NewsPoliticsNews CommentaryGovernment

The Castle Report

Darrell Castle

Defending Western Civilization

Play

Open in

21 episodes
weekly
Avg 11 min
English

Episodes 21

Newest Oldest Longest

All20 Unplayed20 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

Yesterday · 10 min
Oh Canada, Can’t We Work This Out?
Darrell Castle talks about the trade problems between the U.S. and Canada which Prime Minister Mark Carney has descibed as a war. Transcription / Notes OH CANADA CAN’T WE WORK THIS OUT? Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 28th day of August in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about the trade problems between the U.S. and Canada which Prime Minister Mark Carney has described as a war. My argument is that he is right because it is war but not the one he wants you to concentrate on. This war is one between the very elite group of globalists who are also the enemies of humanity as they attempt to control all humanity through their control of money, credit, interest, and banking in general. Before he became Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney was head of the London Central Bank and I have no doubt that he was installed in Canada to be sure globalist control continues. Now the bankers appear to be very nervous with the U.S. mid-terms coming up so if only Trump could be damaged by this “trade war.” The tactic or strategy is what Carney and his operatives in the American Democrat Party call the doughnut strategy. They call it that because they want to go around the American President through Democrat leadership directly to the American people. Convince them that trump is at economic war with nice, friendly Canada and maybe the usual group of globalist bankers can take back control in November. Don’t get me wrong here folks I still think the Iran war was and is about the stupidest foreign policy decision in American history. I have a theory that the reason those American sailors during World War ll could stay at sea in desperate combat for years without complaint and the sailors on the Lincoln were suicidal after 9 months. World War ll sailors were fighting for their parents, wives, girlfriends, their way of life and they knew it. Nobody had to feed them a pack of lies to keep them going but in Iran the sailors know that it is stupid and pointless and its purpose is nothing American. That is a morale killer if I’ve ever heard of one. Yes, you are right about him being crass, vulgar, egotistical in ways we’ve never seen before and in ways that makes one wonder if he is delusional about himself. He is a flawed candidate and a flawed human being but if you study our history flawed human beings are numerous in leadership and sometimes in greatness. Barack Obama, and Joe Biden were both vulgar and egotistical as well but they didn’t flaunt it quite as well as Donald Trump. The U.S. and Canada have a long history of cooperation primarily in two areas, economic and military. Canada contributed greatly to the allied efforts during World War ll both in troops and in manufacturing. When the war ended both Canada and the U.S. had a new enemy called the Soviet Union. The Soviets were right at the edge of Europe and it was generally assumed that they would invade any day. NATO was formed to resist the Soviet menace and that included Canada. Generally speaking, Canada has always remained more closely allied with Europe especially the UK than with the U.S. although the two militaries were integrated for mutual protection against the soviet threat. NORAD, the North American Air Defense system famously headquartered in a rock mountain in Colorada has Canadian military warning systems integrated. If a Soviet missile were launched against the U.S. in those days it was expected to come from the north across the Arctic and parts of Canada. The two nations built a network of radar early warning systems across the northern part of Canada and they are still functional today. So, the two sides have a mutually beneficial military relationship and both apparently want that relationship to continue. Although the Canadian military is an empty shell of what it once was the two sides still need each other. The U.S. needs the strategic depth that Canada provides as much as it ever has since tensions with Russia always seem to be there. Canada needs U.S. manufacturing and defense technology and so the military relationship remains intact. Economically, well that’s another matter completely. The U.S. has some room to maneuver economically because about 72% of all the products Canada exports come to the U.S. President Trump wants to shift the economic relationship to one a little more favorable to the U.S. because as he sees it Canada taxes U.S. goods going into Canada at a much higher rate that the U.S. taxes theirs. That is a practice that Trump referred to as acting like the 51st state without all the responsibility of statehood. The two sides set down last week to talk and try to resolve the matter and for a while it seemed like they had a deal. President Trump announced that they had a deal pending finalization of documents and the threatened 50% tariffs were lifted until the documents were finalized. All of a sudden at about midnight on Friday the Prime Minister called his diplomats home and announced in a solemn interview that Canada had been attacked and it was therefore at war with the United States. There are videos, and I concede that with AI who knows what is real, but the videos I’m referring to show Democrat operatives the most prominent of which is Hilary Clinton plotting with Carney to keep this disagreement going until after the midterms. Will it work. Time will tell but not everyone was as impressed with Carney’s characterization of the breakdown as he seemed to be. U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said that the U.S. presented Canada with the best trade terms of any country in the world but Canada wants to retain all tariffs of their own while removing all American tariffs. There seems to be growing dissatisfaction in the parts of Canada where people still work for a living and workers realize the Canadian position in these negotiations will probably cost their jobs. Already the median standard of living in the U.S. is about $90 thousand while in Canada its about $60 thousand. The other aspect of this dispute is Canada’s growing relationship with China. Canada is trying to increase its Chinese market as a way to avoid U.S. tariffs and of course Carney wants to give the impression he can live without the U.S. Canada is accused by U.S. trade people of assembling Chinese goods in Canada then hoping to ship them to the U.S. duty free. In response the Canadians say the U.S. is trying to control which countries Canada does business with. This attitude, logic tells me, will cripple the Canadian economy and ruin the economic lives of many people. Perhaps Carney is so dedicated to his cohort of European globalist banker friends that he will deliberately cripple his own people to accommodate them. Getting Trump’s majority taken away thus curtailing Trump’s ability to thwart their plans is apparently worth it. The military relationship is a factor in all this as I said earlier. It is complicated by the fact that hardly any leaders on either side have military experience. During Vietnam about 75% of the U.S. congress had military experience but now its about 20% and the President has no military experience at all. That fact sometimes results in leadership which doesn’t understand the military and its problems. Furthermore, it creates a disrespect for military leadership and the advice top leaders give to inexperienced politicians is discounted. The upper leadership in the military sometimes appears to be a revolving door because politicians can’t handle their stark truth. Canada is currently recruiting non-Canadians to serve in the military I suppose because very few Canadians want to do it. Canadians, like Americans probably see it all as a pack of lies and so they are skeptical. Potential soldiers from other countries are attracted to citizenship promises and higher pay but discipline and loyalty are lacking. The reason for this military diatribe in an economic report is because the relationship is still militarily very important to both sides and it is being damaged by this tactic which as I said is apparently designed between Carney, his globalist friends, and ambitious American Democrat politicians. In conclusion folks, Canada cannot win this war and I think they will soon realize that. The Canadian government doesn’t want to be seen as offering to surrender but I hope they can see that trying to out swagger Donald Trump politically is a losing proposition. Hopefully, the two sides can move forward in mutually agreed upon terms that ensure the people of both countries prosper because the alternative is a kind of no-man’s-land where their disputes constantly confront each other. Finally. Folks. I admit that much of this is simply my opinion but I argue that it is an educated opinion based on research. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and normal relations will prevail and sanity restored. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
August 21 · 11 min
DEBT – WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT
Darrell Castle endeavors to explain why he thinks debt is the worst, most unsolvable problem we face as everything we call a standard of living hangs in the balance. Transcription / Notes DEBT—WHY IT’S SO IMPORTANT Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Last week I mentioned that debt is the worst problem we face as a nation and I got some comments so this week I will endeavor to explain why I think debt is the worst, most unsolvable problem that we face and why I think that because of debt everything we have and everything we call a standard of living hangs in the balance. Sometimes we forget that in the 1990’s the federal government had a balanced budget, When Bill Clinton was president the federal government lived within its means but today it is $40 trillion in debt. So, what, many people say, because it doesn’t seem to affect them and after all they live in a nice home for which they have a 30-year mortgage. In the Clinton years the average age of first-time home buyers was in the 20’s but now it’s about 40. George w. Bush came along and decided we would be required to fight some of Israel’s enemies for then and so the debt started its out of control climb to the $40 trillion that it is today. Three fourths of the increase has been added since Obama took office and about $11 trillion or 28% since Trump took office.. In other words, it is accelerating because the U.S. has no way to fund it without borrowing more, a practice known as monetizing the debt or using more debt to pay debt otherwise known as a debt spiral. So, the problem in the private economy is inflation which is why gas was $1.25 in the 90’s and is about $4.00 in most places today. Inflation is caused by excessive money printing and excessive money in circulation which devalues all the money you make. If you make $85 thousand per year and do not get a raise for 10 years and there is no inflation you have not lost anything. When inflation doubles the price of necessities during that period you have lost a lot. People are starting to realize all that and it is causing some disturbing reactions especially among young people. They see the system as being gamed against them because some people are rich and they are not. No matter what they make they seem to barely get by, especially in New York, so when a charismatic leader comes along and says I will take from those bad rich people and give it to you they bite. They see the capitalistic system as bad and evil because they have not gotten theirs from it but that is exactly the wrong reaction. The system is broken but not because of a failure of design. It is broken because it has been perverted by a tiny group of globalist ruling elite who are not stupid. They see the entire system failing and on the brink of popping the bubble that props it up and they do not react by trying to fix it and restore soundness. No, the ever more feeble state doesn’t pull back and lick its wounds to heal. Instead, it becomes a predator extracting every last dollar from the system that it can. The entire post-war European model of a social state is no longer working, but the state and its ruling elite just keep looting and I suppose they hope we don’t notice. The system works like the old quote from George Carlin that we are all familiar with. “See, folks it’s a big club and you ain’t in it.” Well, I heard some former insider the other day say that George’s quote was spot on except today it should be amended to say that it’s a small club and you ain’t in it. A very small group of people run the world this man was saying and they see what is happening and it terrifies them. They know the debt will never be dealt with and will never be paid. They don’t think the deficit will ever again be reduced to zero so they see the only hope as total control through surveillance of every person on the planet. This is accomplished through the widespread use of flock cameras among many other things. The newspaper reports that there are over 1000 flock cameras in my city of Memphis. Total surveillance allows those in control to monitor us and act if we get too uppity. Central bank digital currency will be the primary method of dealing with all the debt the U.S. carries and with the growing dissatisfaction of people with consumer debt they can’t live without. The ruling elite first make debt slaves of us all and finally they start to sense chaos and perhaps revolution in the air and they have to do something. Publicly they have their bread and circus to pacify us but privately they have other methods. The people continue to elect what turns out to be the worst people in the country. The state has lost its fear of you or what you think about what it is doing. Let me give you an example by going back to the beginning. The founders designed a system whereby it took the will of the majority of the people’s representatives sitting in Congress to send the nation to war. The president had to go the congress and request permission to go to war and the people through their elected representatives had to agree. That was because war had to be paid for and that would require taxes which would affect everyone. What a quaint idea, but it might also require sending their sons to possible death so it was a serious matter. Even as late in history as George W. Bush’s war on Iraq if you remember he and Dick Chaney kept us in suspense for many months before the war so they could build a consensus of the people and the media to support the war. It worked because most people supported the war because of 911 etc. We could not imagine it was all just a set up and part of the plan. Now we are so numb we just don’t care anymore. The president sees poll after poll that shows his war on Iran to be the most unpopular in history but he doesn’t seem to care. Going to congress or what the Constitution says means nothing nor does the oath of office. Now they don’t seem to care what the people think and they don’t even bother to convince us. They seem to know that this reckless waste of money is creating more and more resentment and a breaking point is rapidly approaching. Mr. Jefferson told us in the Declaration that rights come from the creator and they are inalienable. To secure those rights governments are instituted among men. In other words, the purpose of government is to secure our rights not to abuse them. He went on to say that when government becomes destructive of those ends it is the right of the people to abolish it. I submit to you that after many years of governments destructive of those ends the people are growing ever more weary and the tiny group of elites at the top can clearly see that and they are taking steps to make sure it never happens. What are some of those steps, well I’m glad you asked. Constant surveillance of every person on earth. Flock cameras everywhere and now even our cars report back on our behavior. Debasement of the currency to the point that central bank digital currency is obviously necessary and with it is the end of privacy, even the limited version of it we have today. Soon there will be constant monitoring of everything you say and write in the public domain. Constant, never ending, pointless, bloody wars, that are so stupid blind people can see them for what they are. Abandonment of the moral center of the country to the point that bedrock faith is just a ruse to appease a few right wingers. Demeaning of the culture at every level with the foulest words used constantly by those in high places. Those are just a few of the things already coming or on their way. To make all this work and save the elite a very small population of cooperative people is all that is necessary and AI will do the work. The population must be reduced to accommodate the sick dreams of these satanic madmen. Since AI is going to destroy the low and middle class well, I guess we don’t need as many of them complaining. There are many ways to kill us but the first way that should be obvious to anyone is biowarfare. COVID was and is the best example. The virus, thanks to the science, and his cohorts was engineered to kill in mass numbers but it didn’t so the Vaccine had to be invented to do its work. Destroy the reproductive systems of young women and cause miscarriages in those who are pregnant. I’ve read from Dr. Naomi Wolfe and her work that about 80% pf pregnant women who were injected with the mNRA vaccine miscarried. Dr. Fauci’s top assistant just pled guilty to covering up information about gain of function work on the virus. Pfizer admits through 10’s of thousands of pages of documents that it intentionally attacked the reproductive systems of women. In fact, one might say that Marx was right or at least on to something when he described religion as the opiate of the masses. What he might notice today is that opium and its directives are the opiate of the masses. The country has been flooded with drugs since Vietnam days and the more war we make against it the worse it gets. The illegal drugs are only a welcome part of the cocktail that our overlords feed us. Well meaning doctors do the only thing the system allows them in the 15 minutes every 6 months they are allowed to see us and that is prescribe big pharma cocktails for every problem. Any natural product,i.e. one made from leaves of trees grown in Asia must be banned to protect us. Yes, the government and its agents constantly scan to see what might help people so they can ban it. Let me go back to the beginning as I draw near the end by saying that they start with abortion. They have trained women along with the Supreme Court to call it reproductive freedom but now 10 states allow abortion until the moment of birth. That sounds a lot like cold blooded murder to me but the proponents of it clap like trained seals with no knowledge, apparently, that they are assisting a very evil few to destroy many. Finally. Folks, I know this all sounds like some wild conspiracy theory but it is instead fact whether you choose to see clear evidence or not. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
August 14 · 12 min
The Worst Problem We Face
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 14th 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 1st 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.
