. I know there there are a lot of issues here in America, but it's a great testament to the American way and our rule of law that allows a little Judicial Watch to go into court and the IRS or the State Department or the Treasury, FBI, DOJ, they need to go into court and answer to the court as to why they're not giving us documents and what they're withholding and justify it. And so that's a rarity here in the United States and I know worldwide, we just don't have that sort of accountability in a regular way. First of all, if you're doing it in most other countries, you face financial ruin, imprisonment, injury, death to you and your family potentially. And that's just in France.   Yeah. So true. You know, the point is, even in Western Europe, they don't like civic society. That's the term I use. They call it the non-governmental sector, which to me is just so communist in approach. It's the government, everything else, the government has to justify its role as a sector. The NGOs don't need their own little sector. We should be running the show, non-government entities. But as you, and I don't need to tell you in the United Kingdom, there are just few independent civic groups. Usually they're either creatures of the government or of the parties. And so it's hard for them to get the traction we're able to get here in the United States. And you see when a few of them do get traction or when there's more of a populist movement, how vociferous the reaction is by the state there in Europe and frankly in Canada and elsewhere. So thank God for America but you know this is this is a more than just a third world problem government corruption it's a first world problem.   Yeah no completely and what you're doing shines a light on that and expose the things the government obviously don't want people to see. But maybe I could just go through some of the freedom of information that you have done that gives people an idea of your work and an idea what's possible and shows the failures of government and institutions. I think one of the most recent ones just a few days ago was Biden's targeting of Christians and Judicial Watch have just filed a Freedom of Information Act along with Catholic vote civil action against the FBI and the Department of Justice. Why on earth are the government spying on Christians. Well, if you're a leftist, it makes sense, right? The church is an enemy of the state, unnecessarily. Certainly the left's cultural agenda here in the United States, whether it be abortion or radical transgender extremism. And so the FBI, they know who butters their bread, and they follow or they come up with things that they think will appeal, to their political masters, who are the left. And one thing this agency did in Richmond, Virginia, so the FBI, for those of you not here in the United States, and those of you here in the United States may not know this, you've got the FBI headquarters, but the offices of the FBI, the Richmond office and the New York office, they're kind of their own fiefdoms as well. And so they're substantial in terms of their power and influence. And Richmond's and the Richmond office decided that, you know, traditionalist Catholics could, be attractive to the terrorists they want to monitor domestically. And I mean, it's really laughable, Peter. It's worth reading. Everyone should read it. It just shows you how out of control the government is and how stupid it is. They do an analysis under the guise of this intelligence threat assessment of Vatican II and the debates in the church about Vatican II. So do you want the FBI analysing those who support the Latin mass versus those who think we should have a mass in the everyday tongue of the country? It's just incredible. But what's frightening is the document also makes it clear that they want to get sources in the Church. So what they were planning was spying onto the Catholic Church, using them as, using these sources as tripwires, right, to get the bad guys who are too pro-life or too extreme in terms of defending children from mutilation and such. So, you know, you shouldn't have to go to your, go to mass or go to church. In this case, obviously, the Catholic Church was being specifically targeted, but every Christian should worry and wonder if your pastor or or your priest is spying on you and watching what you're saying, or whether your fellow parishioner that you shared a sign of the peace with is, is it informant for the FBI? And now, of course, the FBI and the Justice Department run from that document once it became disclosed as a result of a whistle-blower disclosure to a former FBI agent. But I'm not confident that they've stopped this type of approach and, indeed the fact that they haven't given us documents about this scandal suggests there's more to, hide. That's why we're in court. Well, how does that spying on its own citizens and the understanding that being a conservative is somehow dangerous to society? Does that just happen as the FBI under a Democrat regime, or is it so ingrained, that hatred of conservatism, that actually that prevails whoever is in the White House? Oh, well, you know, the history of the FBI is one of an agency that is often used to either protect or target the enemies of the sitting president, and they don't need to be told to do it. They kind of, as I said, they instinctively know who butters their bread. But I think things changed a bit with Donald Trump. He came in, was seemingly hostile to virtually every institution in the country, the drain the swamp approach. And so they decided that he needed to be taken out. And so you had these mandarins in the FBI decide that they were going to be, and I think actually, I forget who mentioned it, referenced the Praetorian Guard of old. They started off as quote, defenders of the Republic, right? And instead they became their own power centre. And I think we're seeing that with the FBI and the Justice Department. I was looking at their budget documents the other day, 30, I think it's 35, 37,000 staff, 13,000, which includes 13,000 FBI special agents, you know, $10-11 billion budget, and, I suspect that's about the size of most countries' militaries. And they're not just checking out, you know, and when you've got a bureaucracy that big, they're not just looking for bank robbers. No, I can bet. One of the other recent, people can go up on the website, obviously, and see all the press releases and the many regular FOIs, but universities being controlled from abroad, and this was a document showing the Texas A&M, which is a university there, it appeared to to receive $500 million, that's half a billion dollars, in grants from Qatar regime. And that's something massively concerning. We've had concerns here in the UK about Chinese