The Castle Report

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Darrell Castle talks about what he believes to be the worst, most difficult problem facing America.

Transcription / Notes

THE WORST PROBLEM WE FACE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 14^th day of August in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about what I believe to be the worst, most difficult to solve problem facing the nation.

What do you think the most difficult or dangerous problem facing the nation is. Perhaps you would say it’s the Iran war. Maybe you think it is the growing menace we call AI and the fear that AI will take all the jobs from Americans leaving nothing but subsidies for them. Well, those are indeed difficult problems and I will talk a little about each of them.

I read quite often from commentators coming from both the left and the right that the President is stuck in Iran and there is simply no way out, but I beg to differ. The two sides in the conflict constantly throw insults at each other and make demands. The latest demand from Iran includes a demand for compensation for the damage you Americans have done to Iran.

The President’s reaction to that demand was “what, we don’t owe you money, you owe us money for the USS Cole and for the lives you have taken. A lot of the time when I analyze a dilemma I use a tactic I learned from Ron Paul a long time ago. That tactic is a moral position that if it is wrong for an individual to do something it is also wrong for the government to do it. It is illegal for individuals to cheat, steal, and under some circumstances to lie.

It is a crime for individuals to lie to congress but it is OK and perhaps even expected for congress to lie to us. Using that analysis for the war when I hear people say it started in 1979 when the Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah so that’s about 46 years. My answer to that is that no, it began in 1953 or about 73 years ago. That is when U.S. and British leaders apparently in an effort to gain control over Iranian oil overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mr. Mosaddegh and replaced him with Shah Pahlavi who was out of the country but wanted desperately to return much as his son does today.

In 1967 as a continuation of the Atoms for Peace program the U.S. began giving uranium to the Shah so he could develop peaceful nuclear power for electricity, medicine, etc. or at least that’s what was said about it. In 1979 the Shah was overthrown by a coalition of Islamists, leftists, and of course students. Once again, as Ron Paul pointed out they didn’t come over here until we went over there. The war between the U.S./Israel and the Muslims grows almost daily and tells me quite clearly that there is a very high price to be paid for being subject to the military demands of another country.

I vehemently disagree with the view that there is no way out of Iran. Just tell the Iranians that we admit that we inadvertently, hopefully, attacked a school and killed about 160 little girls. We are very sorry we did that and for that mistake we will pay compensation to their families. Other than that, we have decided to rethink our Middle East strategy and in that regard we are withdrawing and leaving the region to fight its own wars. What will we then do with the hundreds of billions previously spent on this stupid, pointless war. That will become clear when we get to what the real problem is and how a possible solution is available.

The second problem that many see as fatal today is the ever-growing power of AI. I’ll admit that I am no tech expert and in most tech I am barely competent but I’ll also admit that much of what I read and hear about AI is terrifying. The other day I read that some of the tech people in conjunction with scientists and or doctors were using AI to invent new viruses. To me, that’s about as terrifying as nuclear weapons.

We read that AI is growing in intelligence on its own and the simpler or dumber if you prefer platforms are connecting with the smarter ones to learn and improve just as a child would with its parent. This is apparently being done without the parents’ consent or involvement. Recently, an AI system started hacking into information sources both private and public. Could AI launch nuclear weapons and start a world nuclear war. I don’t know but I do know it’s terrifying.

New Orleans is now using AI to answer its 911 calls and I’m sure many cities will soon follow. So, AI is becoming ever smarter and humans thanks to education and propaganda and social media are becoming ever dumber. Therefore, AI is rapidly replacing more and more human workers including those whose work is the knowledge they possess. Those who think for a living are perhaps in more danger of losing their livelihood than manual workers.

Soon, many believe, AI will take over almost all human creative activities including writing of all kinds as well as movies and TV production. Human actors may soon be a thing of the past. The other day I watched a 30-minute movie made by a couple of teenagers using AI and it was just as real as any you might see in theaters but none of the actors were real. The movie was about New York City, but it had some AI tells like palm trees in Manhattan but otherwise was very realistic.