August 7 · 11 min
The Humiliation Factor
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 7th 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 7th, 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 81st 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 8th 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.
July 31 · 11 min
The Science Takes the 5th
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 31st 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. The purpose was to put him in a position to do one of two things but he was unwilling to do either. Either he would admit to some of the most horrible crimes in American history none of which could bring prosecution, or he would lie about them under oath which would constitute the crime of perjury and that is a new crime for which he has not been pardoned. Here’s the opening statement from the science read as part of his opening attack on Senator Paul. “Although it pains me to do so, because of the respect I have for the Legislative Branch for government, and my decades long record of cooperating with congress, under the advice of my attorneys, I will invoke my right under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution to refrain from answering your questions.” So, he told them that he would not testify or answer any questions at all. When Senator Josh Hawley got his turn to ask questions he asked him what day is today and the science simply repeated the same quote. Senator Hawley said let me be clear you have no 5th Amendment protection because you were pardoned but obviously the Senator got a little carried away because a pardon does not take away the bill of rights. It even protects those for whom it has been nothing more than toilet tissue for their years of government service. However, it is an open question as to whether a person can be compelled to give answers to questions about crimes for which he cannot be prosecuted. The real problem with all this is a class of people who know they are completely above the law and nothing they do no matter how evil can ever reach them. Apparently they view the rest of us as sheep to be sheared. When these folks look in the mirror they are very happy with what they see. Fauci was one of the highest paid government employees in history and still receives the highest pension, and he is quite aware of his untouchability. The hearing followed the release of a diary that Dr. Fauci kept personally during the COVID nightmare. Yes, this man is so incredibly egotistical that he kept a written record of his crimes. How did Rand Paul come to have possession of Fauci’s private diary. He was so confident that he was untouchable he put his diary on a government server. Senator Paul released the diary to the public and social media ran with it but interestingly mainstream media did not. The diary is more than 1000 pages of private thoughts and is now a permanent record of the pandemic’s entire existence. It presents this so-called expert in a very unfavorable light and I’m not surprised he didn’t want to talk about it. He knows his media friends will cover for him as they always have. He comes across as one who was very aware of his growing celebrity and the adept way that he learned to play the game of Washington politics. He seemed to understand how to play President Trump and that the President didn’t have the confidence to fire him. The science was preoccupied, even in dire moments for the nation, of his growing fame. There are multiple entries recorded in his own writing of his adoration pictured in the media coverage. He made note of each flattering article, for example quoting the science from his comments about a Washington Post article in May of 2020, “its not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable persons in the world.” Some of his proudest moments were regarding calls or meetings with adoring celebrities. Comments such as “great call” with Barbra Streisand in which he gave her advice on the mRNA vaccine. He also made note of his interactions with Julia Roberts, Steph Curry, and many others. It all concludes with his embrace of Hunter Biden at the Kennedy Center Honors night with a special note about what he thought the reaction to the photo would cause. My guess is that he did not tell Ms. Streisand that five months after he had the vaccine he had a myocardial infarction which I believe is doctor speak for heart attack. Well, that’s enough about the good Dr.’s ego but what did he record of actual substance. On January 26, 2020, he wrote that epidemiological and genomic data showed the first infection occurred in early December and was unconnected to the Wuhan market. “Now we know the market was not the source it was the amplifier.” To me that is an admission that he knew the source was not natural but lab produced. That is despite the years of statements that he was certain it was of natural origin. He recorded his now famous conference call with other members of the science of virology and only two of them believed it had a natural origin and the rest thought “deliberate insertion was possible” They discussed the possibility of accidental or deliberate release by a lab as the source. He knew all that time that it was lab grown and he had financed its gain of function using your money. Doctors and scientists tell us that gain of function occurs when there is an existing virus which is harmless and usually doesn’t jump from animals to humans. That virus is then combined with another in a lab creating a new virus completely. That virus is much more dangerous and much more transmissible thus it has gained in function. These horrible crimes for which normal people across the world suffered terribly were all pardoned by President Biden or were they. Whether or not the autopen was an actual pardon is an ongoing question. Hear this quote from the clemency warrant that made the pardon. “For any offenses against the United States which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1,2014, through the date of this pardon arising from or in any manner related to his service as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force or the White House COVID-19 Response Team, or as Chief Medical Advisor to the President.” The President is supposed to issue a pardon to correct what he views as an injustice and the pardon is therefore personal to him but there is no evidence that President Biden reviewed all 39 pardons he issued including several family members and the entire Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. This all raises the question of whether the pardon is Constitutionally valid. One other question I have is that if he has been pardoned why is he afraid to testify and answer simple questions. What is he afraid of but I guess nothing screams out innocence as loudly as taking the 5th. The answer I believe is that he would have to admit mass murder if he answered truthfully and the new, unpardoned crime of perjury if he lied. In conclusion, I want to give you a few words from Paul Craig Roberts. “The COVID virus was a man-made virus. The work to make the virus easily spreadable was funded by Fauci, first at a North Carolina University and then in Wuhan China. The virus was meant to be deadly, but was not, as a backup human extermination tool, a deadly “vaccine” was created and mandated by ignorant and corrupt governments and employers, including the Biden Secretary of Defense.” This information has been extensively and thoroughly documented. Books such as Soren Korsgaard’s The New September 11th and Tom Woods Diary of a Psychosis come to mind as examples of extensive documentation. Finally, folks, this is a vitally important case for the future of our country. Once again from Mr. Roberts, “Clearly in our stupidity and our ignorance we are not safe. Soon there will be a second attack on us. Bill Gates gloats about it. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks. This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
July 24 · 10 min
What Is A War Criminal?
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 24th 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. In response the mayor admitted that he is not the president and is not even congress or the U.S. attorney general so his plans would not be fulfilled. He went on video and said his legal team had exhausted “every avenue available” under the law and concluded “we do not have the independent legal authority” to arrest the head of state of a foreign country who is attending a UN meeting which happens to be located in NYC. Some may have reacted with outrage if the mayor had ordered the NYPD to arrest Netanyahu but since he is now not planning to risk that those people are reacting with outrage anyway and calling him a dishonest politician. I want to leave the mayor and talk about war crimes in general but I can’t do so until I mention the first lady of the city of New York. Yes, right now, as I record this she is conducting a conference for Muslim women with the stated purpose of informing them that Mary, yes that Mary. The mother of Jesus, who delivered the child on that Christmas was not only not Jewish but was actually a Muslim. What, how can that be. Well, it can’t because of a fact apparently unknown to the first lady of our greatest city. That fact is that when Jesus was born, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, was not born for another 570 years. Well, be that as it may facts are often lost on people today especially when those facts do not fit a person’s world view. Back to the International Criminal Court which issued the indictment against Prime Minister Netanyahu and has often referred to him as a war criminal. The ICC has no jurisdiction in the United States which refused to join the 125 nations which signed the agreement. I remember the debates around it quite well and the US representatives were afraid that it would be used to prosecute members of the US military engaged in combat in some politically sensitive spot. Congress instead did the opposite by passing the American Servicemember’s Protection Act which was designed to shield the US personnel from ICC prosecution. The ICC might be seen as a kind of virtue signaling organization or perhaps it is deeply idealistic and committed to peaceful resolution of conflict. How does it select its targets or how does it decide who is a war criminal and who should be left alone. Do you need to be engaged in actual war to be a war criminal or can you simply commit acts of extreme violence. My own view is that the term war criminal or war crimes is decided by winners. Would Hitler, his generals and bureaucrats have been criminals if they had won the war. Would some division of the UN have ordered them arrested, no of course not, but instead many of them were hanged and some chose cyanide as the best option. Over in Japan several Japanese officers were hanged as war criminals. One general split his stomach open in 1945 but American doctors saved his life so he could be hanged in 1948. Back in 1908 there was another tribunal, at that time at the Hague, which decided to define rules for the conduct of armed conflict. That tribunal dealt primarily with humane treatment of prisoners of war and dignified rules for how civilians were to be treated. Keep in mind that in 1908 war planes, poison gas, and machine guns had not been invented. I don’t think those people could have imagined the horror that would rain from the sky onto civilian populations for over the next 100 years. I have studied the war archives from World War ii as much as I could especially after the internet made them all available to anyone. My conclusion is that the US authorities went out of their way to abide by the rules of the Geneva Convention which was part of the Hague series of international agreements. The Geneva convention defined how prisoners of war were to be treated and most nations knew that if they followed it their enemies were more likely to do so. So, with a few exceptions, it was the policy of the US to follow it and even NAZI Germany followed it to a large degree. The Japanese however, had other ideas. Their treatment of American prisoners was exceptionally brutal. The percentage of prisoners who died in captivity under the Germans was about 2% but under the Japanese it was more like 60%. Now, let’s return to Bibi for a moment. Is he or is he not a war criminal. To some extent it’s a matter of opinion and is usually determined by the winners. Right now, I would call him a loser at least in the matter of international politics and especially in the matter of armed conflict. He has no friends and everyone in the UN except the US hates him. His cities and military bases are badly damages by Iranian missiles and drones but does any of that make him a war criminal. No, but he and his IDF have violated virtually every one of the rules for armed conflict established by the various international conventions I just mentioned. He has repeatedly targeted civilians and civilian infrastructure. In fact, he doesn’t recognize the difference between civilian and military targets. Testimony accuses him of mistreating, even torturing prisoners of war and many have accused IDF soldiers of brutally raping them with objects that destroyed their intestines. Testimony seems to indicate that he intends to destroy an entire people group through warfare and starvation. I would call those things war crimes, but remember the victors get to determine such things and as long as the US military is solidly behind him it’s hard to say he is defeated. In fact, he and his country most likely would cease to exist without the US. He would be arrested if he set foot out of Israel without the US. That brings up an interesting point and that point is that if Donald Trump is his enabler and before Trump Joe Biden received more money in the form of contributions, donations, bribes, or whatever you choose to call them does that make them war criminals too. During the Nuremberg trials of NAZI officers, a new charge was invented to cover the massive crimes of which those people were accused. Since the normal criminal code of any of the victorious allied nations was insufficient they invented the crime they called crimes against humanity. Is Bibi guilty of crimes against humanity, is Donald Trump. The president has vowed to attack civilian infrastructure as a result of Iranian attacks against Hormuz shipping and the deaths of US. Soldiers. When I saw that a 19-year-old woman was killed in a missile attack against her base in Jordan I was very destressed. Many of those men who landed at Omaha Beach were 19 years old but they were not beautiful young women with babies ahead of them. In fact, those men fought for people back home like her. They fought for each other and for their families and their way of life which were threatened by a terrible enemy. The death of that young woman just lays out the complete moral depravity that has infected this government and the entire globalist system. I pray for her family and that we can find a way to prevent such willful death and destruction. Finally, folks, we’ve talked about the subjective nature of the term War criminal but sometimes the label may be appropriate. I’m certainly tired of sending teenaged women to fight and die for the benefit of a foreign leader and his vision. This country seems to be looting our tax dollars for people who are not American and might legitimately be called war criminals. God forgive us if that is true. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
July 17 · 12 min
The Enemy Gets a Vote
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 17th 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. President Trump started rearranging his group of military advisors as soon as he was elected because having no real military experience himself I suppose he wanted people around him who would put the best spin on what he wanted to do. Do you think I can force Iran, a real and very large country, to surrender and concede its own desires using only naval and air forces. Oh yes, Mr. President, Iran will crumble when attacked and the people will rise up and overthrow the government and that will be it except that you will be an international conquering hero. To get the team of advisors who would tell him that certain changes had to be made. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who is supposed to be his top military advisor announced his retirement one month after the inauguration. The Secretary of Defense was changed which is normal for the new president but then the Department of Defense became the Department of War. I admit that is a more honest name and cuts out some hypocrisy but it sends a very bellingerite message. So, this war, this attack against a country that was apparently no threat to the United States was supposed to resolve problems standing in the way of the Greater Israel Project but it had the opposite effect. Israel is much weaker and in a more tenuous position and Iran is much stronger and in a more commanding position because of the war. When I say Israel is weaker I mean that it literally has no friends except the United States and is for the most part hated around the world. A nation that has sponsored terrorism through proxies across the Middle East is now seen as the heroic barrier to Israel’s genocide. The United States has suffered a humiliating defeat or at least it is unable to keep the Strait of Hormuz open with its navy. U.S. bases across the Middle East have been repeatedly attacked by Iranian missiles and drones as have U.S. allies in the region. Just the other day Jordan which has tried very hard to stay out of the struggle and says it has no foreign bases had 10 or 12 missiles fired at its bases and suffered considerable damage. The bottom line for U.S, interests is that Iran has proven to the world, the U.S,. Israel and other allies that the promises of protection cannot be met. If one of the Gulf States, for example, responds to an Iranian attack it is swarmed by Iranian missiles and drones and much of their military bases have been severely damaged already. The bottom line for Israel, well let’s look at it. Israel has no political way out of this that I can see. Israel’s goal from the beginning has been the destruction of Iran which would leave Israel in complete domination of the Middle East south of Turkey. Israel simply cannot accomplish its goals without the U.S. but its leadership acts as if it doesn’t care what the U.S. president wants. I can tell you what he wants with a fair degree of certainty. He wants out of this debacle before it creates a worldwide depression. Bibi apparently cares nothing for the United States and its people or its survival. For example, last week reports are that Bibi and the president had a lengthy phone conversation and President Trump asked him to leave southern Lebanon so he could meet one of the Iranian demands before peace. Bibi has still not complied with that request and perhaps has no intention to comply and if so Trump has no way out. Israel is not interested in peace right now, only war. Israel has not let go of its original goal and that was the complete destruction of Iran. Bibi said when it started that he had been waiting for this war for 40 years. So, let’s get this straight. The United States started bombing Iran because Israel wanted and demanded it. The bombing only hurts the U.S. and makes it weaker and it is now threatening the world economy with depression. Israel will not do the basics that would allow the U.S. to escape and so Trump feels trapped, blames it all on the Iranians and restarts the bombing on an even more massive scale. Why would Donald Trump, an obviously proud and even vain man, put up with such shabby and embarrassing treatment by this ally of 9 million people which could not continue to exist without the U.S. That is the question of the day isn’t it. Could it be revelations from the Epstein files. Possibly, but I don’t think so because the Democrats had those files before his election and they didn’t use them. Could it be money. I’m sure there’s money involved but I don’t think its pure greed for Trump because he is already a multi billionaire. Could it be something as simple as nuclear blackmail. That’s pretty horrible to contemplate but I suppose it’s possible. How would that work, who knows for sure, but maybe something like this. If you don’t help me destroy Iran I will do it myself with nuclear weapons. Or maybe we have planted dirty bombs all over Washington just in case. Let me be clear folks that I have no information at all to suggest that has happened I’m just wondering where the control comes from. When Trump was campaigning in both 2016 and 2024 he ran on an antiwar promise. He said he would be remembered for the wars he didn’t start and that was a very appealing message to me. All I know for sure is that after the assassination attempt in Butler Pennsylvania he emerged a completely different man. First he ordered a halt to the investigation which raises all kinds of red flags. Why would you order the FBI and Secret Service to stop investigating an attempted assassination. He became close friends with super war hawks like Lindsey Graham and many others. Trump is apparently trying to get a little distance from Bibi by using Turkey and putting the Turks forward as the next rising power which could replace Iran and hopefully control Syria and Lebanon which of course includes Hezbollah. Years ago, Turkey, although a NATO member agreed to buy S-400 air defense systems from Russia. NATO was outraged because that would give Russia inside knowledge of NATO aircraft, radars, etc. The U.S, congress sanctioned Turkey and delisted it from the F-35 program. Now trump says despite the congressional ban he will sell the F-35 to Turkey as well as selling them or allowing their purchase of Taal engines for the new stealth fighter they are trying to build so if they have those engines they can make their own 5th generation fighter. The U.S. congress is not the only group outraged by the deal. Can you imagine what Israel thinks about it. I’m pretty sure Bibi would want the U.S. to destroy Turkey after it destroys Iran but I’m just guessing folks. This is not how diplomacy has been conducted in the past folks. One party never releases partial information about any deals until the paper is signed. In other words, there should be no release of information that we have a deal, the Iranians called me begging me to stop bombing, but that is what he has been doing. There is indeed something really weird about this war and the negotiations. I’ve lived awhile and I’ve been a student of history during most of that and I can’t remember the U.S. attacking a country for no obvious reason, not even a bogus one that could be used as cover, so it’s quite a departure from the American way. Or maybe we were born from war. We fought wars of expansion and a war that freed enslaved people, wars to help out friends in Europe and now wars apparently to maintain military control over the earth so maybe it’s not such a departure. In conclusion, since the enemy gets a vote as the generals like to say, and the enemy votes to continue the war one side can’t just make it all go away by proclaiming that it has. Ther is no political solution but there are a few military solutions one of which makes sense. Number one the U.S. and or Israel could destroy Iran with nuclear weapons. That would be the most catastrophic disaster in the history of man’s time on earth. Number two the U.S. could invade, conquer and occupy Iran with ground troops. That solution would be very bloody and costly in terms of human destruction but also would severely damage the world economy and would probably provoke a worldwide depression. The only solution that makes any sense is the simplest one and that is to disengage. Not only from Iran but from the Middle East itself. Just come home from there and announce that the Project for a New American Century has been flushed. Announce that the U.S. will feed its own people, rebuild its own infrastructure, and bandage its internal wounds for a while. Finally, folks, I see the Castle Report not as reporting the news which you have probably heard but just giving you my take on it. Ron Psul has been doing that for 30 years. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for Listening.
