"Is Trump Going for Armageddon?"

"Is Trump Going for Armageddon?"

by Larry C. Johnson

"Pakistan is trying desperately to hold a new round of talks in Islamabad between the US and Iran. After conflicting statements from the Trump administration, it appears that JD Vance, accompanied by his Zionist watchers - Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner - are headed back to Islamabad. As of 22:20 hours eastern, Iran’s lead negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said there will be no negotiations while the US blockade of Iranian ports remains in effect, stating that they are prepared to demonstrate new cards on the battlefield.

On Monday, April 20, 2026, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian made several public statements (primarily via a post on X and remarks reported by state media) regarding potential negotiations with the United States. His tone was cautious, skeptical, and defiant, while still leaving the door open to diplomacy. He emphasized that any serious talks must be based on consistent, reliable behavior rather than pressure. Pezeshkian highlighted “deep historical mistrust in Iran toward US government conduct.” He accused American officials of sending “unconstructive and contradictory signals” that convey a “bitter message” - that the US is seeking Iran’s surrender.

Pezeshkian stressed that Iran will not yield to threats or bullying. He stated that “war benefits no one” and that “every rational and diplomatic path should be used to reduce tensions.” However, he added that “distrust of the enemy and vigilance in interactions are undeniable necessities.” He described the ongoing US naval blockade as evidence that Washington may be “repeating previous patterns and betraying diplomacy.” Unless Donald Trump lifts the blockade and stops issuing threats, I think that Iran will not agree to a new round of talks.

On the military front, Iran has reacted to the seizure of its cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman by deploying thousands of new anti-ship mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran was not making idle threats about closing the Strait of Hormuz. It is day 53 since the start of the Ramadan war on the 28th of February and Iran is showing no signs of wavering in its demand that the US fulfill its initial acceptance of Iran’s 10-point plan.

Today, Tuesday, marks the final day of the ceasefire that Israel, the US and Iran accepted on 7 April. Both the US and Iran are locked-and-loaded to continue the fight. The US lacks the military resources that are required to open the Strait of Hormuz. It is not just a matter of clearing the mines and seizing territory on the coast… The US would need an enormous ground force to drive inland in order to locate and destroy missile and drone launch sites. As long as Iran can fire missiles and drones at a ship that tries to pass through the Strait without the permission of the IRGC, the Strait will remain closed and firmly under Iranian control.

A recent Wall Street Journal article  "Behind Trump’s Public Bravado on the War, He Grapples With His Own Fears" - reports that Trump’s spate of bizarre, vulgar, threatening posts on social media, e.g., threatening to end Iran as a civilization (implying the use of nuclear weapons), is simply a negotiating ploy - i.e., convince the Iranians that he is unstable and could do anything in order to convince Iran to make concessions. If that is genuinely Trump’s intention, it has backfired spectacularly. It has raised legitimate questions about his mental competence.

Although Trump reportedly is terrified of getting bogged down in another forever war that he once vowed he would never do, I think he will order a new round of attacks in hopes that he will break Iran’s will to resist. That will only compound his problems because Iran will retaliate and inflict catastrophic damage on the Gulf Arabs who continue to side with the US.

Trump still has an exit ramp… JD Vance, working through the Pakistanis, had a tentative deal with the Iranians on Friday that consisted of sanctions relief, unfrozen assets, toll fees recognized in exchange for permanent cessation of hostilities, plus enrichment limits under IAEA supervision. Trump blew off that deal with his decision to impose a blockade. Trump being Trump, he could reverse himself, lift the blockade and empower JD Vance to make the deal.

I am not holding my breath. While such a deal will infuriate the Zionists - both Jewish and Christian - this concession might salvage what is left of Trump’s tattered legacy. However, I think Trump will resort to force… I hope I am wrong."

- https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/

"7 Eleven & Wendy’s Are Shutting Down… US Economy Is Breaking"

Full screen recommended.

Snyder Reports, 4/20/26

"7 Eleven & Wendy’s Are Shutting Down…

 US Economy Is Breaking"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Governments Secret Plan for Food Shortages and WW3"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 4/20/26

"The Governments Secret Plan 

for Food Shortages and WW3"

"Engineer and professor Dr. Joshua Pearce discusses what 

scientists are doing to prepare for food shortages."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Loving Touch"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Loving Touch"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.

Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

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“Big Space”

"Our planet is a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea.

Can we learn what lies beyond our own horizons of perception?" 

"What Is Hope?"

"What Is Hope?"

"What is hope? It is the pre-sentiment that imagination is more real and reality is less real than it looks. It is the hunch that the overwhelming brutality of facts that oppress and repress us is not the last word. It is the suspicion that reality is more complex than the realists want us to believe. That the frontiers of the possible are not determined by the limits of the actual; and in a miraculous and unexplained way, life is opening creative events which will light the way to freedom and resurrection. But the two - suffering and hope - must live from each other. Suffering without hope produces resentment and despair. But hope without suffering creates illusions, naïveté and drunkenness.

So let us plant dates even though we who plant them will never eat them. We must live by the love of what we will never see. That is the secret discipline. It is the refusal to let our creative act be dissolved away by our need for immediate sense experience, and it is a struggled commitment to the future of our grandchildren. Such disciplined hope is what has given prophets, revolutionaries and saints the courage to die for the future they envisage. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope."

- Rubin Alves

“I Know How to Live… I Don’t Know How to Die”

“I Know How to Live… I Don’t Know How to Die”

by Bill Bonner

“I’ve never done this before…” The woman on the bed was almost a skeleton. The flesh had already gone from her. What was left was an 86-year-old empty tube – shriveled, bent, used up. “I know how to live,” she said. “I don’t know how to die. I don’t know what I’m supposed to think or what I’m supposed to do.”

“Don’t worry about it,” we advised. “It’ll come naturally. Do you need anything?” “Need anything? I need nothing at all. Absolutely nothing. I’m dying. And I have everything I need to do it.” “How about some more pain medication?” “No. I don’t want any. I am only going to do this once. I don’t want to get doped up. I don’t want to miss anything.”