So, AI is terrifying but does that mean that our terror is just Luddite reactions to progress. Ned Ludd lived in the early 1800’s in England during the early stages of the industrial revolution. He led a movement against the rising fear and power of the new machines which were faster and better than simple labor. Machines were especially prevalent in the textile industry and followers of Mr. Ludd would go from town to town destroying machines in factories because they thought they could stop progress.

Luddites became such a problem for the British government that factories were guarded by troops and many Luddites were killed. We can’t allow ourselves to become Luddites by trying to stop the computers because it will not work. They are coming for us and our jobs so the best course of action seems to me to be learning to live and work with them and to use them for good purposes. Naïve of me, perhaps but it seems like the only way.

The Iran War and AI are both serious problems but both have solutions or at least ways to lessen their damaging impact. The most intractable problem of all is barely noticed by most people and yet is going to destroy their lives relatively quickly. When Donald Trump was elected in 2024 the US empire was in serious trouble and headed for bankruptcy. The era of spend all you want and I own all the money and there is no end to it is over or rapidly dying. Without the counterfeit money machine now probably run by AI there is no empire.

Trump has simply accelerated the process toward bankruptcy to warp speed which is the opposite of why people voted for him.  The federal debt is now very close to 40 trillion and half of that has been added in the last 10 years or since Trump was first elected. Since July 1^st of this year U.S. debt has already increased by $450nbillion. Over the last 13 months it has gone up by $3.6 trillion. It is increasing by $7 billion per day and at that rate by 2030 it will hit $60 trillion.

Who cares, the people shout just give me mine and borrow to pay interest. The problem is that very soon the interest on all that debt will be the largest item in the budget and threatening all other terms. Currently about $1trillion per year in interest and growing to destroy the standard of living of our children. The debt has reached an impossible level and that means the U.S. government and that means you and me is a debt slave for life.

That’s not even the worst of it folks because I’m talking about the effects of this credit based, no cash economy on Mr. and Ms. Average American. I submit to you that I am very qualified to discuss this subject because I was a bankruptcy lawyer for 46 years until I retired at the end of last year. I have literally been involved with thousands of people who got in so deep they could find no way out. I became pretty good at helping clients out of financial trouble and even wrote a book about it.

Just listen to this one example to get an understanding of how debt affects our lives. Take a family with husband and wife working and they have one child but they plan others. They are doing well with good jobs so they buy a $500,000 house at 6.8% interest. The bank approves the family for the loan and simply creates the money out of thin air to pay to the original owner. The bank doesn’t go in the vault and get $500,000 it creates on its computer and it has a license to do that from the Federal Reserve.

The deal is typically for 30 years but the nice family doesn’t care because they can afford the payments. The payment would be about $3,260 per month, not including taxes and insurance. In my city that $500,000 house would be charged about $1000 per month in tax plus insurance of maybe $250. So, over the 30 years mortgage payments alone would cost $673,000 just for interest or more than the value of the house.

Real estate on that scale is to provide shelter not an investment because so many things can happen. The most common would be one of them loses a job and payments could no longer be made. They try to sell but the market is down and interest up. They are 3 months behind so foreclosure is the next step. Unlike the federal government or Federal Reserve, the nice family has to make payments with their labor which AI has probably taken from them and they cannot just create it out of thin air and take the interest from other people.

I could go on and on with how this terrible problem of debt affects people but I am out of time for today. In my opinion it is the worst and most unsolvable of problems. For the government it would take a reduction of about $2 trillion per year to keep it from going higher and that would be a good place to start.

Finally, folks, I think I could cut $2trillion from the budget first by cutting the $1.5 trillion defense budget by perhaps half. Other federal programs could meet the same fate.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

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Once again, Darrell Castle discusses war but with a little diplomacy and an historical reminder that technology constantly changes but human nature never changes.