July 3 · 11 min
250 YEARS OF BEING AMERICAN
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 3rd day of July in the year of our Lord 2026. Tomorrow is the 4th 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. Let’s just start from World War ll and go forward from there. With a few notable exceptions prior to that war, America minded its own business for the most part. One of those exceptions was Woodrow Wilson deciding to spend thousands of American lives to rescue Britain and France from Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm. Staying out of European wars is pretty good practice and it always has been, but we seem to struggle with that from time to time. When World War ll ended and NAZI Germany was defeated, Japan was defeated, and the lesser Axis powers were gone, America had about 10 million men in uniform and under arms. To some extent we demobilized and most of those men were sent home to their factories and farms but something else happened as well. We did not completely demobilize and instead we decided we could garrison the entire world. The idea was that in the event of a Soviet attack in Europe American troops could not be reinforced by ship due to Soviet submarines so the strategy was to forward garrison them. Now it can’t be done because of missiles and drones so it was never a viable concept and leaving would be the most obvious strategy. We kept bases and troops just about everywhere including occupying the countries we had just defeated. People still loved us because after all we had just saved civilization from a return to the dark ages. Even with troops everywhere for the most part we still left other people alone to decide their own leadership. Korea and Vietnam were two places we intervened to prevent our great enemy, The Soviet Union, from expanding its politics into other countries against their will. We were at least able to convince ourselves that was the reason. By the end of the Vietnam War a new generation was coming on the scene and that one had not fought and did not seem to remember World War ll. The bodies piled up and they filled the cemeteries. The American people finally started to listen to the new generation and the war became very unpopular. When we finally just left after all those dead, the Communists did prevail but now 50 years later Vietnam is one of the capitalist “miracles” of Southeast Asia. In the meantime, we still had our great enemy, The Soviet Union” to occupy our time and resources and it kept our war production factories running at full speed. The philosophy that we lived with since World War ll had been containment or just don’t let them expand but don’t try to defeat them. Ronald Reagan said he had a different philosophy and it was “we win, they lose.” He and Gorbachev negotiated an end to the Soviet Union which was collapsing under the economic weight of cold war competition and maintaining 16 totally dependent colonies which could produce nothing. The end of the Soviet Union was probably the greatest opportunity for world peace in modern history but we failed miserably and the world is still suffering from that failure. Instead of living up to the deal we made with Gorbachev we agreed to advance NATO to the very border of Russia. The purpose of NATO was to defend Europe from the Soviet Union which didn’t even exist anymore so it made no sense and NATO made no sense. A new great enemy was needed and quickly found, When the Soviet Union was dissolved into the Russian Federation we had Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait and the new enemy of radical Islam was found. Along with that a few very bright and very sinister American Neocons drafted the Project for a New American Century and that ambition has been followed since then. Invade and conquer the countries around the Middle East and make this an American century. Other countries such as Russia and China had their own ideas about this unipolar American world and there has been conflict since then. The attitude of America and that of mind your own business and let others do the same changed into something else. We are the sole superpower and we run the world. We claim the right to intervene anytime, anywhere we choose in the world and we don’t care what you think about it. If we don’t like the people who lead your country and your leaders are misbehaving, we will invade and change your leaders if you do not comply. That attitude has kept us constantly at war and it has changed the way the world sees us. The situation has been made much worse because it has become obvious that for whatever reason America has become nothing more than the military arm of Greater Israel. Much of the world sees that and they see that Israel would not exist and would not do what it does without us and so the world hates us along with Israel. Yes, the world and much of the United States literally hates Israel. Before the attacks on Gaza, Iran and Lebanon, support for Israel was one of the most reliable things in politics, but now in just a few years its all changed. The fact that we are fighting wars for nothing but the policy of Greater Israel is becoming so obvious no one can ignore it except those who are bought and paid for. That the Israeli lobby is using our money to buy our leaders is very distressing and most see that. Even the dependable white liberal and Northern Jewish alliance has been broken. Couple all that with the results of the war being humiliation for the U.S. and people are very dissatisfied. Recent polls reveal that the Iran War is more unpopular than Vietnam in its final stages. The war is saying something about us that is hard to take and that is that our leadership from Congress to the Senate and the Presidency are bought and paid for and possibly blackmailed for even worse reasons. So, we the people are supposed to send our sons and now even our daughters to die for that. No thanks the people are saying. Well, that is quite enough about what is wrong with us right now so let’s look at some good news. The good news is that Washington is not America because it has become something almost foreign. We are America and when the world meets us and sees that the world recognizes it. The World Cup of soccer is a very good example of that happening and it has been very uplifting to watch. Huge stadiums filled with foreign fans shouting USA along with the Americans. Stadiums full of people from around the world singing American folk songs. I saw a video of one German woman who said “if you want to hate America watch the news, if you want to love it drive its roads and meet its people. The outpouring of affection most of the fans have expressed has been heartwarming in the extreme. Even back in the Vietnam days more than 50 years ago I found that most people liked Americans but they did not like the American government. For the first time in recent memory people are at least beginning to see that this is not just a Democrat/Republican issue but one that affects the entire country the same. In other words, I have been right all along and they are all in it together. Their differences and name calling are just theater for us and unfortunately sometimes we watch but many have stopped believing. I’m not talking about the people who have been conditioned through propaganda to hate each other so leaders can loot them. The leaders are all in it and if one is not he or she is quickly gone. In conclusion, is there a way back. Yes, I think there is and it starts with disengagement from not just Israel but from the Middle East. I noticed that Bibi has returned to Washington for the 7th time during the Trump presidency. Tell him we are leaving and that he is on his own. We will sacrifice no more lives for the desires of a foreign leader. Finally, folks, Happy 4th of July. Celebrate with fireworks and hot dogs. Honor America as it should be and could be again if the people wanted it badly enough. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
June 19 · 11 min
Father’s Day
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 19th 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 21st 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. The National Retail Federation (NRF) tells us that the average gift per person given to each father in terms of dollars is $196.23. Interestingly for this year June 21st is the summer solstice or the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere which means it is the day of maximum daylight. So, I guess we can spend more daytime at all those cookouts with our fathers. In this Report I will endeavor to make recognition of fathers something you can easily see as vitally important. Social scientists tell us that data overwhelmingly confirms that children born to their married parents have much better outcomes than children born to single mothers. The data indicates that children born to married parents are “significantly more likely to be on track” at every life stage than children who are born to unmarried parents. Children who are “on track” are those who achieve age-appropriate benchmarks for every stage in life. At the end of elementary school an on-track child has mastered basic math and reading skills, has behavioral competencies that predict later success, has a strong relationship with parents and is in good health. From elementary school to adulthood the child born to married parents is more likely to be on-track and significantly so than the child born to single or unmarried parents. The report from which I am quoting said that even babies benefit greatly from married parents. A baby born to an unmarried mother is three times more likely to need Medicaid or other government assistance to pay for the delivery of the child and is twice as likely to have received late or no prenatal care. That child is twice as likely to be born prematurely and much more likely to be born at a low birth weight. That child is 14 times more likely to have been fathered by a man not identified on the birth certificate (29% versus 2%). This all serves to illustrate the importance of fathers involved in the upbringing and in the lives of their children but there’s a lot more. The data also shows many other problems which present themselves when a father is not involved in the raising of a child. The study shows that the absence of a father leads to children who report feeling abandoned, struggling with their emotions, and experiencing self-loathing, increased behavioral problems, poor academic performance, much higher rates of delinquency, youth crime, promiscuity, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness. If that were not all fatherless children are at greater risk of suffering physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and many times more likely to experience physical and emotional maltreatment with the risk of fatal abuse 100 times greater. The report from the Institute for Family Studies concludes that there is a growing list of disadvantages for children in households without fathers but the report concludes that current U.S. welfare policies tend to encourage fatherlessness. The current policies subsidize unmarried parenting by paying for prenatal care, delivery and postnatal care while allowing the men who fathered the children to escape accountability. The authors of the article conclude that as a society, and especially our churches we have to start recognizing the value of fatherhood again. Our education system in general seems to be failing right now and the belief is that our moral standards have fallen first and a large part of that failing is how we view fathers. The poverty rate in the black and Hispanic communities lowers by 80% when the parents are married. So, why wouldn’t fathers want to remain with the children they fathered. Why wouldn’t people want to get married and remain married if the statistics I just recited are true. That’s a good question but it seems that our society now sets up marriage to fail from the outset. There are many exceptions to that such as mine for example. I’m in the 49th year of my marriage and many people ask me how I do it because they recognize that lifetime commitment is unusual enough to deserve explanation. To continue the point of absent fathers and no marriage I reviewed a recent report done by The American Enterprise Institute in which the authors looked at the issue from a purely economic standpoint. The report was entitled; “Land of Opportunity: Advancing the American Dream.” From their report I learned that one of the chief things causing failure or at least lack of success is the gap between married and non-married Americans. In the middle of the last century and I mean the 1900’s, one in 20 children were born out of wedlock. Now it’s two in five. America has the world’s highest rate of children living in single parent homes: 23% in the U.S. against 7% internationally. Forty percent of millennials from intact, two-parent families graduated from college and 77 % achieved middle class incomes or higher. For those who didn’t grow up in intact families, only 17% graduated from college and 57% achieved middle class income. They are twice as likely to be incarcerated, even after other socioeconomic factors are considered. Quoting from the article for a moment. “Research using tax-return data suggests that neighborhoods with high rates of single parenthood cultivate lower social mobility, including among kids who themselves are not raised by single parents.” The conclusion from the research is that absence of fathers on their offspring has very long-term negative effects on the well-being of children. This study concludes that among all races marriage protects against poverty. From a personal perspective I can say that for 46 years I counseled thousands of people in my law office and my conclusion has been that divorce especially for women and their children leads to a life of poverty. Married parents regardless of race and education suffer significantly less poverty than unmarried mothers. Another interesting thing about these reports is that the phenomenon is not happening evenly but it seems to have a self-perpetuating pattern. For example, from 1970 to 2018 marital births dropped by 29 points overall but they dropped 47 points for the bottom education group and just 6 points for the top. From the early 1960’s to the late 2010’s marriage rates fell by roughly 46 percentage points for the least educated young women compared with 17 points for the most educated which leaves those least able to bear the cost of single parenthood the most likely to experience it. Government, for whatever reason seems to be putting its thumb on the scale to tilt the outcome against marriage. The institution of marriage is obviously the most important factor in raising children and for income mobility, but that is not how the government views it apparently. For example, a couple with two kids, with each parent earning $30,000 receives around $5000 in earned income tax credits benefits if they remain unmarried. They lose all the benefits if they marry which is in effect a tax on marriage. Medicaid, housing vouchers and SNAP benefits all phase out and punish couples who get married whereas they do not if the couples live together without marriage. It seems that careful research keeps finding the same conclusion regarding economic success and opportunities for children despite efforts to debunk it. In conclusion, I would like to thank the occasion that is Father’s Day for the opportunity to be honored by my wife and our daughter. In addition, it gives me the opportunity to talk about something besides war and the opportunity to put into words something that I have observed over a very long legal career. Speaking of families, I have a family obligation next week so there is no Castle Report next week. Finally, folks, may God bless you and your families. If you can’t visit your father on Sunday, at least give him a call because he will be so glad you did. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
June 12 · 12 min
The Israelization of the U.S. Military