influence on our universities especially, but also there is money and influence coming from the Middle East that probably is opposed to anything you would want freedom-wise in your country. So tell us about that. Well, when you give someone $500 million, you usually want something. You either want recognition or something in the least, the most charitable interpretation is, you know, at the university level, major donors usually seek recognition or to advance a specific academic goal. And so the question is, what was the goal here? I think, again, what, you know, it's one thing to say, oh, look at this money, it's terrible. You know, you just can't draw a conclusion. Well, someone gave money a gift, therefore it's terrible. You have to see what the circumstances are. And here the circumstances are, it looks like there was underreporting of the amount that was given. And it also is only being disclosed after hard-fought litigation in state courts that went up and down the Texas courts against the Qatar Foundation, which is a front for the terrorist-linked regime there. And so, if everything was on the up and up, this would have been a straightforward request for information. Indeed, Texas A&M I don't think had any initial objection. We had to fight the government, the Qatar government in lawfare here in the United States. It was really quite incredible. And, to me, it's like an easy, it's easy pickings if you're a foreign government seeking the influence, you just give money to universities and such. And in the case of China, there's a kind of almost an inherent, there's a special interest group because forget about giving money directly through Confucius Institutes or whatever the latest version of their academic fronts are, but you have a half, let's say a half a million Chinese residents here in the United States going to school, most of whom are paying full tuition. So the universities all of a sudden become advocates for this, just potentially dangerous relationships that we develop with these foreign countries through our higher education system.   Another story that broke and I didn't realize that you had been involved in putting the FOI.   We're involved in everything.   Yeah, I get it. So we talked about the power of the CCP but actually the story broke I think a month ago and the headline was the Federal Bureau investigation misled and stonewalled Judicial Watch on legitimate public record requests involving illegal Chinese police station opening in New York. And then your FOI, actually the people who you had put that in about, they suddenly get arrested. That is really concerning that a foreign government would have a police presence in the US and it makes you wonder kind of what else else is happening. But that was, again, your FOI that you'd put in. Yeah, I mean, we, you know, the idea that there are police fronts operating in the United States is not a new issue. You know, the folks have noted it and it took forever and a day, it looks like, for the FBI to get on it. And, you know, we asked for the documents and we got the run-around or they pretended there was no issue and didn't have anything to give to us. But sometimes even a non-answer is, indicates government scandal and corruption, but think about having the goal to run a police agency, practically speaking, that not only targets Chinese residents who are foreign nationals here in the United States, but American Chinese citizens, American citizens of Chinese origin. What chutzpah? And but on the other hand, you have a regime that thinks low enough of the United States and has Biden evidently deep enough in its back pocket that they can send in a spy craft to attack our sovereignty and do figure eights with no repercussions, practically speaking, above our secure military installations in the heartland of our country. In the heartland of our country. You have to wonder, obviously, what the Chinese are concluding from our lack of seeming outrage, I wonder what all of our friends must think, too.They won't defend themselves. Well, how can we rely on them to defend us or to help us, if push comes to shove? Completely, and that one you'd put in, again in the UK, we put in FOI and they come back and say the information is too difficult to obtain and then you can put another FOI, but you then go down the legal route. That's intriguing. You're not without teeth that you're using the legal system, you're not simply requesting according to what your statutory allowed to receive, you're actually then going to the court. So you have that threat and it's often that threat or actually you in the courtroom forces the government to release the information. Yeah that's true, it's actually going to court that often gets a response and you can imagine it's the United States government, it spends more money than mine is, so and the bureaucracy is huge so that their resting state is incompetence or refusal to comply with the law since, there's little accountability on that and the only way to get their attention is through a federal court case often. But that also has, you know, thankfully thanks to Judicial Watch's well-known record for going to court, other FOIAs sometimes do get responded to that otherwise wouldn't. For instance, we've done a ton of FOIAs on and lawsuits on on COVID, its origins, the vaccine, et cetera. And it was just a separate FOIA that wasn't a lawsuit, but they knew we were sniffing around and had similar lawsuits on the same issue, that just disclosed recently that the Fauci Agency was funding in China through EcoHealth Alliance, which is a third party, a front or a pass-through for grants, the creation of literal mutant coronaviruses, And that's a quote. Mutants. To see how or if they could infect humanized mice. I never thought to call gain of function viruses mutants, but it's a rather obvious point. And of course, our government's figured out that's what they are too. And they've been lying to us about what they've been doing for years. And the conclusion from that, which to me is, to me, this is some of the biggest, the most important material, Peter, at least on this issue we've uncovered, it helps explain why there was this fanatic desperation to discount the lab leak theory. Because if it was, quote, a leak from a lab, and I don't know why we presume it was a leak if it came from a lab, it was either a natural virus in the lab that got out somehow, or it was an engineered virus. And what was the technique for engineering it, And what was the set of viruses that were engineered? Well, the answers to those two latter questions are it was the United States. And the gain-of-function technique was a US biological approach that we shared and exported to China. So, this COVID origin story isn't