Heaven with Tobacco Fields: People who are dying have a status somewhere between Nobel Prize winners and mobsters. We are reluctant to contradict them. We remember a scene from childhood: We had gone to visit a dying uncle, Edward. Like all our relatives, he was a tobacco farmer. But now the plant he had cared for all his life was killing him: he had lung cancer. Other relatives had gathered at the house to say goodbye. The mood was gloomy, dark… quiet. But the conversation, in early spring, ran in a familiar direction – toward the weather and soil conditions. “They won’t be planting tobacco where I’m going,” said Uncle Edward.

The group fell silent. Some looked down at the floor. Some shuffled toward the kitchen. But Agnes, a cousin, challenged him. “How do you know where you’re going or what they’re doing there?” This enlivened and emboldened the confrérie of tobacco growers. “Yeah, for all we know they’re pulling the plants already,” said one, glancing out the window to see if the rain had stopped. (The plants were “pulled” from the nursery beds for transplanting in the fields. We particularly disliked pulling them because black snakes enjoyed the warm of the gauze-like covering and slithered among the plants.)

The 12-year-old in the group – your editor – forever admired his cousin Agnes. She could see the truth and had the courage to speak it. None of us knew what happened after death. Why not tobacco farming? We tried to imagine Heaven with tobacco fields. It was so implausible that we had a hard time with it. But we persisted. Rows of the green plants, tended by generations of deceased farmers. The sun must not be so hot in Heaven, we concluded, for there was nothing heavenly about the scorching summer sun when you were cutting tobacco. The ghost farmers must hoe each row… and “top” the plants to remove the flower and force the growth to the leaves, just as we did in the Maryland fields. At the end of the day, sweat-stained and tired, they must gather around their pickup trucks – one foot up on the running board, an elbow on the raised knee, with a cigarette in the right hand.

An Unexplored Mystery: The other professions must have their quarters, too… Wheat farmers need broader fields. Cobblers could enjoy their trade, too. Why not? Heaven – immeasurably large – could have a place for everybody. Even bankers and lawyers might find a spot. For a moment, we imagined what it must be like, with mechanics tightening their bolts and dairymen milking their cows. But if everybody did in Heaven what he did on Earth, what was the point of it? The juvenile mind, like its adult successor, stalled.

Half a century later, it is still stopped where it was left – like a tractor abandoned on the edge of a field, with trees grown up between the wheels. Rust has covered the hood. The tires, cracked from the sun, have flattened and disintegrated. It has moved not an inch forward… leaving the mystery of Heaven completely unexplored. “Well, you’re not dead yet,” we replied. “How about a little apple juice?”

The death rattle began two days later. The goodbyes have all been said. Prayers have been offered. Undertakers contacted. A church put on alert. Remembrances shared. Toward the end there was no one there to share the remembrances with. The spirit seemed to have packed up and moved out before the body got the message. Life, like bull markets and credit expansions, always come to an end, sooner or later. New technology and newfangled monetary policies offer delays, unfounded hope, and stays of execution – but never a full pardon.”

- http://www.thedailyreckoning.com

○

Bread, "Everything I Own"

"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call 

you could make, who would you call and what would you say? 

And why are you waiting?"

- Stephen Levine

Chet Raymo, “As Time Goes By”

“As Time Goes By”

by Chet Raymo

“Is time something that is defined by the ticking of a cosmic clock, God’s wristwatch say? Time doesn’t exist except for the current tick. The past is irretrievably gone. The future does not yet exist. Consciousness is awareness of a moment. Or is time a dimension like space? We move through time as we move through space. The past is still there; we’re just not there anymore. The future exists; we’ll get there. We experience time as we experience space, say, by looking out the window of a moving train. Or is time…

Physicists and philosophers have been debating these questions since the pre-Socratics. Plato. Newton. Einstein. Most recently, Lee Smolin. Without resolution. What makes the question so difficult, it seems to me, is that time is inextricably tied up with consciousness. We won’t understand time until we understand consciousness, and vice versa. So far, consciousness is a mystery, in spite of books with titles like “Consciousness Explained”. Will consciousness be explained? Can consciousness be explained? If so, will it require a conceptual breakthrough of revolutionary proportions? Or is the Darwinian/material paradigm enough? Are we in for an insight, or for a surprise?

As I sit here at my desk under the hill, looking out at a vast panorama of earth, sea and sky, filled, it would seem, infinitely full of detail, so full that my awareness can only skim the surface, I have that uneasy sense that it’s going to be damnably difficult to extract consciousness, as a thing, from the universe in its totality. I think of that word “entanglement,” from quantum theory, and I wonder to what extent consciousness is entangled, perhaps even with past and future.

Who knows? Perhaps consciousness, or what I think of as my consciousness, is just a slice of cosmic consciousness, in the same way that the present is a slice of cosmic time. As a good Ockhamist, I am loathe to needlessly multiply hypotheses. But time will tell. Or consciousness will tell. Or something.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"Casablanca", "As Time Goes By", 

Original Song by Sam (Dooley Wilson)

"Death in the Afternoon"

"Death in the Afternoon"

by Joel Bowman

"To be immortal is commonplace; except for man, 

all creatures are immortal, for they are ignorant of death; 

what is divine, terrible, incomprehensible, is to know that one is mortal."

~ Jorge Luis Borges

"Everything is illuminated against its opposite; truth against fallacy; light against darkness; life against death. And who would have it any other way, even if they could? What would life on this mortal coil be, for instance, without the eternity of its terminally mysterious counterpoint?

If there exists a perfect setting for these and associated meditations, it must surely be the magnificent Recoleta Cemetery, located right here in Buenos Aires. On any given weekend, this sacred resting place for thousands of the city’s most famous – and infamous – people is found to be one of the liveliest places in town. Notable interments include a who’s-who list of Argentine writers, painters, poets, musicians, scientists and luminaries from other noble fields of interest. And, because nothing, including death, is beyond the law of equilibrium, a handful of politicians also rot underfoot.