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 12th 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. Fortunately, that portion of the bill was pulled before it advanced but there are rumors that it is still out there in Congress or at least in some of their minds and it will be added back in. The bill being considered is the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which would fund the U.S. military for another year. According to members of the House whose opinions I have read, there is near certainty that Section 224 of that bill will pass through the House and become law with the President’s signature. Congressman Ro Khanna, Democrat, and Thomas Massie, Republican tried to pass an amendment to delete Section 224 but the amendment failed. That section will set up a “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative” that integrates US-Israeli military research and development co-production of weapons systems, licensing agreements, AI, directed energy. Data integration, and missile defense. It creates the framework for bilateral research and development, co-production of weapons, joint ventures, licensing agreements, and virtually every manner of U.S.-Israeli military cooperation. The Director of this “Initiative” who will be responsible for coordination of the work will reportedly be an Israeli. The funding will come 100% from the U.S, treasury through part of the $1.5 trillion defense budget requested by President Trump. The purpose as stated is to fully connect the functionality of the U.S. military with that of the Israeli military in what is being described as an equal partnership that will include the government of Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces as full partners. There will be intelligence sharing and in fact the bill includes a requirement that intelligence must be shared. Israeli forces will be included in the planning process of how U.S. weapons are developed and procured. This serves to explain at least in part why Netanyahu has been indicating recently that Israel might be willing to forego some of the mandatory $3.8 billion the U.S. gives it every year. He obviously knows there is an even bigger slice of American Pie coming his way via Section 224. The intelligence sharing portion of the bill was introduced by Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas which he calls “US-Israel Intelligence Sharing Enhancement.” Interestingly, at the same time the New York Times recently carried an article entitled “Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat from Israel.” The article is sourced to the Defense Intelligence Agency which says that the espionage threat from Israel is at the highest possible level and even says that Israel eavesdropped on negotiations between the United States and Iran conducted in Pakistan. The senators pushing this bill often refer to Israel as our best friend and most trusted ally but at the same time the DIA has that country listed as the highest possible espionage threat. Just to keep following this espionage threat let me tell you or remind you of a couple of things this best friend has done during its roughly 78 years as a political nation. In 1984 when a man named Yitzhak Shamir was prime minister and Ronald Reagan was the US president; Israel dispatched an American of dual citizenship named Jonathan Pollard to do some spying against the US. Pollard worked in the US defense establishment and had access to some of the most highly classified military secrets. He stole and delivered the entire 10 volume DIA manual of in person or human intelligence operatives all over the world. The manual contained the names and locations of US intelligence operatives working in the Soviet Union and Communist China both countries in a desperate cold war with the US. Pollard delivered the manual along with many other vital intelligence documents to his handlers in Israel. Can you guess what our best friend and most trusted ally did with the manual and other information. Yes, that’s right, they gave it to the Soviet Union and Communist China in exchange for “favors”. Thousands of US personnel along with foreign operatives working with US Intelligence were arrested and many were killed so I guess as the saying goes with friends like that who needs enemies. Pollard did his work in 1984 and in 1987 he was sentenced to life in prison and he served exactly 30 years plus five years of probation. He was then allowed to move to Israel where he has hero status. The American Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, had him over to the US Embassy for a little get together recently. That Pollard incident illustrates the one-sided relationship the US has with Israel quite clearly but as bad as it was it was not the worst. No, the worst happened in 1967 when a man named Levi Eshkol was Prime Minister of Israel and Lyndon Johnson was US President. In fact, last Monday the 8th of June was the 59th anniversary of the Israeli attack on an American ship named USS Liberty. The Liberty was an intelligence gathering ship operating in International Waters in the Eastern Mediterranean when it was attacked by air forces of Israel. This attack was not an accident or improper identification or anything except a deliberate act of murder. The Liberty, an unarmed vessel, was relentless bombed and strafed by Israeli jets while clearly flying the American flag. The attack severed the radio mast and cut off the crew’s ability to send a distress call but one crewman managed to climb on deck despite strafing fire, raise an antenna and get off a distress call. Out in the Med a US carrier heard the message and immediately launched jets for a rescue effort. I can tell you from a lot of personal experience that there is nothing that motivates US soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines like coming to the rescue of brothers in trouble. Unfortunately, the US Commander in Chief, Lyndon Johnson personally ordered the Carrier captain to withdraw his jets. They left Liberty to die on its own but the little ship and its crew refused to die. 34 men were killed and 171 wounded but the ship would not sink and made it back to port. The pilots of our most trusted friend and ally even machine-gunned wounded sailors in the water something honorable men do not do even when their nations are at war. No real investigation by government investigators with subpoena power has ever been conducted to my knowledge. Oh, there was a cursory inquiry as there always is but according to reporter Donald Jeffries who did a yeoman’s job of private investigation and who has written extensively about the matter President Johnson ordered the board of inquiry to rule it an accident. Why did the Israelis attack the USS Liberty. Without going into a lot of what amounts to guesswork, it was probably because Israel was fighting what came to be known as the six-day-war against a coalition of enemy nations one of which was Egypt. The Liberty was to be sunk and the incident blamed on the Egyptians which would have given the US an excuse to enter the war against Egypt as retaliation. In both the Liberty attack and the Pollard incident not a single thing regarding US policy toward Israel changed. Not one dollar was cut from the very generous support. Compare this to the reaction upon news this week that an Apache Attack Helicopter had been shot down in the Persian Gulf near Hormuz. The President said he would retaliate with a massive bombing attack and would “take over” Iran’s petroleum industry. I don’t believe the story which makes no sense but not much in this war makes sense. An Apache is an attack helicopter with a mission of finding and destroying enemy armor but it can be used for armed reconnaissance as well. Perhaps that was its mission over the Gulf. It landed in the water with no injuries to crew so no I don’t believe it and it was probably done by Israel if it was done at all. I don’t think it was more than an excuse to resume the war. Finally, folks, the US has reportedly given Israel more than $300 billion since its founding in 1948 but it is on the brink of an even more egregious relationship whereby it combines its military with that of Israel. Something causes Washington politicians to shower our money that we work for on Israel and to support it while it robs the US at home and commits mass murder abroad. Why is the question. If all our politicians are blackmailed prostitutes shouldn’t we have some knowledge of our worth, How much do they get from the pimps who own them. At least that’s the way I seen it. Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
June 5 · 8 min
Trump Unloads on Netanyahu
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 5th 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. Trump called Netanyahu F-ing crazy and accused him of ingratitude. “You’d be in prison if it weren’t for me. I’m saving you’re a**. Everybody hates you now. Everybody hates Israel because of this.” In the meantime, whether Netanyahu got the message or not Israel continued its war in Lebanon as if nothing had happened. According to Lebanese news agency NNA, the Israeli attacks continued and Hezbollah continued attacks against Israeli forces inside Lebanon. Lebanon’s Embassy in Washington said Hezbollah would refrain from further attacks if Israel would show the same restraint but Israel does not seem interested. Israel announced that the fighting would continue but it would not strike Beirut while talks were ongoing. Israeli and Lebanese Ambassadors are in talks at the State Department in Washington. That makes me wonder if the Lebanese government has the authority to negotiate for Hezbollah. I guess one answer to that question is that Hezbollah is the Lebanese government. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said that President Trump backed the strikes in Southern Lebanon. It’s all very conflicting and confusing but there is one other possibility. There is a possibility that the phone call never took place at all or if it did then the whole thing was a stage show between Trump and Netanyahu staged for our benefit. Why would the President stage a profanity laced conversation he had with a foreign leader. To me the better question is why would he allow that conversation to be publicly leaked and then why would he admit that he said those things. I suppose the answer lies in his response to criticism he has been getting from the media and from people in his own party about how he does the bidding of Netanyahu and that he says America First but in practice its Israel First. I don’t know what is true here but if it were all fake it would be to bolster his image of a strong leader who doesn’t tolerate disrespect from allies. I don’t know which version is true but it is very suspicious that the administration made such a big deal out of what should have been a private conversation. Israel, through its defense minister, has said that it would be remaining permanently in Southern Lebanon so why does this tiny country of 9 million seem so aggressive and so intent on expansion. For one thing its tiny size relative to its neighbors makes it very vulnerable. At its widest point it is only 71 miles wide and at its narrowest point it is only 9 miles wide. In other words, defense in depth is virtually impossible because it has no avenue of retreat to fall back and regroup as any retreat would put enemy forces right in Israeli cities. Therefore, it must attack constantly to push back its enemies who state clearly that they seek its destruction. Looking at Israel from the Israeli position they probably see their status as expand or die. Since defense in depth is essential and determines if a country has enough space to recover from an initial attack Israel believes it must constantly seek to push out its borders because a defeat on its borders leaves it extremely vulnerable. Now, with the new form of unmanned warfare coming to light with drones and missiles one of Israel’s chief advantages is taken away or diminished. That advantage is pilot courage and training which thanks to the U.S. is some of the best in the world along with top-of-the-line aircraft it all serves to make Israel a foe to be reckoned with. Drones and missiles are rapidly changing the dynamics of war and Israel and the U.S. are apparently late to the game and a little behind in how best to defend against them. Israel’s tactic seems to be to attack with as much force and with tactics as ruthless as necessary to push the enemy back as far as possible. I admit this is guesswork, but to much of the world the Israeli tactics is genocide but to Israel they just don’t care because for them it is survival. Israel, it seems to me, could be controlled enough for the U.S. to make peace because it lives in a very bad neighborhood and without the U.S. Israel could not exist as a sovereign nation. It is a little unrealistic to think Israel, with its 9 million population would never face a superior force or coalition of forces. Therefore, Trump’s phone call, if it did happen and was not a preplanned exhibit was probably necessary although the crass profanity which is so very common now could have been tempered. That type of profanity is so common it no longer has any meaning except that its user has no appropriate vocabulary. It reminds me of a different time when Harry Truman reportedly used the word Damn in the presence of Madame Chiang Kai- Shek the widow of Chaing who had been ruler of China until he was overthrown in the Maoist revolution. Madame Chaing resented it and complained and it was a front-page scandal. A few Presidents have apparently resisted Israeli pressure to attack Iran. If the testimony of Obama’s Secretary of State is accurate then he is one who did and George Bush would not do it either but lots of Israeli money poured into the campaign of one who would and did do it. Often, national leaders opt for whatever they think necessary for staying in power rather than what they truly believe to be in the national interest. The smaller the group they actually have to please and make happy the better or at least that makes it easier. If staying in power and the national interest happens to coincide well that’s just great, but in my opinion they rarely do. Finally, folks, there are reasons for why people do things but quite often we don’t know what the real reasons are. In Truman’s day we were different and perhaps a little naïve about leaders and maybe we still are. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
May 29 · 11 min
Tulsi’s Gone
Darrell Castle talks about the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard from her position as Director of National Intelligence, and why she made the decision to resign. Was it because of her husband's illness or something else. Transcription / Notes TULSI’S GONE Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 29th day of May in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about the resignation of Tulsi Gabbard from her position as Director of National Intelligence, and about why Tulsi made the decision to resign. Was her decision because of her husband’s illness or was it something else. Tulsi never seemed to fit into Washington like a typical Washington politician. She never seemed willing to lie and cheat her way to the top as is typical of Washington. From the beginning of her prominence, she seemed a little too honest and too forthright for Washington politics. Nevertheless, she was a politician having served as a Democrat in congress from the state of Hawaii. She left congress and ran for president as a Democrat but lost in the primary to Joe Biden. She became disenchanted with the Democrat Party and decided to back President Trump in his run for that office. President Trump appointed her Director of National Intelligence, in theory the most important national security position in the country. The U.S. now has 18 intelligence agencies or departments if you count their various components and they all report to the Director of National Intelligence, but once in the office I imagine that the DNI found out who holds the real power in the intelligence world. When I learned a few weeks ago that the CIA had apparently broken into, raided, or whatever you want to call the CIA’s visit to their boss’s office, I knew Tulsi would soon be gone. Whistleblower James Erdman blew his whistle in congress and testified that the CIA had “seized” documents from their secure area in the office of the DNI. Some of the files they seized related to the assassination, or perhaps their assassination, of JFK. They apparently also took the files related to MKULTRA which was and probably is the CIA’s experimental program designed to alter and control human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs and torture. They sought to and apparently did learn the art of mind control including control of whole populations through these experiments. There are people who exist now who are suing the CIA in an effort to get some answers to the questions of what happened to their minds and the minds of their parents because of MKULTRA. That’s not all they got because apparently they got the files on “Havana Syndrome” in which U.S. diplomats and others stationed in Havana and other places were apparently subjected to some kind of mind-altering rays. In response to the CIA raid, Representative Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) and James Comer (R-KY) chairman of the house Oversight Committee, sent a preservation letter to the CIA demanding that all evidence related to the taken or stolen material be preserved. I imagine the CIA got a good laugh over that letter as they endeavored to show naive members of Congress who actually runs this country. Apparently someone spoke to someone and explained the facts of life as it exists in Washington because when that letter of preservation became public people started to backtrack their statements. Even Erdman, the whistleblower said no I didn’t say it was a raid instead I just said CIA refused to comply with “lawful oversight and documented everts to circumvent oversight.” He testified to Congress that not only did CIA refuse to comply with the directives of the ODNI Director’s Initiatives Group (DIG) investigations into the origins of COVID-19 and other “phenomena” but retaliated against those who did not support their own conclusions. Quoting long-term CIA agent Erdman, “The CIA illegally monitored the computer and phone usage of DIG personnel, their investigations, and contact with whistleblowers, which significantly impacted Director Gabbard’s implementation of several Eo’s issued during this administration and tasked to the DIG.” In addition, “when the DIG ceased operations, the CIA also took back 40 boxes of JFK files and MKULTRA files being processed for declassification by DNI Gabbard.” The CIA’s spying was referenced as tracking every keystroke of DIG personnel as they processed files directed by presidential EO to be released or unclassified. These files included files concerning JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations, the origins of COVID-19, Crossfire Hurricane, The Biden Administration’s domestic surveillance, Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI) and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. So, just speculating here folks, but trying to do it with logic I think it went something like this. The President appoints this intelligent and experienced, but most importantly honest woman to head the nation’s intelligence organizations. He then says that as he campaigned on a pledge to be transparent and release long classified files he issues an Executive Order (EO) to that effect. Tulsi, his DNI, who most likely took the job based on a promise to be forthcoming, sets out to obey the President’s EO. She appoints a working group from among those in the office of the DNI which she calls DIG to sort through the files to determine if there was anything that should not be released. The CIA completely ignored that report to DNI which was Tulsi and in fact they ignore or refuse to abide by the direct written orders of the President of the United States. They break into, or raid, if that is better, her office, take the files and even congress can’t get them back. My conclusion, then, is that this case reveals as clearly as anything has who or what runs this country. I knew when I heard the story of what happened and looked into it that Tulsi would not be able to remain in the administration. Who would want to be director of the office that controls American intelligence agencies, all 18 of them, if one of those agencies was completely exempt from you, their boss’s orders, and apparently didn’t even follow the orders of the President. So, is that why she resigned because she didn’t say that it was. In fact, she didn’t complain about the President’s inability or unwillingness to control the CIA but instead she thanked him and the American people for the opportunity to serve. In her letter she cited her husband Abraham and his diagnosis of a “extremely rare form of bone cancer” as the reason. She said he had stood by her every step of the way including when her Army guard unit was deployed to East Africa and through her political campaigns so she wanted to be with him full-time during such a difficult time. In 18 months as DNI she restructured the office, cutting its size and saving the American people more than $700 million per year. She launched many investigations and sought the release of previously classified material related to the programs previously listed. She has declassified more than 500,000 pages thus far. Her National Counterterrorism Center stopped thousands of narco-terrorists from entering the country until finally its head, Joe Kent, publicly resigned citing the Iran war as the reason. I saw her interviewed on the Shawn Ryan Podcast the other day and she was very forthright as she normally is. She said that the people who opposed her in her efforts were very intolerant of anyone who believes in God because in their minds they are God. They are the ultimate deciders of right and wrong and their choices are never wrong because they determine what right is. If a person opposes them, even if their boss opposes them, that person is on the way out. She said that before she goes at the end of June she will release many files related to the programs in question. Likely, these files will be released in weekly installments over the weeks of June. Her deputy director, Aaron Lukas, will serve as acting director until a permanent director is appointed. I predict without knowing one way or the other that the new director will have a CIA or perhaps military, meaning ex-General background. Politicians seem to be sweating over the prospect of files related to Crossfire Hurricane or the Russia gate hoax and other weaponization of law programs. I’m just speculating because I admit I don’t know but I will wager that Tulsi grew very weary of constantly trying to follow presidential directives and being stymied at every turn while doing so. That type of constant stress is very difficult to bear long term. Why would the CIA take her JFK files along with the other assassination files. That’s a good question isn’t it but the answer is very obvious but unsayable in public. Yes I know the assassinations were all done by lone nuts who were killed or prosecuted without any real investigation but nothing to see here folks just move along. Finally, folks, Tulsi seems to be an intelligent, honest woman who loves her country and its people and who puts them before any political party. There aren’t many left like her and I for one will miss her. I wish her well. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