just about what the Chinese were doing, in my view. And that shows, because many conservatives have had big concerns at the government's role, institutions' role within that. But it's one thing to have concerns and suspicions, it's another thing to have the documentary evidence. Going through your FOI seems time and time again that you're providing the evidence to back up what the suspicions that have been there over time, but most other people are not doing that. It's you that are going in and actually delivering on the hard facts for the issues. Yeah, I know a lot of folks who have conspiracy theories, what is derided as, what are derided as conspiracy theories, and my view is actually the truth is usually worse than the conspiracy theory. It's worse once you know what they actually did, and it's usually folks with the conspiracy theories, they're usually in the right ballpark, but they've got the specifics and the mechanisms and the people involved wrong, and sometimes the motivation's wrong, but their suspicions generally are correct. Something went wrong with the way the vaccines were manufactured. That process was politicized and is untrustworthy, and how it was pushed out and information about the issues related to the vaccine were handled. Something went wrong about the vaccine, excuse me, the coronavirus and its origins. There was reason to suspect that what we were being told wasn't true. Or we should at least examine all sorts of possibilities, as opposed to just pretending some questions are you're not allowed to ask. I mean, this is the craziness of these days, Peter. It's not even saying this happened, or I believe this happened. You're not even allowed to ask the question. And I tell you, the wonderful thing about FOIA is we get to ask those questions. Well, we find, yeah, that's an area you don't touch on. And another area you don't touch on, which you've talked about, another, we're told, is a conspiracy, is election integrity. And that's also because we've seen some lawsuits going in favour of actually cleaning up the system within states. But one of the FOIs you'd put in was in Colorado. And it's, the statement was, Judicial Watch announced that Colorado's Secretary of State agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging that Colorado had failed to remove ineligible voters from its rules. As part of a settlement, Colorado, I love this, will report to Judicial Watch on its yearly progress in cleaning up its rules for the next six years. I love that they have to answer to you, but that's a state-by-state issue that needs to be addressed, and that's one state that you then had a victory on, and I guess that has to happen state-by-state. Yeah. Well, and we've been successful state by state. And that's not the FOIA. That's not Freedom of Information Act. That's a law that allows, under federal law, aggrieved parties to sue states and localities that aren't taking reasonable steps to clean up the voter rolls. And I think this translates internationally. If you have a list of people who are eligible to vote, you should make sure that list is as accurate and up-to-date as you reasonably can, because it invites fraud, right, if oh so-and-so moved and died or died I'm still getting their ballot or I know their their name is on the list I'm gonna vote in their name or do something other than something else nefarious which is why the law requires the list to be cleaned up it's not just Tom Fitton being worried that's the reason the laws there otherwise why would you have it, and of course at the federal level the leftist running the Justice Department have little interest in cleaning up voter rolls because I believe certainly here in the United States and I'm not naïve that both political sides, both sides of the aisle are often tempted to mess with election results. But they don't want cleaner elections here in the United States. And I think it's because, because I can't think of any other reason. They oppose voter ID, they oppose cleaning up the rolls. They want to expand the idea of voting from one day, through entire months. They want unsupervised voting, which is the way to think about mail-in balloting. And that's something that no one else does. And I don't like the point to say, oh, no other country does this, because usually most every other country does things wrong. But I don't think any sensible person thinks that having millions of ballots be mailed out, and people filling those ballots out And just mailing them back is any way to run an honest election. No completely, and I know we-   And necessarily undermines confidence in the election system. Even if people participate in it, they realize, boy, how do they make sure no one is being intimidated when they vote? How do they make sure no one is, that the actual voter who sends the ballot in is who the person says they are? Oh, if they collect ballots, how do we know those ballots are collected properly and there's certifications about their origin? there was no intimidation in the collection process. None of that is, practically speaking, checkable under the new systems that were set up under the pretext of the COVID pandemic. Completely. Well, I know we often look to the States for hope here in Europe, but we just had an election and maybe one thing the US can learn from the motherland is that we actually do paper ballots. It's all counted on the one day and we don't use any voting dominion systems and it's it's all done and dusted and by 3 a.m. the next day you've got a result.   Yeah I mean and there's no excuse for the United States not to be able to do that. You know people say well the United States a bigger country. Well we don't run elections nationally, it's state by state. So there's no reason any major state in this nation can't figure out who won on election day. And we've also had another breakthrough where they now require voter ID so the left have realized it's not actually racist to ask someone for ID so we've had another breakthrough.   Well it's funny you know the left used to not like vote by mail because it used to be used by elderly republicans to vote. And then they decided they liked it. And everyone used to understand vote by mail was a kind of a recipe and invited voter fraud until it became politically, until they realized well we kind of like that so let's do more of it.   