Tourists pour in to adorn Maria Eva Duarte de Perón’s grave with flowers, for instance, bypassing the resting place of a Nobel Prize-winning chemist and a dozen honest writers to do so. Other, temporary attendees pose with Colgate smiles to have their picture taken beside weeping cement angels, frozen, as they are, in a state of perpetual sorrow. Young boys give the “peace” symbol next to the generals’ tombs whose armies laid to waste to tens of thousands of men, not much older than they, the bodies of whom are long forgotten, their makeshift graves unmarked.

Nowhere does irony live a fuller life than in a cemetery. Walking among the deceased, reading bookend dates on the bronze plaques, one is reminded of the finite nature of all things; organisms, currencies, political regimes, class structures. When the cemetery was constructed, back in 1822, it must have been a good ride from the exclusive barrios of San Telmo and Montserrat. The rich probably wouldn’t have been caught dead around the grounds of the Monks of the Order of the Recoletos, nor near the shabby, patchwork graveyard that was built there the same year the group disbanded.

Half a century later - and with Argentina still reeling from the War of the Triple Alliance and its own, subsequent civil war - a yellow fever epidemic tore through the capital city. Its wealthier, southern quarters were among the worst hit areas. Death toll estimates range from thirteen to twenty-five thousand. The clase alta packed up and moved north, largely into and around the Recoleta barrio. As such, the marbled vaults came to be populated with members of this same aristocracia, who, though they escaped the fever, came to rest here eventually just the same.

Today, you could buy an entire building in San Telmo for the same price as some of the finely appointed homes in Recoleta. An entire block in Montserrat might go for half that much.

And so it goes. People die…cities and empires crumble to the ground…and time, indifferent to the fleeting anguishes and triumphs of men, presses on.

At the turn of the 20th century, Argentina was ranked as the 8th most prosperous nation on earth. Only Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and a handful of former English colonies - including the United States – were more favorably positioned, economically. In 1913, Argentina’s bustling, cosmopolitan capital, Buenos Aires, had the thirteenth highest per capita telephone penetration rate in the world. Her per capita income was, around this time, 50% higher than in Italy, almost twice that of Japan and five times greater than its northern neighbor, Brazil. Argentina’s industry churned out quality textiles and leading edge, refrigerated shipping containers carried her prized beef, first introduced in 1536 by the Spanish Conquistadors, from the fertile plains of the pampas to the farthest reaches of the known world.

As the century wore on, protectionist policies at home and increased competition from the export-led, post-WWII economies – particularly from Japan and Italy – undermined Argentina’s international advantage. From 1900 through to the beginning of the new millennium, Argentina’s real GDP per person grew at a rate of 1.88% per year. Brazil outpaced her handily, clocking a 2.39% annualized growth rate. Japan, starting with a real GDP per person of just over $1,500 (2006 dollars) at the turn of the twentieth century, grew an average of 2.76% per year. By the middle of last decade, Japan’s real GDP per person had doubled that of Argentina. By 2020, it was more than quadruple.

The phenomenon is so conspicuous, the local Argentines even have a joke for it. “There are four types of countries in the world,” they lament. “First world. Third world. Japan, where nobody can figure out how they did so much with so little. And Argentina, where nobody can figure out how we did so little with so much.”

War, currency debasement, civil unrest, military rule and the catalyzing agent of political aspiration, harbored by the equally corrupt and inept, all conspired to stultify this once-proud nation’s potential. The great Argentine poet and essayist, Jorge Luis Borges, described one such retarding factor with characteristic flare and wit: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

On a comfortable Sunday afternoon in late February, an elderly group of well-dressed gentlemen met at their favorite restaurant, right by the gate to the Recoleta Cemetery, for lunch. They took a table outside, one in the shade and with a view of the passing foot traffic. The waiters, having brought the regulars the same thing, more or less, every Sunday for as long as they could remember, immediately set about filling their table. There was bife de lomo and chorizo sausages, mozzarella and buffalo tomatoes and papas fritas by the pile. Rich, Argentine Malbecs and Cabernets flowed freely and the merriment of the group soon became infectious. They flirted with the pretty waitresses and joked with patrons at the nearby tables.

After more than a few bottles, one of the gentlemen got chatting with an Australian editor of no particular importance. “I am a judge here,” he eventually told the younger man. “My friends and I have seen it all in this city…riots, economic crises, war, people’s entire life savings wiped out overnight.”

One of his friends lent over and placed a knowing hand on the judge’s shoulder. “Today, we enjoy the moment,” he said to his lifelong friend, before adding, one long finger pointed over the cemetery wall, “because tomorrow…ha ha…well, you know our next stop old man.” And the table erupted in laughter, as the sun set over the angel’s heads in the background.

Cheers,"

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

“In The Long Run… We Are All Alive”

by MN Gordon 

“In 1976, economist Herbert Stein, father of Ben Stein, the economics professor in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, observed that U.S. government debt was on an unsustainable trajectory. He, thus, established Stein’s Law: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.” Stein may have been right in theory. Yet the unsustainable trend of U.S. government debt outlasted his life.  Herbert Stein died in 1999, several decades before the crackup. Those reading this may not be so lucky.

Sometimes the end of the world comes and goes, while some of us are still here. We believe our present episode of debt, deficits, and state sponsored economic destruction, is one of these times.. We’ll have more on this in just a moment. But first, let’s peer back several hundred years. There we find context, edification, and instruction.

In 1696, William Whiston, a protégé of Isaac Newton, wrote a book. It had the grandiose title, “A New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the Consummation of All Things.” In it he proclaimed, among other things, that the global flood of Noah had been caused by a comet. Mr. Whiston took his book very serious. The good people of London took it very serious too. Perhaps it was Whiston’s conviction. Or his great fear of comets. But, for whatever reason, it never occurred to Londoners that he was a Category 5 quack.

Like Neil Ferguson, and his mathematical biology cohorts at Imperial College, London, Whiston’s research filled a void. Much like today’s epidemiological models, the science was bunk. Nonetheless, the results supplied prophecies of the apocalypse to meet a growing demand. It was just a matter of time before Whiston’s research would cause trouble…

Judgement Day: In 1736, William Whiston crunched some data and made some calculations. He projected these calculations out and saw the future. And what he witnessed scared him mad. He barked. He ranted. He foamed at the mouth to anyone who would listen. Pretty soon he’d stirred up his neighbors with a prophecy that the world would be destroyed on October 13th of that year when a comet would collide with the earth.