May 22 · 11 min
Nixon Went to China Too
Darrell Castle talks about President Trump's recent summit with Premier Xi in China and points out the similarities with President Nixon's summit in China in 1972. Transcription / Notes NIXON WENT TO CHINA TOO Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 22nd day of May in the year of our Lord 2026. President Trump just completed a three-day historic summit with Premier Xi in China. He is not the first President to visit China since President Nixon made that trip in 1972 when China was a far different nation than today as it was in the throes of suffering through the Maoist revolution. This is the Friday before Memorial Day when we pause to remember the fallen and for most it is the start of a 3-day weekend, but for Joan and I it is a different sort of anniversary to remember. Forty-nine years ago, on this date we saw each other for the first time because we were introduced on a blind date with mutual friends. So, we met forty-nine years ago on this date and we have been together ever since but our actual anniversary, the forty-nine will be in December. This Memorial Day falls 81 years after the end of World War ll, seventy-seven years after the end of the Korean War, and fifty-one years after the end of the Vietnam War. I guess the other wars, the desert wars, are still going on. Since we are into a little nostalgia this week and to prevent burying the lead it was 54 years ago that Nixon made his historic trip to China. It was historic because China and the US, although friends in World War ll had been bitter enemies for 23 years or since the Maoist revolution. The governing principle upon which the Chinese government has been based for all those years now 77 has been that capitalism would inevitably fail, and communism would ultimately triumph around the world. The triumph would come by way of revolution as it did in China but with the aid of countries where the Communist revolution had already occurred. That principle explains why the real enemy of the Western forces fighting in Korea and Vietnam was China and Russia, not North Korea and North Vietnam. When Nixon arrived in China in 1972 the Communist Revolution had been ongoing since 1949 or 23 years but China had not fared well under Communism. It was a desperately poor, agrarian society in which the people were making little or no progress. There was very little indoor plumbing, especially in rural areas, and very little access to electricity. GDP per capita was barely at subsistence levels. Unlike today, China was technologically backward with a massive military but unable to technically compete. Trade with China was at $95.9 million and Nixon sought to build a bridge across the hostility of that world. He famously declared it “the week that changed the world.” President Clinton had a different approach to China because he apparently believed that massive technology transfers and resulting economic success would ease tensions and result in a more peaceful world. In 2000 he gave the Chinese PNTR or Permanent Normal Trade Relations and supported Chinese membership in the WTO or World Trade Organization in 2001. Before Chinese entry into the WTO the US-China trade deficit was about $83 billion but by 2015 it was $367 billion. Chinese imports into the US also surged massively with an estimated replacement of US jobs at about 2.4 to 3.4 million. Communities built in the US around the manufacture of electronics, clothing, furniture, automobiles, and other products were devastated and became just the rust belt. Nixon visited a weak, agrarian society but the new economic policies turned it into an economic and military superpower. Now President Trump has visited this country which has been hostile to the United States for 77 years. Trump’s approach to negotiating is to assume he has the strength in the relationship and to use it to his advantage. Tariffs, export controls, global alliances, and military power are all used in an effort to help benefit US farmers, manufacturers, energy workers, and many others. I predict that Trump’s trip to China will prove similar to Nixon’s in some ways. They both sought direct personal negotiation producing tangible economic benefits to both sides with protection from dangerous strategic competition. There is a knowledge or at least an assumption that President Clinton’s belief that economic success alone would moderate strategic behavior did not work and guardrails have to be installed and adhered to. Nixon engaged an impoverished third-world China for the purpose of using it to counter the Soviets. Trump engaged a powerful superpower to prevent it from obtaining or maintaining dominance in key areas. He got a public commitment from Xi to stop supplying weapons to Iran and to not aid in Iranian nuclear efforts. I have some thoughts on Xi’s statement about Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons. In my view his statement meant nothing or it was what in the law is referred to as legal fiction. He said that Iran should not have nuclear weapons and Iran should reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Well of course for the world’s economies the Strait should be reopened; a no brainer. Both sides know that nukes are not the reason for the attack on Iran and not the real reason for the continuation of the war. Thomas Massie just found out in his Republican primary what the real reason is. If the Israel lobby or the friends of Israel wants you out of congress then you are out of congress. There aren’t many surviving Republicans who are not totally sold out the Israel lobby. Rand Paul is an example and Thomas Massie was another. So almost no Republicans and about the same number of Democrats although some Democrats seem to survive without total subservience. If there are grounds for optimism coming from the summit they can be found in Xi’s public speech or at least that’s how I see them. The English version of Xi’s speech comes to me via George Friedman and his Geopolitical Futures so quoting Mr. Xi. “Honorable President Donald J. Trump, ladies and gentlemen, friends, looking back at the cause of China-U.S. relations, whether or not we could have mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation is the key to whether the relationship can advance steadily. The world today is changing and turbulent. China-U.S. relations concern the well-being of over 1,7 billion people of both countries and affect the interests of the over 8 billion people of the world. Both sides should rise up to this historic responsibility and steer the giant ship of China-U.S. relations forward steadily and in the right direction.” To me that statement says this is a multi-polar world and if we are to progress together and for the good of the world’s people you must recognize that. If you are willing to do that then 77 years of hostility can end at least open hostility can end. President Trump probably had the speech examined by his China people and he probably pointed out the thousands of Chinese spies who occupy every university of note, every corporation of note and even hold political office. Yes the mayor of Alameda, California has confessed to being a Chinese agent. There are hardly any members of Congress or the Senate who haven’t slept with at least one Chinese spy. Mr. Xi let me ask you this if the Chinese are so smart and so technologically proficient why do you have to steal your technology and your scientific advances from us. I’m just guessing but I imagine all those things were discussed. In short, China needs the American market to save its economy. In recent years economists have noted that Chinese domestic consumption has fallen off a cliff, but production is soaring. Thar means that China cannot absorb nearly enough of its production and needs the American market to do that. America needs China and Russia to help it find a face-saving exit from its war against Iran. You both control Iran and we will endeavor to control Netanyahu. To carry my point a little further Xi mentioned the Thucydides Trap in which the ancient Greek Geopolitical Thinker pointed out that when a rising power collides with an old power war is always the result. Xi said he hopes that can be avoided for China and the U.S. If that is the case and both sides want to avoid war then talking is at least the first step and a necessary one. To that end they have scheduled another summit for Washington in September, I think. Finally, folks, it seems to me that China has everything to lose and nothing to gain by war with the United States. George Friedman pointed out the fact that he mentioned Thucydides but did not mention Lenin, or Marx, and to me that’s pretty significant and could mean a turning away from 77 years of false assumptions. Why are these two men meeting and negotiating, well, I think necessity is the mother of invention and right now they need each other. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
May 15 · 11 min
Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and the Decline of Empires
Darrell Castle returns to the discussion of war by talking about a war not spoken of so much since it has been driven from the headlines by the war against Iran. Transcription / Notes VLADIMIR PUTIN, DONALD TRUMP, AND THE DECLINE OF EMPIRES Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 15th day of May in the year of our Lord 2026. My beat today is once again war but we visit a war not spoken of so much since it has been driven from the headlines by the war against Iran. Yes, we don’t hear much about Ukraine these days but it continues to cost lives, and resources and it continues to threaten the global geopolitical order. I’m sure you remember, if you are a long-term sufferer of these Reports, that back in 2014 in the eastern provinces of Ukraine the people voted overwhelmingly to become or remain part of the Russian Federation but that decision didn’t sit well with Victoria Nuland who was the U.S. State Department representative there. She helped instigate a revolution that replaced the pro-Russian government with one more pro Europe and that led to a Russian invasion and the current war. Mr. Putin, like President Trump, has found that sometimes wars are easier to get into than they are to get out of. I remember from the war archives reading the discussions from the Japanese general staff when they were planning the battle of Midway. The admiral who was to command their carriers said this will work if the Americans do exactly what we expect and want them to. Well, the Americans didn’t do what the Japanese expected and the Ukrainians haven’t done what the Russians expected. When a Nation which seems to have overwhelming power goes to war against a much weaker opponent the powerful nation expects a quick and decisive, not to mention cheap, victory. Some examples would be the Soviet Union in World War ll, the Iranians of today, and the Ukrainians that are the subject for today. I mention World War ll a lot because last week the 9th of May was the annual celebration in Moscow of the Russian victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. This year the celebration was different because for the first time in 18 years, Russia’s Victory Day parade had no tanks, no missile carriers, and no armored columns going through Red Square. Smaller regions in Russia have their own smaller parades and celebrations and many of those have been canceled altogether. The people of Moscow were told to expect to have no internet service on May 9th. The reason for all the caution and the stepped down celebration was fear of Ukrainian drone and missile attacks. Yes, that’s right folks, the Russian Federation, successor to the Soviet Union, cannot traditionally celebrate its victory over Nazi Germany because once again it is at war inside its own borders. The ironic thing is that once again the war is being fueled, at least partially by German arms. The two wars being fought right now, Ukraine and Iran, in which larger more powerful nations attacked smaller weaker ones are changing the dynamics of global politics and showing us once again that the unexpected results of war can totally change the geopolitics of the world. Ukraine, supplied to the tune of hundreds of billions in arms and treasure, primarily by the United States but also by the European nations has apparently perfected drone and missile warfare and has become one of the world leaders in that technology. Ukraine is now a world leader as we will see but recently Great Britain, desperate to prolong the fight I guess, gave the Ukrainians 120,000 drones from their own inventory. Ukraine, just an agricultural region on the border of Russia and only of any significance because of its proximity to Russia has become one of the world’s most proficient practitioners of the new art of unmanned warfare. They are so proficient that they attack deep inside Russia seemingly at will to the point that the Russian people are afraid to conduct a parade in their community. Thousands of armed drones roam the skies looking for targets and although they are relatively easy to shoot down they are unstoppable in those numbers. Reports are that Iranian missiles and drones reach their targets about 10% of the time but that is against sophisticated air defense systems dedicated to stopping them. Against thousands, 10% is still a lot of destruction and in Ukraine/Russia I understand that they are virtually impossible to defend against. People will tolerate what they are told will be a short and decisive war but only for so long. The propaganda sent to them daily and now through Social Media minute by minute grows tiring when the people realize that it is all just lies. Reports coming from Russia indicate that Putin is feeling the heat of public dissatisfaction with the war. Nobody will tell us exact casualty figures but they obviously number in the hundreds of thousands. War you never have to feel and never see unless you look for it is one thing but when the numbers of dead reach that high and especially when the economy is crumbling as is Russia’s people notice. To that end, last week, President Putin made a phone call to President Trump and proposed a new economic relationship with the United States. The internal pressure on President Putin seems to be working because he is now saying the war is coming to a settlement when there is no battlefield evidence that is the case. He says now that he wants a negotiated settlement and he wants the Europeans to be a part of it. Ironically, he seems to have singled out Germany as the leader in the settlement negotiations. He has maintained all along that he will not recognize Zelensky as the legitimate leader of Ukraine and would therefore not meet with him. That attitude has changed and now he wants to meet with him and he wants the Europeans to help the two of them broker a deal. I admit I am guessing here, but I think it’s an educated guess. Putin always wanted to make Russia a part of the European community but the EU bureaucrats would not have him at their parties. These recent inquiries indicate to me that he wants to renew the efforts to make Russia part of Europe. Ordinarily, I don’t think the Europeans would give him the time of day but the world is far from ordinary right now and they just might listen this time. Why, because of Iran and behind that Israel. Putin might be trying to take advantage of anti-US sentiment in Europe due to the war in Iran. The Europeans obviously want no part of that adventure that Mr. Trump started so perhaps a Europe-Russia détente is now possible. European politicians have made some astonishingly anti-US statements lately. Spain has doubled down on its refusal to let the US use its own bases in Spain for attacks on Iran. One of the leading candidates for Prime Minister of Spain is running on a campaign to take Spain out of NATO as a way to prevent that country from becoming involved in fighting Israel’s wars. So, Putin seeks to turn the clock back to when relations between Russia and Europe were better, but that was when Russia was weaker than now. Just as in the U.S. regarding Iran there is massive and growing opposition in Russia to the war in Ukraine. The Russian economy is reeling and rumors are that the power brokers in Russia have turned against him. He has reportedly increased security at his private residences. It will be interesting to see how the U.S. will react to all this. President Trump left for China on Tuesday for a three-day summit with Mr. Xi. That summit has been in the planning process for months and has continued discussions despite the Iran war. The summit will obviously be primarily about the economic relationship between the U.S. and China but I’m sure Iran will be an important topic. China had Iranian officials in China just prior to Trump’s visit. The question being asked By American media is, will Trump trade Taiwan for Iran, but we will see. Meanwhile back here in America the empire appears to be in decline and is always looking for someone to accelerate the process and Donald Trump appears to be the right man for the job. The empire killers of debt and war are now out of control. The debt has passed 39 trillion and interest payments have passed one trillion per year. Cutting taxes is a good idea if the cuts are matched with spending cuts but the President is removing the fuel tax to bring prices down with no corresponding spending cuts. The wars continue to cost more each day with no end in sight. So much of the world’s economy depends on the price of oil so Trump starts a stupid war that closes the most important oil spigot in the world. It appears now that the U.S. cannot force Iran to do anything without risking major retaliation and resulting damage to the world economy with much higher oil prices. So, we are told the ceasefire is still in effect when it clearly isn’t. According to U.S. intelligence Iran has 75% of its missile capacity intact and almost all of its underground facilities have been reopened. Iran is now a superpower in control of the most important waterway in the world. Russia’s and other adversaries which depend on selling oil have had their incomes increase. So that all adds up to quite an achievement with no visible upside at all. Finally, folks, if the American Empire is in decline under the weight of debt and war what better man could we have to manage it. At least that’s the way I see it. Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