One of the other big things has been that the Trump raid records and I know you put down FOI and I think last month you'd said that you'd, they had released, the National Archives had released 1,200 pages of 8,000 records about that unprecedented raid. Tell us about that because it's vital that the American public know what was behind that, the reasons, the conversations, and I guess that will be another case of you then going to court to force those release off the other what six and a half thousand documents. Well, let's take a step back here, Peter. Back in, it was like 10, 12 years ago, we found out that Bill Clinton had tapes of recordation's of his conversations with foreign leaders and members of Congress that he kept after he left office. Right? And we thought, well, isn't that a presidential record? You know, I don't need to explain, practically speaking, what that might mean. Talking to foreign leaders typically are, you know, those talks are almost always classified inherently. And we went to court and the Justice Department and the National Archives, which is the federal bureaucracy that handles presidential records, their preservation and such, they came to us and said, no, we can't, you can't force us to get these records. And the court said, you have to defer to the president. He gets to decide what's personal and what's not. And the Justice Department in a court hearing said, you know what, if he has records after he leaves the Oval Office, they're presumptively personal. So compare and contrast that with their new position, 180 degree difference, with President Trump. And so the same archives that went out of its way to protect Bill Clinton's right to keep whatever records he wanted, conspired against President Trump to try to nail him on this records dispute criminally. And, you know, it's basically a civil matter, even if it is a dispute and there's a basis for it. And now they don't want to tell us that, because to get the records, it's all about transparency, right? We got to know what the president was doing. Well, now we don't, they won't tell us what they were doing to go after the president. And to take a step further back, I'm kind of getting a little bit in the weeds there. But and in America here, the political media class, they like to talk about this as if it's serious and important. No one buys it. I mean, I tell you. There isn't a foreign leader who doesn't look at what America is doing and say, okay, the current president, his agencies are trying to jail the former president, and his number one opponent in the presidential campaign. They don't need the details. They don't need the, oh, oh, but this is why it's important. This is, this is the terrible crime. They see through it and they see America that's no better than anyone else internationally in the way they are supposed to follow the rule of law. And I think it's a terrible national security and international embarrassment to the United States because now our moral, you know, the moral weight we could throw when we talk about the concerns about having fair elections and accountable government and consent to the government. Well, all that's out the window. They're trying to jail Trump simply because he opposed the wrong people here in Washington, not because of any personal misconduct. And Putin and Xi and, you know, frankly, Macron and whoever the current office holder is in Downing Street, that changes, I know, every three months.   It does. It's Rishi Sunak today, but who knows who it will be tomorrow. You know, they see what's happening in the United States, and they also recognize that attitude is there in their home countries. I mean, there isn't a major politician in any Western country that doesn't sit there because of the lack of rule, because of this contempt for consent of the government that doesn't sit there at the the sufferance of the deep state. Which is, in my view, transnational in nature in terms of their attitude. It doesn't mean they're conspiring saying we got to put this person on this piece in this place on the chessboard. No, it's an approach and it's a shared approach. One other area, and we had Miranda Devine on a few weeks ago and the Laptop from Hell and looking at Hunter Biden and you'd filed an FOI for a gun owned by him and I thought someone who had such a drug issue, an alcohol issue, wouldn't be eligible to get a gun but somehow. So tell us about that because obviously Hunter Biden's background, all the the business dealings that leads directly to Joe Biden himself. Well there are a few things there and so he was dating the widow of his brother and they got into a fight or dispute and she allegedly took his gun and threw it in a dumpster across the street from a school. Law enforcement got involved and the political reporting, the reporting on it was that the Secret Service and the FBI came and went to the store from which he purchased the gun and vacuumed up documents. So, to me, that shows improper involvement by federal agencies to take care of a political problem for the son of a major political figure. But when you think about the petty nature of what he kind of had to come in and sweep up for, and of course, we've been suing about those records, right? It helps explain, well, if they're doing that for little stuff, can you imagine what they're doing for big stuff? And certainly they've had the so-called Hunter laptop for at least since 19, excuse me, 2019. It's like a Hamlet-style agony about whether to prosecute Hunter since then, even though they have him dead to rights in a series of crimes. But there's new information now that just came out here from senior members of Congress that the FBI had evidence that Joe Biden had specifically been involved in a bribery scheme with a foreign nationals vice president, and all the evidence that's out there from the laptop and other witnesses suggest and show that Joe Biden was a beneficiary of Hunter's business dealings. So he got a cut of the action, you know, the infamous 10% for the big guy approach. So Hunter, I mean, Biden, Joe was a ran his operation like a Rico operation, a racketeering operation, a mob operation. And I think the challenge for his Justice Department, which is first and foremost moving to protect him, is they can't get at Hunter without getting and raising issues about Joe. So that's why you have this stalling and this hemming and hawing about, what you're going to go, if you go after Hunter for failing to disclose money on his tax returns, what about all the money he was giving his father? Is it he's subject to the same type of scrutiny? And if he hasn't, why not? We're in a crisis here. And you know, and some of that money came from the mayor of Moscow's wife. So you've got the Putin connection, Burisma. At least that was a company. So. Burisma was a Russian leading company. And then of course, you have the Chinese who were who had Hunter in their back pocket as well, obviously, because of his name and the influence. And it wasn't like the vice president was involved in all of this as vice president. So when Putin's making decisions and Xi is making decisions, how