Jonathan Swift, in his work, “A True and Faithful Narrative of What Passed in London on a Rumour of the Day of Judgment,” quoted Whiston: “Friends and fellow-citizens, all speculative science is at an end: the period of all things is at hand; on Friday next this world shall be no more. Put not your confidence in me, brethren; for tomorrow morning, five minutes after five, the truth will be evident; in that instant the comet shall appear, of which I have heretofore warned you. As ye have heard, believe. Go hence, and prepare your wives, your families, and friends, for the universal change.”

Clergymen assembled to offer prayers. Churches filled to capacity. Rich and paupers alike feared their judgement. Lawyers worried about their fate. Judges were relieved they were no longer lawyers. Teetotalers got smashed. Drunks got sober. Bankers forgave their debtors. Criminals, to be executed, expressed joy.

The wealthy gave their money to beggars. Beggars gave it back to the wealthy. Several rich and powerful gave large donations to the church; no doubt, reserving first class tickets to heaven. Many ladies confessed to their husbands that one or more of their children were bastards. Husbands married their mistresses. And on and on…

The Archbishop of Canterbury, William Wake, had to officially deny this prediction to ease the public consternation. But it did little good. Crowds gathered at Islington, Hampstead, and the surrounding fields, to witness the destruction of London, which was deemed the “beginning of the end.” Then, just like Whiston said, a comet appeared. Prayers were made. Deathbed confessions were shared. And at the moment of maximum fear, something remarkable happened: the world didn’t end. The comet did not collide with earth. It was merely a near miss.

The experience of Whiston, and his pseudoscience prophecy, shows that predictions of the end of the world come and go while people still remain. Sometimes the fallout of these predictions, and the foolishness they provoke, is limited. Other times the foolishness they provoke leads to catastrophe. Here’s what we mean…

“In the long run we are all dead,” said 20th Century economist and Fabian socialist, John Maynard Keynes. This was Keynes rationale for why governments should borrow from the future to fund economic growth today. Of course, politicians love an academic theory that gives them cover to intervene in the economy. This is especially so when it justifies spending other people’s money to buy votes. Keynesian economics, and in particular, counter-cyclical stimulus, does just that.

U.S. politicians have attempted to borrow and spend the nation to prosperity for the last 80 years. Over the past decade, the Federal Reserve has aggressively printed money to fund Washington’s epic borrowing binge. Fed Chair Jay Powell confirmed that the Fed will pursue policies of dollar destruction to, somehow, print new jobs.

The world as it was once known – where a dollar was as good as gold – has come and gone. Today, in life after the end of that world, we are witnessing the illusion of wealth, erected by four generations of borrowing and spending, crumble before our eyes. Moreover, contrary to Keynes, in the long run we are not all dead. In fact, in the long run we are all very much alive. And we are all living with the compounding consequences of shortsighted economic policies.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

The Poet: Galway Kinnel

"Another Night in the Ruins"

"How many nights must it take

one such as me to learn

that we aren't, after all, made

from that bird that flies out of its ashes,

that for us

as we go up in flames,

our one work is

to open ourselves,

to be the flames?"

~ Galway Kinnel

"Compassion and Enabling"

"Compassion and Enabling"

by Admin

"Sometimes there is a very blurry line between feeling and expressing compassion, and enabling someone. Showing compassion is giving someone space and understanding so they can work through their predicament whilst remaining at a healthy emotional distance. This healthy emotional distance can be hard to judge in close knit relationships such as marriage and families. For should one fall over the edge of compassion and into the field of pity, neither party will benefit. Pity serves no one in relation to creating the desired changes within relationships of any kind.

Somewhere in between the blurry lines of compassion and pity lies the process labeled as enabling. Enabling is an overdose of compassion. When compassion distorts into pity, the individual is assisted in continuing with behavioral traits that clearly do not serve either party with regards to emotional, mental and psychical health.

People become enabled to continue their damaging behavioral traits via beloved others wearing the mask of compassion. The beloved other becomes drawn into the vacuum of the sufferer’s reality. Unknowingly, they begin to slip into pity, whilst believing that they are still expressing compassion. Once a person becomes drawn into the illusion of the other person’s reality they begin to make excuses for themselves as a means of justifying the abuse they are committing. They are enabling the sufferer, therefore abusing the sufferer, whilst they wear the mask of compassion. For anyone who is assisting the abuser, via allowing the abuser to continue on their discourse without obstruction, using (false) compassion (pity) as a reason, is ultimately abusing and damaging the abuser even more. And they are also damaging themselves.

Now this sounds all good and fine in theory from the clear perspective of the unattached observer, but what of the person in the eye of the tornado. What of the mother whose daughter is severely addicted to drugs? And what of the husband who must cope with the severe depression of his wife?

Compassion and pity become extremely difficult to distinguish in such circumstances. One’s own belief systems become strained and one starts to question the integrity of their own reality. Little by little people begin to compromise themselves in order to compensate for the others distorted behavioral traits. This is pity and pity is abuse. These self compromises come from one’s own false belief that they alone are responsible for ensuring that the abuser is healed. They take the false responsibility on board based on ethics and morals they have adopted from society or other people, meanwhile their intuition, (their inner truth) screams at them telling them that this does not feel right.

When one indulges another’s reality long enough via pity, one cannot help become exposed to deteriorating emotional and psychological states. This is the clearest sign that you have been enabling someone. If you are showing someone genuine compassion then your psychological and emotion health will not be affected.

When you find yourself constantly dwelling over another’s situation as well as altering your psychological and emotional states to compensate for another’s predicament, then you are enabling someone. This for most people is too harsh a reality to admit, especially when the person is very close to you. Usually one’s entire belief system is based on giving love and helping another, yet when love and compassion distort into pity and enabling, we are simply forgetting to love ourselves first, and in doing so, we hurt the other instead.