Transcription / Notes

THE HUMILIATION FACTOR

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 7^th day of August in the year of our Lord 2026. I’m afraid my beat is war once again but with a little diplomacy and an historical reminder that technology constantly changes but human nature never changes.

For the history lesson I have to go back to December 7^th, 1941, and perhaps even a few days before that. This story is important because of the title to this report but also because yesterday, August 6 was the 81^st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima Japan. The United States was engaged in diplomacy with Japan regarding Japan’s invasion of China and Roosevelt’s refusal to sell them more oil until they left China. The Japanese had to import virtually all their raw materials and they got oil primarily from the U.S.

The Japanese had behaved so horribly in China that Roosevelt tried to persuade the Europeans to join him in a conditional boycott but they refused so he decided to do it himself. If you want to know more about how the Japanese behaved in China I recommend Iris Chang’s book “The Rape of Nanchang, The Forgotten Holocaust of World War ll.

Well, at least the two sides were talking to each other through diplomats around a conference table in Washington D.C. The Japanese knew that if the U.S. continued to refuse to sell them oil they would have to get it by conquering the oil and rubber rich nations of the South Pacific so they made plans to do just that. Those nations could not be conquered with the U.S. Navy at large in the Pacific so Japan’s plan included that Navy’s destruction in an attack we know as Pearl Harbor.

Admiral Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Fleet, had given orders that a war warning had to given to the American diplomats about one hour before the attack but delays of various kinds caused the warning to be delivered one hour after battleship row was burning. The Japanese believed that when the decadent, luxury loving, American people were confronted with this debacle they would demand that their leaders negotiate a way out of it.

There were an awful lot of American members of Congress and the Senate who were in office because they were opposed to fighting European wars. There was an America first contingent which measured about 140 members. How could any nation so divided muster the will to fight a long bloody war, but the Japanese were catastrophically wrong in their assessment. Immediately after the attack the America first group voted to disband. Charles Linberg, the most outspoken and most famous antiwar advocate tried to join the Army Air Corps.

Men lined up around the block in every city in America. School boys lied about their age to enlist. Keep in mind that in Japan every radio receiver in every military unit was tuned to American broadcasts in order to discern the mood of the people. Military transcriptionists took down every word of every broadcast and on December 8^th at 12:30 PM they were turned in for FDR’s speech. He spoke for only 6 minutes and none of it was a call for patience or negotiation but instead he called it a day that will live in infamy. The American people and the President were fueled to righteous anger by the deceptive nature of it. The term sneak attack was on everyone’s lips and worse because it happened while the two sides were negotiating.

That’s a long history report, folks, but there is a reason for it. The reason is that another sneak attack, conducted while the two sides were negotiating has now happened. The anger, the determination to fight on no matter how long it took that fueled American resolve is now being felt by citizens of The Islamic Republic of Iran. Yes American diplomats were negotiating with Iranian diplomats when the U.S, and Israeli bombers struck.

The attack didn’t just destroy Iranian military targets, but it killed their supreme leader and almost his whole family including his 14-month-old granddaughter. The next day American bombs struck a girls school and around 160 little girls were killed but just to make sure it was hit again. How are these people supposed to feel about negotiating with America to end this war. How can they be expected to ever trust an American’s word again.

The problem continues almost daily as U.S. negotiators, if there are any besides the president, continue to go back on their word which is diplomat speak for lying. For example, the 14-point Memorandum of Understanding the president announced the other day called for Iran to control the Strait of Hormuz. The next day the president reneged on that point. I read someone the other day and I can’t remember who said it, but he said President Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize because he has ended the Iran War 7 times and number 8 is coming soon.

Think about the mindset that the U.S. sneak attack must have created in the minds of the Iranian people. Before it happened there did seem to be a lot of unrest and a lot of division. People were in the streets protesting the harsh measures of the regime and that regime proceeded to kill thousands of them. I imagine the President was told that his sneak attack would have the same effect on the Iranian people that the Japanese thought Pearl Harbor would have on the American people. Both those assumptions were catastrophically wrong.