is it that they're not calculating Biden's corruption in their decision-making? You know, they're compromised, right? He's obviously has cognitive difficulties. He's compromised by the very public figures the public figures or political figures in China and Russia making these dangerous decisions. And so, you know, maybe, oh, does it mean we invade Ukraine because Biden's in our back pocket? No, but I would suggest it's a factor. Does it mean we are more aggressive around Taiwan or generally in China because Biden's in our back pocket? No, it's not the only reason, but certainly it's a factor. Too me it's a national security issue and it would be for any other country worth it's salt. All the issues you kind of talk about seem to be the Democrat party behind institutions, and I'm wondering will it come to the point where organizations like Judicial Watch and others need to actually go after either those on Capitol Hill or those in the institutions, AGs, I mean will it have to be actually going after those within the party itself? Well, we don't go after them under law because they are Democrats. We don't go after someone because they're Republicans. We try to apply the law. Or, you know, apply our focus without regard to political party. Though generally speaking, big government usually means big corruption. So we have all that money being spent. There's usually a lot of money sloshing up over the sides, right? Or it's usually being directed to political supporters as opposed to those in the public interest. And so ideologically, if you support bigger government, you tend to be more involved in corruption. I mean, it's just kind of, to me, it just goes with the just, it's part of the package. Now, Republicans, they abuse government to target us. They refuse to take action against corruption too often because they think politically it's not feasible or won't work for them, which to me is also a form of corruption. And so this temptation is great among both Republican and Democrats to kind of abuse these powers entrusted to them, especially if they think no one's watching. And I think the problem's not insurmountable. there's always going to be, you spend $4 trillion, there's going to be corruption, okay? But let's avoid having a Justice Department that is just thrown out all semblance of being dispassionate. Let's maybe have an FBI that is significantly curtailed, or if not, radically repurposed, to focus more on traditional law enforcement than political targeting of individuals. Let's ensure that our elections are as clean as we reasonably can. You know, the temptation is great. I mean, North Carolina, they had the stay here in the United States. They had to redo a congressional election because a Republican, essentially was engaged in a massive fraud. So we just have to be constantly vigilant. That's the price of freedom. To finish off with, Tom, for 25 years you've been president of Judicial Watch. And I guess there are many stories that if Judicial Watch hadn't been there, then the truth would never be told. And I think what you're doing is a model for other countries. And I know your focus is on the US, but there are other countries across Europe that have a similar freedom of information system, but it hasn't been used as well as you have used what you have there.   Go ahead, I'm sorry.   You obviously raise money from the public, you've got a big team, and tell us about that because ideally what you've built there is something that actually could be rolled out and used in other countries.   Well, we're able to fundraise directly and the fundraising laws here in the United States are very friendly to grassroots groups and the non-governmental organizations, a phrase I hate, to be able to raise public support and that's much harder, my understanding is, in other countries. It's just more difficult to raise money directly from the public, as I said, outside the, you know, they usually rely on the government or the creatures of the party. But there's a growing conservative movement internationally to address this transnational left-wing threat. Our folks are there in Europe this week now for CPAC Hungary, right, and there are conservatives from all over Europe there hanging out, figuring out ways to oppose Lothiathan.   Yeah, and I know I'm watching CPAC Hungary. So, Tom, thank you for your time. It's fascinating. I've followed Judicial Watch for quite a while and it's exciting to see what you're doing. So thank you for coming along and sharing insights on what is happening there with Judicial Watch.   Well, best of luck to you, Peter, thanks for having me on.   Thank you.

On this episode we sample and review Redwood Empire's Emerald Giant Cask Strength Rye Whiskey and then jet pack on over to a conversation on all things The Mandalorian season 3 and Star Wars. We discuss old men talking about weather, mario eats mushrooms and you should too, unapologetic RYE, Kyle's BIRTHDAY, no more Tatooine, being critical because we love the thing, subplot heaven, Din Grogu, why not lead more into Ahsoka, Grogu's suit, parental realizations, Din Djarin's growth, The Praetorian Guard, I can take you in warm or I can take you in cold, Moff Gideon and his suit, Darth Maul, Zeb, Bladerunner, Jack Blak and Lizzo, Christoper Lloyd, and all of the exciting news coming from Star Wars. Support Us On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DrepandStone We'd love to hear from you! https://linktr.ee/DrepandStone Don't forget to subscribe! Music by @joakimkarudmusic Episode #188  

When your plans are changed or interrupted, are you upset? Listen to this message to learn about the Apostle Paul's attitude when he was put in jail and not able to do his usual ministry. Hear the encouragement he gives believers to see that in spite of that God's plan was working out to greater progress of the gospel. Find out who the Praetorian Guard were and why Rome is the most likely place of his imprisonment. See two different types proclaiming the gospel and Paul's reaction to them.

A former official with the CIA and DIA admits that he and others who signed an open letter “debunking” the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election knew that it was probably true—but says they were still right to call it Russian disinfo. 5) Klaus Schwab opens World Economic Forum meeting by claiming he will “master the future”; 4) Deep state beginning to look like Rome's Praetorian Guard; 3) Fox News' Tucker Carlson suggests the FAA full ground stop last week may have been caused by hackers; 2) New study finds that more than half of men who have transgender “bottom surgery” suffer such pain that they need ongoing medical care; 1) Japanese gamer has credit card info shared with web by his pet fish.