On the surface this may sound selfish, yet the underlying truth is that we cannot help another, unless we love ourselves correctly first. Another harsh reality is that you are responsible for no one but yourself. Compassion allows someone the opportunity to realize this even in the mist of immense suffering. Pity enables another to disperse responsibility away from themselves and onto another, which helps and heals no one.

There are no definitive guidelines to judge whether you are expressing compassion or enabling someone. But perhaps the question you could ask yourself is; if I continue to live with my present emotional and mental states, will this affect my overall health in the future? If you can honestly answer ‘no’, then you are expressing compassion. If you can’t honestly say ‘no’, then perhaps you need to step back a touch and love yourself more, and then you will have a clearer perspective in regards to the other, and what the other really requires."

- http://thespiritualpsychologysite.com/

o

"Compassion is not at all weak. It is the strength that arises out of seeing the true nature of suffering in the world. Compassion allows us to bear witness to that suffering, whether it is in ourselves or others, without fear; it allows us to name injustice without hesitation, and to act strongly, with all the skill at our disposal. To develop this mind state of compassion... is to learn to live, as the Buddha put it, with sympathy for all living beings, without exception."

- Sharon Salzberg

The Daily "Near You?"

Tours, Centre, France. Thanks for stopping by!

"Don't Wonder..."

"Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.
In the face of what we can lose in a day, in an instant,
wonder what the hell it is that makes us hold it together."

- "Grey's Anatomy"

"Stupidity..."

“Evil isn’t the real threat to the world. Stupid is just as destructive 

as Evil, maybe more so, and it’s a hell of a lot more common. What we 

really need is a crusade against Stupid. That might actually make a difference.” 

-  Jim Butcher

'The U.S. Navy Just Blew A Giant Hole In An Iranian Cargo Ship As The Crisis In The Strait Of Hormuz Escalates To An Entirely New Level"

by Michael Snyder

"Apparently the Trump administration was not kidding when it warned that no Iranian ships would be allowed through the blockade. Just a little while ago, Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Navy has blown an enormous hole in the side of an Iranian cargo vessel that willingly chose to ignore a warning to turn around. Just two days after the completely irrational euphoria that we witnessed on Friday, the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz is worse than ever, and there is no end in sight.

On Friday, I explained why the extremely positive headlines that we were reading in the western world were dead wrong. When the two week ceasefire with Iran was originally unveiled, the Iranians were supposed to completely open the Strait of Hormuz for that two week period. But they hesitated because fighting was still raging in Lebanon, and the Iranians believed that the fighting in Lebanon was supposed to be part of the ceasefire. When Israel and Hezbollah finally agreed to a ten day ceasefire late last week, the Iranians finally fulfilled their obligation by opening the Strait of Hormuz for the remainder of the ceasefire. But the Iranians also warned that if the U.S. did not respond by lifting the naval blockade for the rest of the ceasefire the Strait of Hormuz would be quickly closed once again, and that is precisely what happened.

Just hours after opening it, the IRGC shut down all traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and announced that any attempt to pass through would be “considered cooperation with the enemy, and the violating vessel will be targeted”…Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) reportedly issued a sweeping warning to ships in the region on Saturday, saying any movement toward the Strait of Hormuz will be viewed as cooperation with “the enemy.”

“Following the violation of the ceasefire conditions, the American enemy did not lift the naval blockade of Iranian vessels and ports; therefore, from this afternoon, the Strait of Hormuz is closed until this blockade is lifted,” the IRGC said, according to Tehran-based WANA News Agency. The IRGC also instructed vessels in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to remain at anchor, warning that any ship approaching the strategic waterway “will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the violating vessel will be targeted.”

Needless to say, the Iranians were not bluffing. On Saturday, multiple commercial vessels were fired upon…"Gunfire was reported after at least two vessels tried to pass through the waterway on Saturday – with the captain of one tanker claiming his ship was approached by two Iranian gunboats. US security sources claimed that Iran carried out at least three attacks on ships, Axios reports.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations centre confirmed a cargo vessel was attacked by a projectile near Oman – damaging containers on board. The captain of an Indian oil tanker that was completely convinced that he had permission to go through the Strait was desperately asking for permission to turn around once the Iranians started shooting at his ship…In the radio transmission, the captain of the Sanmar Herald oil tanker addresses ‘Sepah navy,’ which is the name of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy. Clearly alarmed, he continues: ‘This is Motor Vessel Sanmar Herald. You gave me clearance to go! My name is second on your list. ‘You gave me clearance to go! You a firing now. Let me turn back!’ Marine tracking data shows the Sanmar got part of the way through the Strait before sharply doubling back on itself.

If the Trump administration would have just lifted the blockade for the duration of the ceasefire, a lot of tankers could have potentially gotten through the Strait, and that would have been a huge blessing to everyone. But instead we are back to square one, and the Iranians are mocking us… Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, taunted Trump over the closure. In a post on social media, he said: “We warned you, but you ignored it. Now ENJOY the Strait of Hormuz returning to the status quo.”

This is a very alarming turn of events. A reporter for CBS News traveled to the Strait of Hormuz to see things for himself, and he encountered dozens of large commercial vessels just sitting still in the water…"We crossed from one Gulf country into another and eventually found ourselves on a coastal road that felt almost too beautiful for the tensions that lay just offshore.

On one side were jagged mountains rising straight out of the earth, completely bare of vegetation. On the other, clear blue water stretched out into the Gulf. And then, as the road curved, we saw the ships. Not one or two, but dozens. Sitting still. Waiting."

Overall, there are more than 3,000 ships that are currently trapped in the Persian Gulf with no way out. Of course the Iranians cannot get any ships out either now that a U.S. Navy blockade is in place. On Sunday, one of our guided missile destroyers blew a giant hole in the side of an Iranian cargo ship named “TOUSKA”…

It took a while for that to sink in when I first came across that post by President Trump. I could hardly believe what I had just read. This is a major escalation. And the U.S. is also threatening to seize Iranian vessels anywhere in the world during the days ahead… The US military is preparing to board Iran-linked vessels and oil tankers in the coming days, a move that will expand a conflict largely confined to the Strait of Hormuz into a global crackdown. General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announced the escalation on Thursday, according to US officials who spoke with The Wall Street Journal. Caine said the US ‘will actively pursue any Iranian-flagged vessel or any vessel attempting to provide material support to Iran’.