May 8 · 7 min
Mother’s Day
Darrell Castle doesn't talks about war today, but about mothers and Mother's Day. Transcription / Notes MOTHER’S DAY Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 8th day of May in this the year of our Lord 2026. I am so happy today because my beat is not war but mothers which will make most people happy and uplifted because after all who doesn’t like and respect mothers and stories about them. Mother’s Day as a national holiday had kind of a dual start or I guess you could say dual founders. Both of the women who started the day as a way to honor and support mothers did it because of the severe rural poverty and resulting infant mortality in their native Appalachia. In 1887 Mary Towles Sasseen from Henderson Kentucky led her class since she was a teacher, in what is believed to be the first observance of Mother’s Day. Mary traveled around Kentucky and Ohio trying to have the day recognized as a national holiday but she died in 1906 before that happened. Schools in several states adopted the idea and in 1926 the Kentucky legislature passed a resolution officially recognizing Mary as the founder of the day. The creation of Mother’s Day as a national holiday is usually attributed to three women Ann Reeves Jarvis, Julia Ward Howe, and Ann’s daughter Anna M. Jarvis. Ann, known as “Mother Jarvis,” was an Appalachian homemaker who taught Sunday School lessons. Mother Jarvis saw the extreme poverty and lack of education among the Appalachian rural poor which resulted in a high infant mortality rate and a high rate of the death of mothers during childbirth. She set out to educate and help the women who needed it the most and she was eventually joined by the other two women. Anna, Ann’s daughter, led the fight to honor her mother and to have the day become a national holiday and at her church the year after Ann’s death a service was held on May 10th to honor not just Ann but all mother’s. In 1948 Anna died in what was then called a sanitarium from dementia. Yes folks I am happy to have something to say that is not about war and what better subject than Mothers. Oh, I could bring war into it of course by talking about the mothers who are photographed holding their starving babies perhaps for the last time. I could even tell stories I have personally seen concerning mothers in war-torn countries who would do literally anything for enough money to feed their babies but I will not do that today and instead I will report on stories of mothers right here in America. Speaking of mothers right here in America many of my friends who are a little less conservative politically than I am, are very concerned about the plight of mothers. They are particularly concerned about infant mortality the same as what those women I mentioned who started national recognition of mothers and that came to be Mother’ Day. I wonder so I ask them why they care so much about infant mortality. I point out to them that one day they advocate for “a mother’s right to choose” and the next day they are fighting to save infants from mortality so what gives. OH, wait I get it now those infants still inside their mothers are not really babies but just protoplasm or more generously just part of the woman’s body. If so, then killing the child is not really murder because we have defined the child out of existence. I guess its like the war powers resolution which unconstitutionally gave the president the power to make war on his own without congressional involvement. He is required to report to congress within 60 days but when that is over he just says no the war is over and we won and this is a new war with a new 60 days. My point is that murder is murder but homicide is a legal term awaiting interpretation. Anyway, we all have or had mothers at some point but for many our mothers are long since dead and we have only the memories. Joan and I were both blessed by God with very good mothers who cared for us and loved us to the end. It sounds like a cliché but there is nothing like a mother’s love for her child. She will sacrifice to the point of giving up her own life for that child. Let me give you an example from the animal kingdom. In my home office I have a bay window with my desk right in front of it. There are a few azalea bushes right outside the window and sometimes birds nest in them, especially cardinals which like to nest close to the ground. A couple of years ago I was working at my desk when I noticed a nest with a cardinal sitting in the nest. I didn’t know it but she was sitting on her eggs to hatch them. I watched her for a few days and she would sit there through rainstorms with the rain pounding down on her and through wind that looked like it would blow away her nest. The male would come by from time to time just to check on her I guess. One day the eggs hatched and she had to feed the babies so she would go away and get worms for them and sometimes the male would contribute but the mother acting on instinct would give her life up for those babies. When they were at an age instinct told her was right she threw them out of the nest and said fly or die trying. They either fly or a cat eats them. We humans have developed a more humane way of dealing with our young than the animal kingdom but there are similarities. The cardinal mother would never think of killing her young for some always good reason but our humanity has allowed us humans to do that. When our babies are a certain age we still know that it is time for them to leave the nest. Sometimes we call that time graduation and sometimes it’s marriage. “Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 That verse becomes more and more clear as we age because the child means everything especially to the mother. She would literally take a bullet for that child and then one day the father takes his daughter’s hand and gives it to her husband and she has a new family which is now her first love as it should be. For the mother that child will always be her child but for the child which probably now has children of her own it’s different. Well, that’s about enough glorification of the role of mothers for one day and one Castle Report. Finally, folks, visit your mother this Sunday for Mother’s Day. If you just can’t get there at least give her a call because I promise you she wants to hear your voice. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
May 1 · 11 min
Options to End the War Against Iran
Darrell Castle provides some options to end the war that Washington is currently fighting against Iran. Transcription / Notes OPTIONS TO END THE WAR AGAINST IRAN Hello this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 1st day of May in this the year of our Lord 2026. Yes today is May Day but my beat once again is war. This time I am looking for options to end the war that Washington is currently fighting against Iran. Donald Trump began the U.S./Israel war against Iran apparently because he wanted to deny Iran the chance to build its own nuclear weapon. That was at least the stated reason for starting the war. Suppose you are Iran and the U.S, demands that you dismantle and cease your nuclear weapons development program. Would you have any reason to comply with that demand considering what has happened to other countries in the Middle East. Acquiring nuclear weapons might be the only way left to prevent becoming a victim of a regime change war. Think about it like this for a moment. Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Venezuela, Russia and North Korea have all been demonized by the U.S. in one way or another this century. The only two that remain uninvaded, Russia and North Korea have nuclear weapons and the others do not. The leaders of those countries who do not have nuclear weapons are dead or locked in prison. I ask myself if the United States would be threatened if Iran were allowed to develop nuclear weapons and my conclusion is that it would not. Israel would be threatened because a nuclear armed Iran would serve as a blocking force to the expansion of Israel and Netanyahu’s plans for greater Israel. If Iran had nuclear weapons Operation Epic Fury would not have happened or at least logic tells me. Why then, other than Bibi’s influence, did Donald Trump launch this war. He must have been told and must have believed that the Iranian government would collapse and flee in the face of overwhelming U.S. and Israeli air attacks. If he believed that then he must not be a student of history because that theory has never worked throughout the history of air power. It worked in World War II as part of a combined arms attack that involved millions of troops fighting around the world in ground combat. Later wars like Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan it was assumed that air power and destruction from the air would make the difference but it did not. If a belief that Iran could be forced or persuaded to surrender or agree to U.S./Israeli demands as a result of destruction from the air was the cause of the attacks then obviously that was a false conclusion. Perhaps senior U.S. military leadership were and are students of military history and they warned the president that the strategy would fail and that explains in part why so many have been relieved. I admit that I have no inside information that leads me to that conclusion just logic and history. Having said all that what are the options Trump has in front of him right now. Here are a few that come to my mind but I’m sure there are others I just can’t think of right now. First, he could just pack up and come home ala Ron Paul’s advice to come home and mind your own business. That would mark the end of the unipolar world and an admission that the empire stage of American history is ending and what results it would leave in the Middle East are anyone’s guess. Second, he could just continue the blockade and the air war in the hope that it would finally work. Third, he could launch a ground invasion of Iran like the other wars the U.S. has fought recently in which air power proved unable to force surrender. Invading Iran with ground troops would be different from the other multi decade wars because I doubt that it could be done with minimal U.S. casualties. Iran is a much bigger country with very different terrain across the country. It might even require a general mobilization of the American population with a draft and a conversion to war time production. It would most likely involve tens of thousands of casualties with many of our best young people coming home in boxes. In other words that would be one of the stupidest things an American president could possibly do, but they often do things that seem stupid to me. Fourth, he could resort to the weapons he is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring. He could tell the Iranians that unless they comply with his demands he will use tactical nuclear weapons to destroy their known nuclear and missile sites. He could threaten to increase the intensity and frequency of the attacks until they complied. The results of the fourth option would be so catastrophic that I don’t even need to talk about them. It would forever remove from America the belief that we were once a moral and religious people. Fifth, he could reach a negotiated settlement and to that end Iran offered a suggestion which was quickly rejected but only in part. Iran suggested that the blockade would be lifted and the Strait would be open for free commerce. That would obviously leave Iran in a position to close it anytime the nuclear negotiations did not go their way. The question of nuclear enrichment would be deferred until some day in the future when the sides would start talking again. A lot of people would have accepted the settlement offer except that Trump knows what it really means. It would revert the conflict to status quo as if the war had not been fought except for the fact that Iran’s infrastructure along with much of its leadership are gone. The other message the settlement will send is if we close the Strait you cannot force it open with air power or your navy. That message was not one Donald Trump was willing to accept so he said; what part of no nuclear weapons did you not understand. For now, the war continues and the blockade continues. It appears that the blockade is far more effective than air power proved to be. The blockade is hurting Iran economically to the point they want relief from it so perhaps soon they will relent and the president’s ego could be salved with victory. He admitted when he announced that the settlement was rejected that the blockade was more effective than the bombing. “They are choking like a stuffed pig and it is going to get worse for them.” Perhaps the analogy of a stuffed pig is not the proper one to use with the Mullahs but that is Donald Trumps style not mine. He went on to say that they want to settle. They don’t want me to keep the blockade but I don’t want to lift the blockade because I don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. Iran had to do their tough talk as well saying it would engage in “unprecedented military action.” U.S. Central Command Admiral Brad Cooper said “Right now there are 41 tankers with 69 million barrels of oil that the Iranian regime can’t sell. That’s an estimated $6billion-plus from which Iran’s leadership cannot financially benefit. The blockade is highly effective and U.S. forces remain fully committed to total enforcement.” The Pentagon’s accounting office announced this week that so far the war has cost about $25 billion in taxpayer money. When I hear that I raise an eyebrow because I have a good idea what it costs to maintain a carrier battlegroup at sea and in-flight operations. I know what it costs to keep a carrier-based aircraft in combat mode let alone a massive B-52 or one of the stealth bombers. Tens of thousands of troops deployed with some 32thousand at least, bombs and missiles dropped on Iran. I just don’t think all that can be done for $25 billion. The money is one thing but the war has cost at least 15 American lives and about 400 wounded although casualty figures have been very hard to come by. Let’s not forget the billions of dollars reportedly incurred in damage from Iranian missiles to U.S. bases across the entire region. Damage assessment in the Gulf States and in Israel to U.S. property has been almost impossible to obtain accurately so why lie about the $25 billion. If that department lies each year about the trillions that go unaccounted for by the GAO or Government Accounting Office I suppose it’s not a stretch for them to lie about the cost of war. So, I will assume that the Iranians are politically astute enough to know how this war is affecting U.S. politics. It is terribly unpopular and is a threat to control of the House and Senate. In addition, I spoke to a gentleman the other day who had recently been in Ireland. He said that in the U.S, terms of measurement gasoline was running about $12.50 per gallon and heating oil was unaffordable for most people. That condition probably exists across Europe and would probably make Iran have confidence to just hang on because political pressure will force Trump’s hand. Time will tell if that works or not. Finally, folks, according to UNICEF about 1800 Iranian children have been killed or wounded by the war on Iran. I don’t know if that number is accurate but if the accurate number is more than zero it’s too many. However, as you are painfully aware my opinion is that this war is a stupid waste of lives and resources and should end as soon as possible. Having said that the men and women fighting it are my brothers and sisters and I stand with them always. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
April 24 · 12 min
Some Unexpected Results of War