Instead of causing the Iranian people to riot and overthrow their government it brought them together. The hated Mullahs were once again respected leaders. Thousands attended the Ayatollah’s funeral. I think it was Mark Twain who said history doesn’t repeat itself but it rhymes. Now the situation is so much worse for the U.S. and of course for Israel which was, apparently, the reason for the sneak attack. The Strait is at least a very dangerous place and ships can’t sail without extreme danger. The entire world’s economy teeters on the brink of depression. Oil and other needed mineral resources are soaring in price since about 20% of them have to pass through that chokehold.

Meanwhile the President has announced a new deal being brokered by his Board of Peace involving peace in Gaza. The lynch pin would require Hamas, a terrorist group financed by Iran, to give up its arms and identify all its tunnels etc. In other words, Hamas would cease to exist and Israel would leave Gaza so that the U.S. and the Middle East members of the Board such as the Saudis and the Gulf States could rebuild it and everyone would prosper.

The moment the deal was announced Netanyahu said the President sent it to him and he didn’t like it. He said Israel would not leave Gaza until Hamas completely disarmed and Hamas Says it will not disarm until Israel leaves. Qatar is apparently kicking Hamas out of its country and rumors have it moving its operations to Turkey which is apparently the President’s hope for the role of ensuring Middle East peace.

My point in all this is that it is humiliating and embarrassing, or it should be. This country is supposed to be trusted because we have laws and rules, and we are supposed to stand for something. There are things we simply will never do and financing another country’s crimes is one of those things. The first law of the land of course is the Constitution because it says it is the supreme law of the land. It restricts the power of leaders and they all take an oath to it but for most that means nothing.

The standard of completely disarmed is virtually impossible to know or measure and that leaves the door open for this conflict to continue indefinitely. In the meantime, Reuters reports that the U.S. has expended more than 80% of its antimissile defense missiles. The Iranians are very smart people and they have been for a long time. They just keep putting missiles into U.S. bases and into Israel knowing that only a few will get through but it requires the U.S. to expend its supply and what then. The President announces what turns out to be a temporary halt to bombing, I guess.

The U.S. position with regard to Israel and the Middle East is indefensible and I guess that’s why they no longer try to defend it. The attitude seems to be the old one made famous by Baghdad Bob. You are not seeing this so just move on because everything is fine. I chose humiliation as the title of this Report because it is humiliating for a great nation to force people to pay for their own destruction. A foreign nation somehow persuades the U.S. to give it money so it can use that money to buy U.S. politicians who will then vote to fund its expansionist wars.

I’ll close this report on our humiliation with a few words from old friend and economist Bill Bonner. “No matter how cynical you are, its probably not enough. Perhaps Donald Trump is playing a different game altogether. He marshalls DOGE to cut spending but does not actually cut a dime out of the swollen federal budget. He makes grand theater out of tariffs but trade deficits continue unmolested. No more foreign wars, he pledges and then attacks Iran.”

Finally, folks, the way out of this seems very difficult to bear but wouldn’t it be better to quit now so we can manage the withdrawal rather than wait until we are forced out. The Iran War was a mistake we should admit and we are sorry we made it. We are especially sorry for those Iranian school girls and we will pay compensation to their families. It’s the same decision made by the French after Dein Bin Phu when we decided to take up their war.

At least that’s the way I see it,

Until next time folks,

This is Darrell Castle,

Thanks for listening.

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Darrell Castle talks about the testimony or better said, the refusal to give testimony, of Doctor Anthony Fauci before the Senate Committee headed by Senator Rand Paul.

Transcription / Notes

THE SCIENCE TAKES THE 5TH

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 31^st day of July in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about the testimony or better said, the refusal to give testimony, of Doctor Anthony Fauci who was the Director of the National Institute of Health Division of Allergy and Infectious Disease for about 30 years especially during the COVID years. He finished his medical residency in the 1960’s and has been a government bureaucrat since then.