The Trump administration is convinced that this blockade is the key to ending the war. They believe that the Iranians will be forced to give in eventually. On the other side, the Iranians are convinced that holding the global economy hostage will force the Trump administration to give in.

Both sides are making tragic miscalculations, and meanwhile the entire world is suffering. It is spring planting season, and we can’t get fertilizer from the Middle East into the hands of farmers all over the northern hemisphere that desperately need it… Beginning in the 1960s, in an effort to diversify their economies, the Gulf countries invested heavily in their fertilizer industries, leveraging their abundant natural resources. Foreign fertilizer companies began flocking to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, drawn by low taxes, a favorable geographic location, and the city’s seamless air and sea transport hubs.

The Gulf’s investment in fertilizer paid off, as by 2026, much of the developing world was reliant on Gulf fertilizers. Three of the top ten global urea exporters, the world’s most commonly used nitrogen-based fertilizer, are located within the Persian Gulf. One-third of internationally traded fertilizers and roughly 45% of sulphur exports, a key ingredient in phosphate fertilizers, pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s blockade has brought all of these exports to a near-halt. The timing could hardly be worse, coming during planting season for much of the world.

In addition, nations such as India that normally import large amounts of natural gas from the Middle East in order to make their own fertilizer are being forced to cut back production…The effects go well beyond halting shipments of fertilizer produced in the Gulf, which is situated at the head of a vast global supply chain. India, itself a big fertilizer producer, has had to scale back production due to fuel shortages linked to the war. New Delhi ordered fertilizer plants to scale back production to 70% capacity to cope with the shortage. “This is not only an energy shock. It is a systematic shock affecting agrifood systems globally,” Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Máximo Torero, warned on Thursday.

We are facing a global fertilizer crisis that is far beyond anything that we have ever seen before. Here in the United States, this has come at a time when we are already in the midst of a historic drought… A massive drought has emerged across large swaths of the US agricultural belt, threatening crops and livestock and eventually affecting food prices, at a time when fertilizer and diesel costs are soaring. As of early April, 60% of the Lower 48 is in drought as the Northern Hemisphere growing season begins and farmers begin plantings, according to NOAA. The southern US is already experiencing severe, extreme, and even exceptional drought conditions, putting pressure on key crops such as sugarcane, rice, and peanuts, while fruit trees have also been damaged by extreme temperatures.

Food production is going to be way down all over the planet in 2026. José Andrés is warning that we are headed for “a very big increase in famine across the world by the fall of 2026 and 2027″… The celebrity chef and humanitarian José Andrés has a warning for the suits in Washington and around the world: stop looking at the oil tickers and start looking at the soil. The World Central Kitchen (WCK) founder believes that the world is sleepwalking into a massive, multi-year famine, being slow-walked by the “silent” collapse of the global fertilizer trade as a byproduct of the war with Iran. “I foresee a very big increase in famine across the world by the fall of 2026 and 2027,” Andrés told the Guardian on the sidelines of Semafor’s global economy conference in Washington.

He is right. If the Strait of Hormuz does not open soon, food shortages will hit the world like a freight train in 6 to 9 months. But unless consequences are going to hit us immediately, most people in the western world don’t seem to care. Instead, most of us just continue to go about our lives as if nothing unusual is going on, and for the moment ignorance is bliss."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Food Shortage Is Coming"

Full screen recommended.

Snyder Reports, 4/20/26

"Food Shortages Hit The US:

 Millions Must Prepare Now"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 4/20/26

"Stock Up at Sam's Club, Price Increases Begin"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Meanwhile, elsewhere...

Full screen recommended.

Travelling With Russell, 4/20/26

"First Look Inside Moscow's 

Brand New Supermarket"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

"A Deeper Dive Into The Donald: The King's Megalomania is Nearing its Imperial Zenith" (Excerpt)

"A Deeper Dive Into The Donald: 

The King's Megalomania is Nearing its Imperial Zenith'

by David Haggith

Excerpt: "I read some interesting observations this weekend from a former psychologist at Johns Hopkins University who said that Trump’s psychosis (beyond mere dementia) has reached a stage he describes as “magical thinking.” This is particularly dangerous when narcissism, now running reckless under dementia, reaches the level of megalomania in a person who actually has near absolute power in human terms. (Tell me Trump doesn’t fit every word of the definition provided at that link!) Reaching this level in his narcissism puts Trump in the same dangerous sphere as other supreme evil emperors, such as Nero, Caligula, and Kim Jung Un, who deified themselves, now that Trump is almost daily trying to do the same thing.

Trump clearly sees himself as a global emperor as the talks incessantly about taking over Canada, Greenland, Venezuela, and Cuba and flaunts a map that shows Mexico and all of Central America as being part of a single American nation or empire) that he will bring about, and he clearly envies the adoration and worship that he sees Jesus getting from the “Christians” who are in his closest ring of support, which includes the false prophets who feed his megalomania/delusions of grandeur by telling him over and over how much like Jesus he is and how chosen by God.

His megalomania has finally become so painfully obvious that, even several of his loudest and most popular (and often obnoxious) supporters are now insisting he be “Twenty-fifthed” before he causes serious damage to the US and the world. (We’ll come to those below.) The Donald’s mad behavior has finally grown so outrageous that many of those with actual Trump Derangement Syndrome can no longer avoid seeing his derangement. (A syndrome where those who go along with the president in his deranged beliefs about his greatness accuse everyone who sees clearly that the Donald is as deranged as a mad duck is accused of being deranged for recognizing something long obvious that they simply don’t WANT to see.)

I’ll let the professor of psychology explain how the Deranged Don’s behavior has culminated in such a crisis that even his strongest supporters are finally pressed to admit Donald is one mad duck: "President Donald Trump has crossed from grandiosity into full-blown psychosis, psychologist Dr. John Gartner has warned. Gartner, a former professor at Johns Hopkins University, told The Daily Beast Podcast that the 79-year-old president is engaged in “magical thinking….”