Darrell Castle talks about the war against Iran and the efforts to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for the commerce of the world along with the unexpected results being felt around the world. Transcription / Notes SOME UNEXPECTED RESULTS OF WAR Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 24th day of April in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking again about the war against Iran and the efforts to keep the Strait of Hormuz open for the commerce of the world along with the unexpected results being felt around the world as a result of this war. Let me start with a brief refresher regarding the history of the U.S. war with Iran before I get into unexpected results. The U.S. government back in 1953 started this long conflict by its overthrow of Mosaddegh who was popularly elect and his replacement with the Shah who was always seen as a U.S. puppet. If what I just said is true and I obviously believe that it is, then the U.S. has been in this conflict for 73 years. In 1953 the Korean War was just shutting down so maybe a new conflict was needed in the Middle East to feed the war machine, who knows. Fast forward to today and we find that often history does repeat but barely is it noticed because it will always be different this time. We have lots of propaganda coming out of the war from both sides and unlike propaganda in earlier wars today’s propaganda reaches the whole world instantly through social media. In World Wars, for example, propaganda was designed only for the home populations of each side. Don’t worry we are winning etc. Except for the Tokyo Rose broadcasts to the U.S. Navy and the Axis Sally broadcasts to the U.S. bomber crews the propaganda was primarily to keep the population’s backs in the war effort. To that end a ceasefire is announced from time to time and that mere announcement will usually calm the headlines and the markets for a brief time. The other side quickly violates the ceasefire or denies that it exists and the whole thing starts over. President Trump says they have agreed to everything and the Iranians say no we will keep our uranium and the Strait remains closed. It appears to be just propaganda back and forth or perhaps just wishful thinking, and the confusion is exacerbated by Iran’s lack of known leadership. We do know a few things that appear to be factual, however. Six or seven weeks ago, the U.S. and Israel launched a preemptive attack, surprise attack, sneak attack depending on your point of view. This attack was launched in the midst of negotiations ala Pearl Harbor. When the Japanese did it they thought and hoped it would demoralize the American people into negotiations favorable to Japan but it had the opposite effect and I submit this attack did the same to Iran. The U.S. dropped unprecedented amounts of bombs and missiles on Korea and Vietnam but neither surrendered and that fact of history seems to have gone unnoticed by the administration. The Iranians believe they are victims of an unprovoked attack which cost them dearly in terms of lives, treasure, and infrastructure. They think they are entitled to compensation for that and I submit that one way or another they will get it. In the meantime, the war is actually helping Iran by raising oil prices worldwide thus helping the Iranian export prices. They could insist on tolls through the Strait of Hormuz which they had never imposed before this war. I suspect that no permanent peace agreement will happen without compensation from the U.S. and/or Israel. Either way it would be on the backs of U.S. taxpayers. My guess is that this war will continue for a time that we could call indefinite and here is one reason why. Trump apparently started this war at the behest of Netanyahu but now he aggressively insults and attacks anyone he perceives to have said a negative word about him and that includes foreign leaders. He doesn’t seem to understand that people remember the insults and foreign affairs of a great nation can’t be conducted like kids jostling each other on a school ground. The problem of war in the Middle East is more than likely unsolvable as long a s Israel exists especially with its current leadership. Therefore, expect to be at war for a long time at least until it finally destroys the U.S. economy. Speaking of the U.S. and world economy let’s look at some results of the war or at least some things made worse by it. This all comes at a time when rising debt levels and rising interest obligations are pushing the U.S. into a more fragile state. According to MoneyWeek U.S. debt has now exceeded 39 trillion. It has been only five months since it blew past 38 trillion. The debt has doubled since Trump was sworn in for his first term or about 10 years ago. No amount of bluster and bombast will erase certain facts such as the U.S. approaching 40 trillion amid rising interest rates, along with a coming debt crises. The U.S. has about 9 trillion of debt that must be refinanced or rolled over this cycle. Presumably short-term treasuries can be sold at about 3.5% but what if they can’t and it takes 5%. That would be catastrophic and would accelerate the crash to unstoppable speed. I admit I’m no economist but that’s the way it looks to me from the numbers. The disturbing thing is that Washington seems to take no notice of it at all. This fiscal year, 2026 the defense budget or war budget as its now called is about $950 billion. Trump has requested an almost 60% increase to $1.5 trillion for fiscal year 2027. That’s all caused by the war right. Well, no, I’m afraid not folks because that doesn’t even include the costs of the Iranian war so he’s saying we need a 60% increase just to keep up. The U.S. has dropped tens of thousands of bombs and missiles on Iran and has lost a few aircraft along with great damage to bases all over the Middle East. The U.S. has had to move its military out of the Persian Gulf region and move its carriers at least 1000 kilometers or about 620 miles from the conflict to avoid missile attacks. So, one unexpected result of the war is that the U.S. multibillion-dollar carriers are very vulnerable to cheap drone and missile attack. Iran apparently has quite a stockpile of those and reportedly China is resupplying them all the time. Iran has an ace up its sleeve in this international poker game of death and that ace is the Strait of Hormuz. The Strait is a narrow strip of water that links the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world. Before the war started approximately 20 million barrels of oil per day or about 20% of global production passed through the Strait along with 20% of global LNG exports according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. The Strait is so vitally important to the world economy that it’s a fair guess that disruption for a prolonged period would provoke a worldwide depression. Iran has spent decades accumulating the means to shut the Strait down. It has commanding geography with a thousand miles of coastline and many inlets where missiles can be stored and launched. The U.S. has discovered that even the U.S. Navy cannot police all of them. Just this week reportedly 24 Iranian tankers slipped through the U.S. blockade. If the Strait is not completely closed it is too dangerous for normal commercial shipping. Oil and natural gas are everywhere and in everything. They are the most important of all commodities that the world depends on. The Far East today is the manufacturing center of the world or the world’s workshop and Middle East oil and gas keeps the Far East working. Until this war is resolved we can probably count on oil above 100$ per barrel and increasing shortages of many things we are used to having in abundance. Ultimately the real danger is worldwide food production and the increasing cost of food caused by ever lower crop yields. This threat to the world’s food supply is being caused by the drastic reduction in fertilizer because so much of it is shipped through the gulf. The world needs fertilizer to grow crops and feed people and that is gradually being strangled. Once again, the unexpected results of war. Perhaps the markets of the world have just been waiting for a pin to pop the bubble so we will see that higher prices for fuel will result in higher prices for everything and that is as inevitable as night follows day. The result of all this and the result of the war will be a significantly lower standard of living for the people of the world. So, propaganda tells us the Strait will remain open and the Mullahs will never have a nuclear weapon. Neither statement appears to be true at the current time so that leaves the U.S. in a very difficult position. The U.S. could admit defeat and leave thus admitting that the Empire cannot fulfill its promises or the U.S. could resort to the unthinkable but I don’t see many other choices. In any event the petrodollar world appears to be ending. I heard Marco Rubio, the Secretary of everything say that Brazil, the largest country in South America just concluded a deal with China to trade in the Chinese currency. The U.S. relies on the dollar as the world’s reserve to bully and sanction other countries but if they are not trading in the dollar then sanctions are no threat. So, the world is changing rapidly and not in favor of the American people or at least that’s my take on it. Donald Trump has hung an Albatross around his neck and removing it is job number one. He might have to allow a strategic retreat to a more defensible line. The failure to reach that conclusion has resulted in the destruction of many armies and the loss of many wars. So, admit it was a mistake and find some way to reverse course no matter what Israel says about it. The longer he persists the worse it will get because he simply is not all powerful like he apparently thought he was, and neither is the United States. Finally, folks,...
April 10 · 11 min
The End of NATO
Darrell Castle talks about whether or not the United States should leave NATO and whether that decision would bring about a new U.S./Iran order in the Middle East. Transcription / Notes: THE END OF NATO Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 10th day of April in the year of our Lord 2026. My beat today is once again war but I am so tired of war each week that I have decided to carve a niche out of the unexpected results of our current war and that is NATO and its possible end for the United States. I’m sure you all know what NATO is but as a refresher it is a treaty (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) in which the U.S. along with the other members agreed to come to each other’s aid if attacked. The purpose was to prevent and protect against a Soviet attack in Europe like the NAZI’s had done. Everything worked fine when there was a Soviet Union to fight and to protect against. The cold war justified the massive defense spending by the U.S. which allowed Europe to rebuild from the war’s devastation and to provide generous welfare benefits to its citizens. The fall of the old enemy, the Soviet Union, triggered a crises in NATO because there was no longer a justifiable reason for its existence. The collapse of Russia and with it, communism, put the alliance under tremendous strain especially when rising debt levels in the U.S, caused economic hardship. People would ask why are American forces still deployed in Europe. Why can’t Europe protect itself from perceived threats. Why do our families have to bear the brunt of Europe’s defense. NATO continued to exist although the reason for its formation no longer existed. The reason smells like the Military Industrial, Intelligence, Security Complex and I am sure that was a lot of it, but some vehicle of justification had to be found for NATO’s continuation and so found it was. NATO still exists today, and American troops are still deployed in Europe today although the reason is now obsolete. Moving the alliance to the borders of Russia along with a coup that replaced Ukraine’s government of pro-Russia elected officials with anti-Russia officials might justify its existence. Who knows, maybe a new war could be started that would require hundreds of billions in new spending. That is exactly what happened and the Obama, Biden, and Trump administrations have handled it the same way. Pour money and weapons into Ukraine to fuel its war against Russia. Make the war last longer and be much worse than it otherwise would be. Perhaps if Ukraine were allowed to use American weapons to attack deep inside Russia then Russia would be provoked enough to attack outside Ukraine but so far that has not happened. Meanwhile back to present day and we find that although the U.S. poured hundreds of billions into Ukraine ostensibly for the defense of Europe, when President Trump decided to launch a stupid, pointless, unprovoked attack against Iran Europe seemed to want no part of it. Trump seemed to think that Europe should have been willing to support the U.S. out of gratitude for all the money and all the graves of America’s sons scattered across Europe. NATO was much weaker than when the U.S. and Europe saw Russia as an existential threat. The Ukraine war, despite all the bluster and propaganda, proved that Russia could not even conquer that small corner of Ukraine on the border of Russia. My theory, then, is that Europe no longer feels threatened by Russia despite all the rhetoric to that effect but it does feel threatened by the millions of Muslims it has invited into its countries and who now live among European populations. So, Europe offers no help in Trump/Israel’s war against Iran. Shockingly, even with our long special relationship with the UK, Prime Minister Starmer would not allow the U.S. to use bases in England, which the U.S. at least partially paid for, to refuel and rearm aircraft used against Iran. Many U.S. administrations, including the Trump Administration, have criticized Europe for not bearing more of the expense and sacrifice for its own defense, Trump has said that this is not 1949 which was the year NATO was founded and Europe is perfectly capable of defending itself. This hostile rhetoric back and forth along with the changing political climate in Europe in which the European general outlook was fast becoming one of subservience to the new global world run or at least managed by the bureaucrats in Brussels. Trump, J.D. Vance, and Marco Rubio have all made it clear that the U.S. would not follow that path so Europe says no help in Iran. Even the European effort to keep the Strait open is virtually nonexistent. There is nothing in the NATO charter that requires member states to support the U.S. efforts in Iran. The U.S. was not attacked which would have triggered the article 5 common defense clause so there is no Charter obligation in their eyes. How about just friendship and gratitude as Trump would put it. I suppose the Europeans say that friendship doesn’t extend that far and in fact we don’t even like you because you are crass and won’t play by our globalist playbook so why should we anger all the Muslims in our countries. Supposedly, Iran has missiles that could reach Berlin and possibly even further and they have proven that these missiles are still there and they cannot be stopped if fired in volume. So, I understand why Europe does not want to support the U.S. in its attack on Iran, but I don’t understand why the U.S. remains in NATO. I am very onboard with Trump’s constant threats to leave NATO because the time is long passed when that should have been done. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will happen because leaving NATO would require congressional approval and I don’t think there is nearly enough support in congress to leave. Of course, another aspect is that the U.S. created NATO and accepted the defense of Europe not as a protection racket but as a strategy to keep European nations from building armies and invading each other which lead to two world wars. To me, this NATO issue along with the two-week ceasefire in Iran represent the best possible chance for a new order to emerge from the chaos. Not a new world order as traditionally talked about but an order in which the U.S. adopts a foreign policy designed to truly benefit the U.S. and its people. That would mean ending the special relationship with Israel and the beginning of treating it like we treat any other country. Ending the special relationship with Israel is job number one if Trump truly wants to extricate the U.S, from the Iranian war, and I think he does. Israel and its American lobby obviously do not want the war to end even if the Strait remains closed and the global economy suffers. It appears that he is not any more grateful than NATO for U.S. help. If that is the case and Trump constantly threatens to leave NATO because “they have been of no help to us “then why doesn’t he threaten Israel with abandonment. The answer to that question would certainly explain a lot. The two-week ceasefire brokered by Pakistan, apparently, was something that had great promise for a new U.S./Iran agreement that could have remade the Middle East. The idea of joint U.S. and Iranian control of the Strait makes sense to me and I saw it as a way to pay for the rebuilding of Iran by charging all those European and Asian tankers a toll for passage. Before the war about 127 ships per day on average passed through the Gulf and now it is 6. If each of 127 ships was charged an average of $100,000 for passage that’s roughly $355 million per month using my crude math. That money would go a long way toward rebuilding Iran from the rubble it now is. Reports say that the U. S. alone has dropped some 32,000 bombs on Iran since the attacks started and that figure doesn’t include what Israel has dropped. In any event the U.S. taxpayer pays for all of it and we are U.S. taxpayers and therefore responsible. This is a free country right or at least that’s how much of the world views it so since we are a “democracy” we the people are responsible for its actions. That sounds good in theory but in fact we have no real way to change anything and when we are given the illusion that we can all we seem to do is make a terrible situation worse. My toll charge system probably would not work because it would increase the price of everything but for the U.S. I’ll wager its cheaper than war. Here in the real-world Trump reportedly told the Iranians that they have a chance to be Persians again. That is a tremendous offer and it shows he does understand at least some of the history of the Persian people. Iran was created by Great Britain from ancient Persia after World War 1 and Trump is offering them an olive branch they could use to regain control of their oil and shipping from Lloyds of London and the English banking system. Why not leave NATO for a new order in the Middle East. Why not, well I’m glad you asked. The answer is Israel, its American lobby, and the neo-con globalist war party that seems to own everything including all our lives. It is probably more than a coincidence that J.D. Vance is going to Pakistan to continue the very intense negotiations that brought this cease fire to life. J.D. is probably the least neo con of anyone in the administration. Could this really end in 5 weeks. Vietnam 15 years, Afghanistan 23 years, Iraq 18 years approximately so we’ll see. Finally, folks pray this cease fire accomplishes more than the neo con war party wants it to accomplish and pray for peace. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