Jeff is joined again by his delightful daughter, DeAnna. After her first appearance on the podcast, listeners urged Jeff to have her make another appearance. This time she discusses her favorite stage shows, musicals, and symphonies. Many of her favorites are tied to famous historical events, which helps explain her love of history. Or maybe it's her love of history that helps determine her favorite shows. Regardless, she is a charming guest that we're sure you'll enjoy! Key Takeaways  00:17 – Broadway favorites Favorite show is Hamilton Other favorite Broadway shows include SIX: The Musical, The Music Man, Dear Evan Hansen, Into the Woods, Wicked, and Beetlejuice 06:44 – Eclectic taste in symphonies Loved John Williams: The 90th Birthday Gala Concert  Favorite classical symphony is Bach's Brandenburg Concertos Favorite musical of all time is Hadestown—the Tony-winning tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice—but Les Misérables is up there, too Jeff puts in a good word for The Lion King and Chicago 11:48 – History! Especially interested in Rome and the Middle Ages into the Renaissance She discusses a cast of characters that includes Caesar, Augustus, Cleopatra, Mark Antony, Charlemagne, and Leonardo da Vinci  DeAnna also describes some of the political systems, militaries, and societal hierarchies and challenges of the time, such as feudalism, the Praetorian Guard, and the Black Plague  22:23 – Scuba diving and pre-teens After listening to episode 21, which featured DeAnna and her experience as a scuba diver, the audience wants to know whether DeAnna thinks a ten-year old is too young to start diving  DeAnna says it depends on the person—they must be responsible and ready for a challenge. Ten-years old is not necessarily too young. You can always try it to determine whether the child is ready. If so, it takes a lot of practice Night diving is especially good for seeing marine life that is less active during the daytime Links and Resources Mentioned Episode 21: Meet Jeff's Daughter, DeAnna Bellomo https://sites.libsyn.com/420320/meet-jeffs-daughter-deanna-bellomo Bellomo & Associates workshops: https://bellomoassociates.com/workshops/  For more information, call us at (717) 845-5390. Connect with Bellomo & Associates on Social Media Twitter: https://twitter.com/bellomoassoc  YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/user/BellomoAssociates  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bellomoassociates  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bellomoassociates/   LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bellomoandassociates  Ways to work with Jeff Bellomo Contact Us: https://bellomoassociates.com/contact/  Practice areas: https://bellomoassociates.com/practice-areas/

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

Things get cosmic as we discuss GLADIATOR! Doc has no shortage of confidence when it comes to dealing with this Strontian - are you not entertained? Intro Extra Life reminder Background (3:50) Gladiator of the Imperial Guard created by Chris Claremont and Dave Cockrum in The X-Men #107 (Oct 1977) Introduced as a member of the Imperial Guard of the Shi'ar Empire, serving under Emperor D'Ken, brother of the exiled Lilandra Kallark is a Strontian, and the race is incredibly strong, but only when devoted to a principle - Kallark and other Strontians were vying for a spot in the guard, when they were ordered to return to Strontia and kill their elders - only Kallark obeyed without question, learning that it was a test of loyalty set up by the elders to protect the homeworld He encountered several heroes along his journey, as he continued to serve whoever was in charge of the Shi'ar Empire - D'Ken, Lilandra, Deathbird, and Vulcan Kallark defends the Empire against Vulcan and his assault, but when Vulcan leads a coup and takes over, Kallark is honor-bound to serve, although he has fleeting thoughts of doubt On Vulcan's orders, Kallark and the guard attack the wedding of Crystal and Ronan, intended to unite the Kree and Inhumans, though he sides with Lilandra to prevent her execution, he is unable to prevent a later assassination He accepts the position of Emperor of the Shi'ar to prevent further bloodshed and war, but appoints two advisors to help him handle most of the logistics of running the empire Joins the Annihilators to give himself an outlet for fighting, but refuses a leadership role Joins the Galactic Council, where he decides that Earth must be destroyed to save the universe from incursions, but when it was restored, no memory remained of the destruction Put a time-displaced Jean Grey on trial for her “future” crimes as Phoenix After Xandra is discovered, Kallark hands over the throne of the Shi'ar empire to her and returns to his role as head of the Guard Issues - More than you think you know (11:10) The waxing and waning of his self-esteem and focus. It's a function of the Strontian species that their physical abilities are all directly tied to their confidence level and their belief in themselves and their purpose. When Gladiator believes he can do so, he is powerful enough to knock planets out of their orbit, burn Galactus with his heat vision, and is said to have once ripped a black hole in half. Which I really hope was just an idle boast, because there's just...so many things wrong with that sentence. When he doubts himself, he becomes weak enough to get smacked around by Cannonball. A slavish devotion to his sense of duty. Gladiator takes his oath of loyalty to the Shi'ar throne and his position as Praetor of the Imperial Guard VERY seriously. He begins his career of imperial service when the Emperor orders him and the rest of the cadets being evaluated with him to kill the Council of Elders of his home planet as a test of loyalty. Most of the rest of the cadets refuse the order and rebel. Gladiator obeys it without question. He's had to serve a string of emperors and empresses who were objectively very bad people, from T'Korr to D'Ken to Deathbird to Vulcan. He hates the things he's ordered to do most of the time, but is a loyal servant of the throne through and through, purposefully keeping his focus single-mindedly