“It’s something that, again, we associate with psychosis. We also associate it with young children. Freud called it ‘primary process.’ It’s kind of the most primitive type of thinking, where if you imagine it, it must be true. But this is just magical thinking. Anything that occurs to him - any stray, crazy thought - is true.”

Gartner, who said a few weeks ago that Trump’s mental “deterioration” was accelerating, then mentioned several of Trump’s fanciful social media posts: his since-removed depiction of himself as Jesus Christ, his mock-up as the pope, and his Truth Social post calling himself the “acting president of Venezuela.” “His grandiosity is so extreme that not only does he want to be the pope and Jesus and the president of Venezuela and the Mullah of Iran - he wants to be all of these things at once. He wants the world to worship him, and he wants to erect massive monuments to praise himself,” he said.

King Donald needs for the Trump ballroom to be the biggest and grandest and most powerfully situated ever. He needs the Arc de Trump to be bigger than the Arc de Triomphe and other magnificent arches celebrating historic victories so it is able to be seen all the way down the Mall from the Capitol. He can’t stand that other emperors had arches and he doesn’t; so, he’ll see to it that he does. He’s always had to put his name in huge letters on almost everything he does. He needs to sign the dollar bill and stimulus checks so his name gets the credit for as much of the money that goes into the hands of the masses as possible so he will earn their adoration with other people’s money. He starts “Trump” accounts with free money for kids so they’ll grow up feeling thankful for all he has given them. Everything he does is a huge upward spiraling circle of praise to him. And now he’s reached the level of aspiring to be worshipped as a deity… even as Jesus, but he hasn’t been able to pull that off… yet. (Or I’m wrong, and he really just wants to be a doctor dressed in ancient Roman garb who heals with orbs of light and has a halo of golden light fringing his golden hair.)

Just a little segue: Many people became interested in how the AI imagined Trump’s Jesus image, putting something in there of which, perhaps, Trump was not aware. In the light that the lines of perspective follow into the background behind Orange Jesus (or the “Great Pumpkin,” as I like to call him now that he’s totally bat-guano insane, as his biggest have supporters agreed over the past week or two) is an image of a demonic entity that stands behind him. Usually the silhouettes in the light behind a glorified person represent the entity that sent him or show what is coming along in his wake. So, think about that for fun!"

Full, most highly recommended article is here:

- https://www.thedailydoom.com/

o

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs, "Trump's Mental State"

"Trump the God"

"Trump the God"

by Chris Hedges

"During the two years I spent writing “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America,” I encountered numerous mini-Trumps. These self-proclaimed pastors - very few had any formal religious training - preyed on the despair of their congregants. They were surrounded by sycophants and could not be questioned. They merged fact with fiction, peddled magical thinking and enriched themselves at the expense of their followers. They claimed their wealth and ostentatious lifestyle, including mansions and private jets, was a sign of being blessed. They insisted they were divinely inspired and anointed by God. They were, within their hermetic circles of their megachurches, omnipotent.

These cult pastors promised to use their omnipotence to crush the demonic forces that had created misery in the lives of their followers - unemployment and underemployment, evictions, bankruptcies, poverty, addiction, sexual and domestic abuse, and crippling despair. The more power the cult leaders possess - according to their followers - the more certain is a promised paradise. Cult leaders stand above the law. Those who desperately place their faith in them want them to be above the law.

Cult leaders are narcissists. They demand obsequious adulation and total obedience. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s claim that Donald Trump is able to draw a “perfect map” of the Middle East, or White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statement that Trump is always the “most well-read person in the room,” are two of innumerable examples of the abject fawning required by those in a cult leader’s inner circle. Blind loyalty matters more than competence.

Cult leaders are immune from rational and fact-based critiques amongst those who invest hope in them. This is why Trump’s hardcore followers have not abandoned him and will not abandon him. All the chatter about fissures in the MAGA universe misreads Trump cultists.

All cults are personality cults. They are extensions of the prejudices, worldview, personal style and ideas of the cult leader. Trump, with his faux “Trump crest,” revels in Louis XVI-inspired tasteless kitsch awash in gold Rococo and glittering chandeliers. The women in Trump’s court have “Mar-a-Lago Faces” – overinflated lips, taut, wrinkle-free skin, silicone gel-filled breast implants and chiseled cheekbones, capped off by gobs of make-up. They wear stiletto heels and garish outfits that Trump finds appealing. Trump’s men, who in his eyes must be telegenic and from “Central casting,” dress like 1950s advertising executives. They sport Trump-gifted Florsheim black shoes, specifically $145 Lexington Cap Toe Oxford.

Cults impose dress codes that mirror the style and taste of the cult leader. The followers of the Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, also known as Osho, dressed in red and orange robes, often combined with a turtleneck and beads. Heaven’s Gate members wore Nike Decade trainers and black jogging bottoms. Men in the Unification Church, known as Moonies, wore crisp white shirts and pressed slacks. Women wore dresses. They looked as if they were on their way to Sunday School.

Like Jim Jones, who convinced or forced over 900 of his followers - including 304 children aged 17 and younger - to die by ingesting a cyanide-laced drink, Trump is aggressively courting our collective suicide.

Trump dismisses the climate crisis as a hoax. He unilaterally withdraws from nuclear arms agreements and treaties. He antagonizes nuclear powers, such as Russia and China. He impetuously launches wars. He alienates and insults U.S. allies. He dreams of annexing Greenland and Cuba. He embraces holy crusade against Muslims. He attacks his political opponents as enemies and traitors, belittling them with crude insults. He slashes social programs designed to sustain the vulnerable. He expands an internal security apparatus — masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) goons — to terrorize the public. Cults do not nurture and protect. They subjugate, annihilate and destroy.

Trump employs the U.S. military without oversight or constraint. He presides, for this reason, over what the psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton called a “world-destroying cult.” Lifton lists eight characteristics of “world-destroying cults” that implant what he calls “totalistic environments.” These eight characteristics are:

1. Milieu control. The total control of communication within the group.

2. Loading the language. Using “groupspeak” to censor, edit and shut down criticism or opposing ideas. Followers must mouth the mindless Trump-approved clichés and cult jargon.