Yes, Dr. Fauci who famously remarked when told that we should follow or stick to the science said, “I am the science.” For years it seems Senator Rand Paul had been trying to get Dr. Fauci to testify before his Senate committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs but the science steadfastly refused. Finally, Senator Paul was able to persuade the members to issue a subpoena and that compelled the science to show up at the hearing with his team of lawyers. Senator Paul had to have his lead attorney escorted out of the hearing by security because he was disruptive and acting like his narcissistic client.

President Biden issued or rather his autopen issued a pardon to Fauci for any crimes he may have committed during the last 10 years. In other words, a preemptive pardon in case some charging agency decided to indict him for oh say mass murder. The committee obviously knows he can’t be charged for the crimes he may have committed so what was the purpose of the subpoena.

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Darrell Castle discusses the concept of a war criminal. Who gets to define what a war crime is and once that is established, who determines when someone has committed one of the criminal acts defined as a war crime?

Transcription / Notes

WHAT IS A WAR CRIMINAL?

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 24^th day of July in the year of our Lord 2026. My beat is still war today, but with the added distinction of talking about what some choose to call war criminals. The question for today then is who gets to decide what a war crime is and who decides if someone has committed one of those crimes he has defined as a war crime.

The International Criminal Court, established by the 1998 Rome Statute and beginning operations in 2002 has been given the right to declare certain people war criminals and to issue indictments against that person which should involve arrest and prosecution. We know from our American system that charges and indictment do not make one guilty, but in the minds of certain people it gives an opportunity for selectively prosecuting those with whom they politically disagree.

This war crimes talk started again when NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran for office on a promise to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever came to New York. Well, Bibi has announced that he will attend the United Nations meeting in NYC to be held in September. The mayor’s plans, announced in an interview with the New York Times, brought a storm of protests from supporters of Bibi including the President of the United States who declared on social media that the mayor’s plans would not and could not happen.

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Darrell Castle discusses war once again because it seems that the more we are told a political solution has been reached, the more missiles and drones are fired at more targets. Then retaliation has to come so, no solution.

Transcription / Notes:

THE ENEMY GETS A VOTE

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 17^th day of July in the year of our Lord 2026. My beat today is war once again because it seems that the more we are told a political solution has been reached more missiles and drones are fired at more targets and then retaliation has to come so no solution.

The president is in a difficult position but it is apparently of his own making. He is not an Eisenhower with many years of experience commanding vast armies in some of the biggest campaigns in human history. He instead is forced to rely on his team of advisors and so they tell him where he should go and what the consequences will be. They must have told him that Iran was ripe for the taking and would fall just like Venezuela but Iran is different and any experienced military person should have been able to see that.

Power unhinges people and people who seek it are often unhinged to start with. That is part of the reason Mr. Jefferson told us that every 20 years or so we should have a revolution to reset things such as personal liberty. He reminded us that government agents are not saints or angels but they are instead ordinary humans with all the vices and weaknesses of other ordinary humans.

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Darrell Castle talks about the 4th of July and how Americans traditionally celebrate the independence of our country from England. For those who say they won’t celebrate because they are not getting everything they want from America, I say perhaps you don’t understand what the ideals of America really are supposed to be or perhaps it is because in your heart this is not your country.

Transcription / Notes

250 YEARS OF BEING AMERICAN

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 3^rd day of July in the year of our Lord 2026. Tomorrow is the 4^th of July when traditionally we celebrate the independence of our Country from England. To those who say they won’t celebrate because they are not getting everything they want from America I say perhaps you don’t understand what the ideals of America really are supposed to be or perhaps you don’t celebrate because this is not your country.