on his duty in order to keep his powers at their maximum level and best perform his duties. The only time he ever wavers is when he's ordered to execute Lilandra, which is a pretty high bar, all things considered. (18:38) Lack of faith in his ability to lead anything that's not the Guard. When Vulcan and Deathbird are dispatched after War of Kings, Gladiator really doesn't want to take charge of what's left of the empire, and would rather anyone else be leader besides him. When he's with the Annihilators, he has no interest in any kind of a leadership role despite arguably being the team's most powerful member. When Professor X and Lilandra both die and someone has the bright idea to hatch a child from an egg made out of their combined genetic material, Gladiator's first response is, oh, thank God you're here! YOU'RE the empress now! This is probably tied into the confidence-based nature of his powers, but even with all of his experience serving at the highest echelons of an interstellar empire that boasts over one million member states, he really seems allergic to the idea of being in charge of anything that's not in his comfort zone of the Praetorian Guard. (25:46) Break (34:32) Plugs for ODPH, Freudian Sips, and Cullen Bunn Treatment (36:07) In-universe - Get him out of his element Out of universe - Compare to high-level athlete with the yips (39:14) Skit (48:31) Hello Kallark, I'm Dr. Issues. -Thank you for taking the time to see me, doctor.  So, what can I do for you? -Forgive me my manners, but, we should at least shake hands before discussing more…personal items. Ok, sure -*yell*Ow! You have quite the grip for a human. Said…no one ever. Are you ok? I wasn't even trying to -*abruptly* I'm fine. Everythings fine. Not everything, but my hand is fine. *whispering to himself* Have I truly fallen so far? What was that? -Nothing. I…I need to see you because I have some questions that only a man of mental science can answer. Mental sci…that's unique. Anyhoo, go ahead. -Even though I am eons old, I pride myself on my…stamina. *hushed tone* do you understand what I'm saying? This is embarrassing. Well, you might need a different specialist, then. Do you have a primary care provider? -The Shi'ar Empire has spared no expense to test me from crown to sole, and yet, they find nothing…but…I haven't given them all of my…details. Go on…*sigh* look, I'm a professional. This is all confidential. If this goes where I think it's going, I may have ways to assist you. Continue -*deep breath* I am a proud member of the Imperial Guard. The proudest…member…if you will. I train my body constantly to serve in as many capacities as I can. And yet, I must admit…I may have cheated…oh the shame! I'm not casting judgment. You cheated with whom? -No, no, I do not blame anyone besides myself, by my own hand. Well, your hands may desensitize you if you aren't using variation in technique. -You do sound like you know about this topic quite well, and without hesitation. Alright then! I'll admit, I've resorted to using some natural remedies. Supplements if you will. Oh really? Well, on Earth many of those products do more harm than good. -I have learned the…umm..hard way…that this is true throughout the galaxy. Sure, for a brief time I felt like I could tackle a whole army and have my way with them in any test of…accomplishment. But that feeling faded. Now I feel…weaker than any Strontian has any right to feel. I may look the same, but I can tell I lack…girth. Is this making sense? Yes, and I definitely can help you. There is plenty of literature on my planet that shows some men have this type of adverse reaction to treatments for anxiety or depression. -Really? So they can't get up what they used to? I could lift planets out of their natural orbit, you know. Um…not the visual I would have wanted, but my point is, it's treatable. I don't know what the alien equivalent is, but here, it's called sildenafil. There are some options, and I want to go over the risks and benefits of - *interrupting* I have no fear of risks! Just tell me the benefits, please. Well, as you may have guessed, you'll be able to function in that area again. It increases blood flow, but the typical formulation is only used as needed to avoid staying that way permanently. -What? As needed? But I am always needed. The guard never ceases their duties. How am I supposed to maintain a steady workload if I rely on this temporary aide?  Well first you need to try a low-*interrupting* And what time of day do I take this…sildenafil? On the days you use it…and ONLY on that day, you can take it up to 4 hours before any stimulation, but it's best 30 minutes before -And what about my diet? Don't eat, you need an empty stomach, but you can drink water, it's good to stay hydrated, anyway. -And what if I need to increase my…output. How many of these can I take? Just one a day, but -And will this also affect my breathing if I am too vigorous? Actually, for pulmonary hyperten -And what about if I am injured? If this affects my blood, will I suffer mortal wounds easier?  I wouldn't recommend -Plus I don't…recover…as well as I used to. If I take anything else, will it affect those things as well? I thought you didn't care about side -How long do I take this, if I feel like my…body…is catching up to my…head? Sometimes I get a throbbing STOP! ***breathing heavily*** Look, stop with the innuendo, alright? You're talking about a sensitive topic, but you got through it. It's not easy to penetrate your defenses, but I've kept a stiff upper lip for too long. You're not going deep enough to get to the psychological basis of all of this. I can't last much longer. We need to start talking in plain language, or this whole encounter ends in a meaningless discharge. Do I make myself clear? -*shouts* SIR YES SIR! Good. Now, as I was trying to say before you unloaded all of your emotional content, erectile dysfunction is -*shocked* EXCUSE ME?!!! *pause* Come again? -WHAT are you on about? I've been pouring my soul out about my decline as a defender of the empire, and you want to talk about…sexual matters? What is wrong with you? I…I thought -You are a disgrace to your profession! And to think, I let myself believe that I needed your kind of help. I have tested the limits of EXISTENCE, and you have some sort of perverse motive to corrupt everything I stand for. How dare you! But the…and your cadence…your tone…the embarrass…*sigh* You know what? I'm willing to cut my losses. I apologize for the misunderstanding. I can refer you to another clinician, and we'll wipe the slate clean. Shake on it? -*pause* You drive a hard bargain. *crunching sound* OOOWWWW Where did that come from? -My grip…that's the grip I know that could choke out the Sun…YOU DID IT! I don't know how, but I'm back to…to ME? I can trust my…head…as well as my body…with my hands…I'm so excited I could just explode! Thank you! The Empire thanks you. THE UNIVERSE WILL SHOWER YOU WITH JOY *swooshing sound to indicate flying away* YESSSSSSS!  *sigh* I need a vacation. Ending (55:09) Recommended reading: War of Kings Next episodes: Raven, Aquaman Plugs for social Transcript References: Moira episode - Anthony (6:05) Crystal episode - Anthony (7:08) Transformers Movie - Anthony (8:05) Rogue & Gambit episodes - Anthony (10:10) Dan and Dave 30 for 30 Podcast - Doc (44:45) Apple Podcasts: here Google Play: here Stitcher: here TuneIn: here iHeartRadio: here Twitter Facebook TikTok  Patreon TeePublic Discord

Members of Pelosi's Praetorian Guard snub Republican leaders at today's congressional gold medal ceremony. Plus, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch raises concerns about re-education programs happening in progressive Colorado. Then, a three time Emmy award-winning actress joins us with updates about the wrongful prosecution of her husband as an alleged Chinese spy. Finally, former ambassador John Bolton can barely contain himself at the prospect of World War Three, and he wants to be the one leading it - not stopping it. More on his possible primary against Trump in 2024.Guests:· Julie Kelly· Martha Byrne· Kelly Lester· Connor Freeman

The FBI's efforts to interfere in the last two presidential elections on behalf of Democrats brings to mind the Praetorian Guard in the Roman Empire. Once the Guard realized it had the power to make and break emperors, who learned to play ball—or else. 5) Russia's natural gas diplomacy sending EU into recession; 4) China spying on US reaches disturbing levels; 3) Real US inflation now higher than worst of the Jimmy Carter years; 2) Polio case in New York, anthrax in Colorado cattle; 1) FBI suppression of Hunter Biden investigation was second consecutive presidential election in which the bureau intervened to hurt Trump.

In this episode, it's Roman Emperors behaving badly--and Praetorian Prefects behaving even worse. Beginning with Caligula, Emperors were assaulted in their homes, killed with their families, dragged through the streets, and mutilated by angry mobs. At one point, the Praetorians even assassinated an Emperor, then auctioned off the Empire to the highest bidder. Find out just how bad it got. Get ad-free episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/ancienthistoryfangirl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

He grew up in Milan and became an army officer, where he distinguished himself so well that the Emperor Diocletian made him captain of the Praetorian Guard not suspecting that Sebastian was a Christian. In Rome, while fulfilling the duties of a courtier, he used his position to comfort and encourage his imprisoned fellow-Christians. By his labors and example he brought many to faith in Christ, including Chromatius, the Prefect in charge of persecuting the Roman Christians.   Sebastian had upheld two brothers, Mark and Marcellinus, who were awaiting execution for their faith. When the day of execution came, their father Tranquillinus, who had been a pagan but through Sebastian's example had converted, presented himself to Chromatius and announced that he too was a Christian. His testimony was so powerful that the hard heart of the Prefect was melted, and he himself resolved to become a Christian.   Caius, Bishop of Rome, gathered the new brethren (both men and women — not all of Sebastian's converts have been mentioned here) to embrace them and baptize them, but also to warn them of their coming Martyrdom. He instructed some to flee the city and others, headed by Sebastian, to remain in Rome, devoting their days to fasting, prayer and thanksgiving as they awaited their death. As the "company of Martyrs" did this, many came to them and were healed of ailments, and many joined them in confessing Christ.   When the time of martyrdom came, each member of the company was subjected to imaginatively cruel tortures before his execution. Sebastian himself was made to witness the deaths of all his companions, then to endure his own trial. He serenely confessed his unshaken faith before Diocletian himself before being taken to the place of execution. There he was tied to a post and made the target of a band of archers until his body bristled with arrows like the quills of a porcupine. He was left for dead, but when Irene, widow of St Castulus, came to bury him, she found him alive and tended his wounds. Amazingly, he recovered, and presented himself once again to the Emperor. Astonished and outraged, the tyrant ordered that Sebastian be beaten to death with clubs and thrown into the city's sewer. That evening, a pious Christian woman was told in a vision to retrieve his body and bury it in the catacombs. After St Constantine brought peace to the Church, Pope Damasus built a church over the site in the Saint's honor. For hundreds of years, many miracles were worked there through St Sebastian's intercessions.

“This guy is a critical race theory zealot, a huge proponent of the notorious 1619 project, huge proponent of the Black Lives Matter movement, proponent of all kinds of riots that have been going on,” Beattie said. Our guests are: Boris Epshteyn, Darren Beattie, Rudy Giuliani Stay ahead of the censors - Join us warroom.org/join Aired On: 05/06/2021 Watch: On the Web: http://www.warroomorg.wpengine.com On Podcast: http://warroom.ctcin.bio On TV: PlutoTV Channel 240, Dish Channel 219, Roku, Apple TV, FireTV or on https://AmericasVoice.news. #news #politics #realnews