3. Demand for purity. An us-versus-them view of the world. Those who oppose the group are wrong, unenlightened and evil. They are irredeemable. They are contaminants. They must be eradicated. Any action is justified to protect this purity. The goal of all cult leaders is to widen and make irreconcilable social divisions.

4. Confession: The public confession of past wrongs. In the case of Trump supporters, this includes the disavowal, as U.S. Vice President JD Vance and others have done, of past criticism of Trump, with public admission of their former wrong-thinking.

5. Mystical manipulation. The belief that those in the group are specially chosen with a higher purpose. Those in Trump’s orbit act as though they are divinely elected. They convince themselves that they are not coerced to embrace Trump’s lies and vulgarities - or repeat cult jargon - but do so voluntarily.

6. Doctrine over person. The rewriting and fabrication of personal history to conform to Trump’s interpretation of reality.

7. Sacred Science. Trump’s absurdities - global temperatures are declining rather than rising, the noise from wind turbines cause cancer and ingesting disinfectants such as Lysol is an effective treatment for the coronavirus - are presented as grounded in science. This scientific patina means Trump’s ideas apply to everyone. Those who disagree are unscientific.

8. Dispensing of existence. Nonmembers are “lesser or unworthy beings.” Meaningful existence means being part of the Trump cult. Those outside the cult are worthless. They do not deserve moral consideration.

Trump is no different from past cult leaders, including Marshall Herff Applewhite and Bonnie Lu Nettles, the founders of the Heaven’s Gate cult - the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who led the Unification Church - Credonia Mwerinde, who led the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God in Uganda - Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, and David Koresh, who led the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas.

Cult leaders are deeply insecure, which is why they lash out with fury at the slightest criticism. They mask this insecurity with cruelty, hypermasculinity and bombastic grandiosity. They are paranoid, amoral, emotionally crippled and physically abusive. Those around them, including children, are objects to be manipulated for their enrichment, enjoyment and often sadistic entertainment.

Cults are characterized by pedophilia and sexual abuse. Those, including Trump, who were frequently in the orbit of pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, replicated the abuse endemic in cults. “People’s Temple children were frequently sexually abused,” writes Margaret Singer in “Cults In Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace.” “While the group was still in California, teenage girls as young as fifteen had to provide sex for influential people courted by Jones. A supervisor of children at Jonestown had a history of child sexual abuse, and Jones himself assaulted some of the children. If husbands and wives were caught talking privately during a meeting, their daughters were forced to masturbate publicly or to have sex with someone the family didn’t like before the entire Jonestown population, children as well as adults.”

Cults, Singer writes, are “a mirror of what is inside the cult leader.” “He has no restraints on him,” she writes of the cult leader: "He can make his fantasies and desires come alive in the world he creates around him. He can lead people to do his bidding. He can make the surrounding world really his world. What most cult leaders achieve is akin to the fantasies of a child at play, creating a world with toys and utensils. In that play world, the child feels omnipotent and creates a realm of his own for a few minutes or a few hours. He moves the toy dolls about. They do his bidding. They speak his words back to him. He punishes them any way he wants. He is all-powerful and makes his fantasy come alive. When I see the sand tables and the collections of toys some child therapists have in their offices, I think that a cult leader must look about and place people in his created world much as the child creates on the sand table a world that reflects his or her desires and fantasies. The difference is that the cult leader has actual humans doing his bidding as he makes a world around him that springs from inside his own head."

The language of the cult leader is rooted in verbal confusion. Lies, conspiracy theories, outlandish ideas and contradictory statements, often made in the same statement or only minutes apart, paralyzing those attempting to read the cult leader rationally. Absurdism is the point. The cult leader does not take his or her statements seriously. They often deny ever making them, although they are documented. Lies and truth are irrelevant. The cult leader is not seeking to impart information or truth. The cult leader is seeking to appeal to the emotional needs of cult members.

“Hitler kept his enemies in a state of constant confusion and diplomatic upheaval,” Joost A.M. Meerloo wrote in “The Rape of the Mind: The Psychology of Thought Control and Menticide.” “They never knew what this unpredictable madman was going to do next. Hitler was never logical, because he knew that that was what he was expected to be. Logic can be met with logic, while illogic cannot – it confuses those who think straight. The Big Lie and monotonously repeated nonsense have more emotional appeal in a cold war than logic and reason. While the enemy is still searching for a reasonable counterargument to the first lie, the totalitarians can assault him with another.”

It does not matter how many lies uttered by Trump are meticulously documented. It does not matter that Trump has used the presidency to enrich himself by an estimated $1.4 billion over the last year, according to Forbes. It does not matter that he is inept, lazy and ignorant. It does not matter that he stumbles from one disaster to the next, from tariffs, to the war on Iran.

The traditional establishment, whose credibility has been destroyed because of its betrayal of the working class and subservience to the billionaire class and corporations, has little power over Trump’s supporters. Their vitriol only increases his popularity. Political cults are the bastard children of a failed liberalism. Trump’s approval rating may be at around 40 percent, as of April 20 - according to an average of multiple polls collated by The New York Times - but his base remains unmovable.

The Democratic Party, rather than pivot to address the social inequality and abandonment of the working class - which it helped orchestrate - has hit upon tax cuts as a road to regaining power. It will, once again, reduce our social, economic and political crisis to the personality of Trump. It will offer no reforms to rectify our failed democracy. This is a gift to Trump and his followers. By refusing to acknowledge responsibility for inequality and proposing programs to ameliorate the suffering it has caused, Democrats engage in the same kind of magical thinking as Trump cultists.

There is no way out of this political dysfunction unless popular movements rise to cripple the machinery of government and commerce on behalf of a betrayed public. But time is running out. Trump and his goons are serious about invaliding or cancelling the midterm elections if they perceive defeat. If that happens, the cult of Trump will be unassailable."

- https://chrishedges.substack.com/