That is more than just a snarky, love it or leave it comment, because I have traveled and even lived abroad and when you do that you might like the country you are in but you don’t love it. To love a country, it has to be in your blood or your DNA. Terra Ferma or firm ground or the land under your feet is yours to live on and to defend with your life if necessary. It used to be that almost everyone felt that way so what happened.

Many things have happened but mass immigration from the Third World has had a profound effect on our culture and our politics. Now we elect members of congress who aren’t even American. Many other things happened of course but paramount among them was that our attitude and the attitudes of our politicians changed profoundly. For one thing the new media allowed us to finally get a glimpse at what the global ruling elite really are.

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Darrell Castle talks about Father’s Day, what it means, and why it is important to honor fathers.

Transcription / Notes:

FATHER’S DAY

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 19^th day of June in the year of our Lord 2026. I previously did a Report on Mother’s Day and what it means so today I will be talking about Father’s Day, what it means and why it is important to honor fathers.

Yes, we are two days away from Father’s Day which falls on the 21^st of June this year. It is dedicated as a Federal Holiday falling on the third Sunday of June each year. The holiday was started in Spokane, Washington in 1910 by a woman named Snora Smart Dodd who was inspired by a Mother’s Day sermon and she wanted to honor her father in the same way.

Her father was a Civil War veteran named William Jackson Smart who was the father of 6 children. His wife died in childbirth and he raised his 6 kids alone. His daughter thought that he had lived his life with honor so she persuaded local authorities to set aside a day to honor her father and all the others. In1972 President Nixon made it a federal occasion and now we celebrate it each year by honoring or remembering our fathers.

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Darrell Castle talks about a bill currently working its way through the U.S. Congress which would, if passed, literally integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries and would put funding for the Israeli military on auto pilot. Will it pass and be signed by the President? Many people seem to think it will so he takes a look at it today.

THE ISRAELIZATION OF THE U.S. MILITARY

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 12^th of June in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about a bill currently working its way through the United States Congress which would, if passed, literally integrate the U.S. and Israeli militaries and would put funding for the Israeli military on auto pilot. Will it pass and be signed by the President. Many people seem to think it will so we take a look at it today.

Yes, unfortunately it seems that certain members of the House of Representatives and the Senate of the United States are now ready to complete the process of uniting the two countries militaries. The first bill introduced in the House would have literally combined the two. Many of the Israel first politicians are already dual citizens so why not complete the process and stop all the hypocrisy. Just go ahead and make the U.S. military the official enforcement arm of Israeli foreign policy.

The most egregious provision of the original bill is that the benefits due to American veterans like me, such as medical and educational benefits would have also been available to all Israeli veterans. That would have been a supreme insult to every American veteran who has ever served. The last time I checked there were about 15 million living American veterans so why not just insult them all while they are still alive. Just tell them all that “your service to this nation meant nothing” but certainly no more to America than an Israeli veteran meant to America.

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Darrell Castle discusses President Trump’s angry, profanity laced tirade directed at Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. Did it really happen and if so why did it happen and if it did not happen, why say that it did.

Transcriptions / Notes

TRUMP UNLOADS ON NETANYAHU

Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 5^th day of June in the year of our Lord 2026. My beat today is war and as usual there is no shortage of war to talk about but today I discuss President Trump’s angry, profanity laced tirade directed at Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel. Did it really happen and if so why did it happen and if it did not happen then why say that it did.

Its no secret that Trump wants the U.S. role in the war against Iran ended and quickly. The war has placed the world’s economy in jeopardy and therefore its end is imperative. To that end Trump has been negotiating with somebody representing Iran while using Pakistan as the broker. Every time it looks positive and Trump announces that fighting has stopped it turns out to be a little premature.

Trump says we have a deal ending the war and fighting has ceased. In response gas prices in the U.S. come down and the stock market soars. The next step is for Israel to continue attacking in Lebanon as if there were no peace talks. Apparently Trump got tired of it this week and placed a call to the Prime Minister. The story, reported at first by people physically present for the call, and later admitted by the President himself went something like this.