April 3 · 9 min
The Restoration of Liberty
Darrell Castle turns his attention away from the pressing issue of war and looks at Christians and Christianity as we near the end of Holy Week. Transcription / Notes: THE RESTORATION OF LIBERTY Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 3rd day of April in the year of our Lord 2026. I’m very happy that I have something to talk about besides war today. This is in fact Good Friday and in honor of that date and with Easter Sunday just a couple of days away I turn my attention away from the pressing issue of war and look at Christians and Christianity as we near the end of holy week. First, I want to say a few words about the title of this Castle Report and where that title comes from especially since we are currently in the 250th anniversary year of America. My argument is that the founders rather than trying to build a utopian perfect world were seeking the restoration of liberties they once had. The Declaration, written by Thomas Jefferson but inspired by the thinking and writing of John Locke and by the life and words of Jesus Christ as expressed by Jefferson as nature’s God reflect that desire for the return of liberty. They had witnessed the excesses of the French Revolution and the results of mob rule or what we today might call democracy and they sought to build something based on the rights of the individual rather than the collective and that is what for individuals is called liberty. They sought a way to protect the lives they had built in their world and the lives they fought for from the reach of foreign imperial rule. That is one reason why I cringe when America today goes abroad to impose its will on others especially when there seems to be no provocation. Speaking of foreign imperial rule an incident occurred this past Palm Sunday in the ancient city of Jerusalem in modern day Israel. There is a church located in the Christian quarter of the city known as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. That church was built in the 4th century on the site where Jesus’ empty tomb was believed to be located. In other words, it is about 1800 years old and it is one of the holiest sites in all of Christendom. It is simultaneously the seat of the Armenian, Greek Orthodox, and Catholic Patriarchates of Jerusalem. Last Sunday, Palm Sunday, those gentlemen wanted to go inside the church to do a live simulcast to their congregations on that Palm Sunday but they were barred from doing so by the Israeli police. The announcement was made that it was for “security reasons” but no synagogues were closed that day. The church has a long history of remaining open even during two World Wars so the explanation was doubtful. Denial of the Church to the people was so outrageous that even U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee was critical. Huckabee is usually a spokesperson for the Israeli government and so his words stung a little. My understanding is that when Israeli authorities heard his mild rebuke they rescinded the order. I don’t know if that is true or not but in any event the Palm Sunday opportunity to minister to their worldwide congregations was lost. Meanwhile back in America a couple of incidents happened this Holy Week that are worthy of note. A young professional basketball player named Jaden Ivey lost his job because of his refusal to remain silent in the face of what he considered intimidation by his team regarding its affiliation with the LGBTQ community of activists and especially Pride Month celebrated in America in June. Jaden was raised in a basketball family and I guess it is in his DNA because his mother is currently the head coach of the Notre Dame women’s basketball team. He had a stellar college career and was drafted by the Detroit Pistons where he spent several seasons. He also was selected to play on the U.S. national junior team. In February of this year, he was traded to the Bulls where he played in 4 games before suffering a season ending knee injury. He started to speak out against what he considered to be forced imposition of the LGBTQ agenda within the NBA. He said as a committed Christian he considered it “unrighteous.” He said a few other things such as he thought Catholicism to be a false religion. He made all these comments on his private twitter account but if you are an NBA player nothing you say is private so the Bulls quickly released him. To their credit they didn’t try to lie and say it was because of injury, etc. They announced the reason as conduct detrimental to the team which triggers a clause in his contract that permits them not to pay him his contract balance. So, they are, in effect, saying that expressing one’s Christian faith is conduct detrimental to the team. The problem for Jaden is that with a knee injury no one will sign him until they see proof of complete recovery so he should consider filing suit for religious discrimination and recovery of the balance of his contract. My guess is that on the contract at least, they would pay him. So, Christians are not welcome in the NBA or at least no vocal ones. It would be some justice if no Christians bought tickets or watched the team on TV so we will see. People voice their disapproval but nothing will change until we stop buying tickets.The Christian persecution, so evident in the NBA has also infected the NFL. Yes that’s right the mighty NFL bends its knee to the even mightier LGBTQ lobby. It seems that Jaden had some friends in the NFL who knew him and who respected his Christian faith. A player named Treveyon Henderson with the New England Patriots chimed in on his friend’s behalf. “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’s sake for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Mathew 5:10.” Well that created quite a stir and in his required news conference New England Coach Mike Vrabel was asked about it. He made a long statement about how much he liked and respected Treveyon and how we want them, meaning players I guess, to be able to express themselves but we want them to be “educated.” My guess is that Treveyon’s education matches up quite well with his coach so I submit that what he really meant was reeducated. Perhaps the NFL is trying to bend to Communist China as the NBA has done. I understand they do some reeducating in North Korea as well. The Germans used to call it “ideological education.” So, Coach Vrabel is in good company when he wants his player to be educated. There seems to be a growing number of players across professional sports who are Christian and more and more are willing to say it publicly, but it is very obvious that their leagues and this modern immoral society would prefer that they remain silent. Well, this is Easter weekend and I’m paraphrasing now but when Jesus rode into Jerusalem and the people cheered for him didn’t the Pharisees say rebuke your disciples and then he replied If they remain silent the stones along the rode will praise me. Finally, folks, I bring this Good Friday Castle Report to an end with a statement, just a feeling really and that feeling is that there is something going on in this world now that is different. Not just the open persecution of Christians or the obvious belief that the persecution is OK or even desirable, but the fact that this Mideast war seems different. The major religions of the world are looking at it from different positions and they see it through different books but they are saying this might be what our book has been pointing to. The Restoration of Liberty would help though. At least that’s the way I see it, Until next time folks, This is Darrell Castle, Thanks for listening.
March 27 · 13 min
The War Has Been Won
Darrell Castle talks about war and the President's statement that it is basically over and we won. Is that statement true and what are the most recent developments in Iran. Transcription / Notes THE WAR HAS BEEN WON Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. This is Friday the 27th day of March in the year of our Lord 2026. I will be talking about war today and the President’s statement that it is basically over and we won. Is that statement true and what are the most recent developments in Iran. What is war but the most horrific thing in which a country, a people, can engage. It is killing on an industrialized scale and from the carpet-bombing campaigns of WWll to the guided munitions of today it is about killing. It is the young men of a country being ordered by the old men of that country to kill the young men of another country but they kill everybody, men, women, little schoolgirls, everybody. Unless done for purely defensive purposes it is immoral and unconscionable. Was Iran an imminent threat to the U.S. No case for that has been made as far as I know. Joe Kent, Counterterrorism Director said there was no imminent threat and his boss, Tulsi Gabbard, refused to state under oath that she knew of such a threat. Well, last weekend the President said he had quite enough of the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its impact of the world’s economies, it’s rapid increase in the price of fuel and the price of everything here in the U.S., and its downward effect on his poll numbers. He gave the Iranians 48 hours to open the Strait or he would destroy their power system by attacking power plants. Apparently, the new Supreme Leader of Iran was not amused nor was he in a mood to accept the threats. It appears to me that President Trump is desperate to end America’s part of this war with some kind of deal, any kind of deal that would free up the flow of oil. The new leader, Mr. Khamenei, has suffered enough he most likely thought, so why should he voluntarily end the President’s suffering. His father, his mother, his sister, his nephew and his brother-in-law were all killed by the U.S./Israeli military. His father was not only the Supreme Leader of Iran, but he was also the spiritual leader of his faith that being Shia Islam. So, let bygones be bygones the Americans said to him just move on there’s nothing to see here so let’s move on. He was not going to submit meekly to the threats and he said that if the U.S. attacks his energy, he would attack energy infrastructure all around the gulf. Once again the bible speaks to us and says, you reap what you sow. I am not sure right now who is in charge in Iran, of the speaking to diplomats or of the Iranian military because supposed leadership and armed forces leadership are often different. Americans play similar games because Trump is saying the war is over and we won and at the same time diplomats are begging to negotiate while the Israelis are still attacking. That, I suppose, is just psychological gamesmanship. Here’s a quote from Iran’s armed forces spokesman. “We are watching your cowardly officials and commanders, pilots and wicked soldiers. From now on, based on the information we have on you, the promenades, resorts and tourist and entertainment centers in the world will not be safe.” The U.S. warned Americans across the world to exercise increased caution. So, was this a threat to the start of another worldwide terrorism campaign against Americans amusing themselves. Well, perhaps because that’s the sound of it to me. Did he mean only the resorts in the Middle East such as those in Dubai or did he mean worldwide such as those in the U.S. Time will tell I guess but it was an ominous threat. Americans residing in Iraq were warned to leave immediately as well. Then we heard that Mr. Trump had decided to postpone the attacks for five days while negotiations were ongoing. It gets really confusing at this point because we are told that chief negotiator, Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner, the President’s son-in-law, were at a point where a partial deal was in place pending further negotiating. The Iranians said that no deal was in place and further they would not speak to Wittkoff and Kushner anymore. If any further talking which had not occurred were to be done only J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio would be acceptable. I understand why they prefer Vance because for one thing he is Vice-President and for another he has been sidelined through all this and my guess is that he was opposed to the attacks in the first place. Trump has made many statements about offered solutions to the Strait including joint U.S. and Iranian control of it but recently he offered a 15-point peace plan to end the war. He once again said he would unleash hell if the plan was not accepted. The plan went something like this; without giving you all 15 points, the Strait would be opened immediately and remain open. Iran would reject nuclear weapons forever and cease enrichment of uranium. Iran would allow international inspections and abide by their decisions. Iran would restrict its missiles to the short-range defense only type and would immediately cease attacks around the region and would cease attacks through its various terrorist proxies. The U.S. would do its part by ceasing its bombing campaign and the U.S. would assist Iran with development of peaceful nuclear energy. Washington says it wants a framework agreement for a ceasefire until details can be negotiated over a period of a month. So, we are given some hope that the bloodshed might end soon, but as usual those hopes were dashed very quickly. Last Wednesday Iran completely rejected the 15-point plan and said it would not negotiate. Instead, it would run the Gulf shipping lanes along with its proxies in the area. Iran offered its own five-point plan in response most of which has zero chance of acceptance. They want the U.S. to fix or pay for the damage it caused in Iran. Iran continues attacks inside Israel and continues to attack Gulf States friendly to the U.S. Reportedly Bibi Netanyahu has urged Trump to not make a deal until all the Mullahs are gone from Iran. I have even seen a report that Mr. Bin Salman down in Saudi Arabia has joined Israel in that urging. Iran’s response is one of anger from their armed forces while diplomats pretend to talk. “Someone like us will not come to terms with someone like you” the IRGC spokesman says. Trump says we are in negotiations right now, but the Iranians, officially anyway, say no we are not so go figure. In the meantime, the U.S. is not acting as if this war is ending soon. The Saudi report also said that U.S. ground troops should be used to remove the Mullahs from power. Notice I said U.S. ground troops not Saudi ground troops. The U.S. has a Marine Expeditionary Unit on its way to the Gulf onboard an LPH. There is normally between 2500 and 5000 Marines in such a unit. This week about 3000 members of the 82nd airborne division have deployed to the Middle East. This historic division which jumped into occupied France prior to the D-Day landings in 1944 contains some of the best troops in the U.S. military. Trump says that he is confidant he is dealing with the right people. I know one thing he usually doesn’t bluff so these Marines and airborne troops are rather ominous to me and it is starting to take on an Armageddon type of vibe. The importance of all this to the world’s economies is enormous. Aside from the bloodshed and destruction the Gulf and its Strait connect the oil rich nations of the Persian Gulf to the rest of the world and about 30% of the world’s oil passes through that Strait every day. For some nations, such as China, the percentage is higher. Many other nations are very concerned about how the closure of the Strait effects their economies. India said it plans to deploy five warships near the Gulf to protect its interests. England, France, and Germany have all sent warships to the region but the British Navy is apparently not what it used to be. I guess it has been allowed to deteriorate because to this point the UK could only muster one out of date destroyer to contribute. In fact, listen to a few words from a recent article in European Business Magazine. “For over 300 years, Lloyd’s of London has underwritten maritime insurance for the tankers and cargo ships that carry the world’s oil, gas, and goods. Its dominance over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which approximately 30% of the world’s seaborne oil supply passes represented one of the most quietly powerful financial monopolies in history. Control the insurance, and you control who can sail. Control who can sail, and you control the flow of energy that powers the global economy.” That article is really telling us that the 300-year imperial world order has changed and that created a vacuum and as we know power abhors a vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped the U.S. Navy offering the protection that insurance underwrites. The British Crown’s 300-year-old chokehold on global energy insurance has been severed by the U.S. when the UK got cold feet at the wrong moment. America now controls the physical protection of the most critical oil shipping lanes and the world knows it. The world order has indeed been changed on purpose or by accident it has changed. I wonder if the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, is embarrassed by this development. My guess is that he is but he seems to have no idea about what to do. He is in the middle of a terrible scandal involving close associates of the PM and the Epstein files. He has a lot of Muslim voters in his country now so he doesn’t want to be seen as supporting Donald Trump and I suppose that contributed to the embarrassing decline of the British Navy which can’t even protect its own base in Cyprus. In conclusion, world order has changed for certain....

Showing 1–20 of 21 episodes