Canadian Prepper, 4/29/26
"Alert! Oil Exploding As Insiders Prepare
For Staggering Gasoline Price Increase!"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Thursday, April 30, 2026
"The Assassination Myth, And Iran Continues to Run the Blockade"
"The Assassination Myth,
And Iran Continues to Run the Blockade"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Let me start with the Saturday event which is being falsely labeled as an assassination attempt on President Trump. This was a breach of a security checkpoint. Although much of the media coverage has reported the man was carrying a shotgun, the video footage does not support that claim. Running full tilt and trying to fire a shotgun accurately is very difficult to do. I cannot tell if Cole, the alleged shooter, had his semi-automatic pistol in his hand.
What the grainy video footage show is a uniformed officer on the left side of the screen taking at least four shots at Cole. The image below shows a clearer picture of the shots fired by the uniformed officer. It appears that one of those shots hit the Secret Service agent in the vest. How Cole was apprehended, without suffering a single wound from the multiple shots fired, is astonishing. I have heard one report that he tripped and fell, which may explain how he was apprehended without being filled full of lead.
What about the officer or agent who caught a bullet in his body armor? It is possible that was caused by friendly fire and was not the result of Cole firing the pistol. I find it very odd that the Trump White House and the Trump supporters on social media immediately began posting the meme that this would not have happened in the Big Beautiful Ballroom that Trump is trying to build next to the White House. The only problem with that meme is that the failure to have a proper security checkpoint at the Hilton could also be replicated in the new ballroom that Trump wants to build.
Paul Mills told me yesterday that there is a video, completely unrelated to the Saturday escapade, where Cole is showing off his wheel chair invention… In the background is his Indian wife talking to the wife of JD Vance, who also is Indian. Does this explain why Cole gave Kash Patel a pass in his manifesto? A lot of questions need to be answered.
Now to Iran… Take a look at one of the recent social media posts from the Iranian Speaker of the Parliament, MB Ghalibaf:
محمدباقر قالیباف | MB Ghalibaf@mb_ghalibaf
3 days in, no well exploded.We could extend to 30 and livestream the well here. That was the kind of junk advice the US admin gets from people like Bessent who also push the blockade theory and cranked oil up to $120+. Next stop:140. The issue isn't the theory, it's the mindset.
Ghalibaf is ridiculing Scott Bessent’s wild claims that the blockade is going to destroy Iran’s ability to export oil. He clearly is not concerned and is mocking Bessent’s insistence that Iranian oil wells are on the verge of collapsing. Trump’s blockade is driving up the price of oil, as illustrated in the following chart:
US Navy ships are staying 200 miles offshore from the Iranian coast. If they try to move closer to the Iranian coast they will be vulnerable to missile and drone attacks. All Iran has to do is sail its tankers 50 miles offshore in order to bypass the US blockade, which appears to be what Iran is doing.
Reuters/Kpler data reported at least 6 ships crossed in the 24 hours covering April 29 (mostly dry bulk carriers and some through Iranian waters, including sanctioned vessels like the Vast Plus chemical tanker). Other tracking (e.g., Anadolu Agency/Windward) noted around 13–14 total transits in similar periods, far below the pre-war norm of 125–140 daily.
Iranian vessels dominate the limited traffic: Many (often about half in recent days) load at Iranian ports in defiance of the US blockade and use IRGC-designated routes. A Fars News Agency report (via Middle East Monitor) claimed 52 Iranian vessels (31 oil tankers + 21 cargo ships) breached the blockade in a 72-hour window ending around April 28. This suggests a notable number of Iranian-linked movements around that time, but no breakdown isolates April 29 alone.
While Western media continues to insist that Iran is suffering terrible economic privations, the opposite seems to be the case. Trump is under enormous pressure from this Zionist donors to renew attacks on Iran while General Caine and the Commander of Centcom are advising strongly against renewing the air war with Iran. I believe that the warhawks, especially Bibi Netanyahu, are insisting that Iran be attacked again and that Donald Trump will ultimately cave to their demands."
o
Danny Davis and I discussed that latest regarding
Iran and the alleged assassination attempt:
Wednesday, April 29, 2026
"The Kill Switch Of Freedom"
"The Kill Switch Of Freedom"
by Jim Quinn
“The government should be afraid of the people,
the people shouldn’t be afraid of the government.”
- Edward Snowden
“The freedom of a country can only be measured by its respect for the rights of its citizens, and it’s my conviction that these rights are in fact limitations of state power that define exactly where and when a government may not infringe into that domain of personal or individual freedoms that during the American Revolution was called “liberty” and during the Internet Revolution is called “privacy.” - Edward Snowden
"None of what is happening is an accident or happenstance. Everything that has happened since 2019 is part of their diabolical plan to impoverish, cull, and enslave you in a technological gulag, sold to the ignorant masses as technological advancement, improvement of our lives, and protection from whatever bogeyman they designate. They want to digitize and electrify your entire existence, so they can control you, milk you like cows, and slaughter you at a time of their choosing.
The financial system began to unravel in September 2019 and the ruling class needed to accelerate their Agenda 2030 Great Reset plan. The Fed balance sheet, which had surged from $1 trillion in 2008 to over $4 trillion after the Wall St./Fed created financial crisis, was being reduced slowly to $3.8 trillion, but that was too much for our decrepit debt dependent system, and the repo market froze up.
The Fed panicked and started printing again. Conveniently, Gates and the WEF tested their fake pandemic plan at Event 201 in October 2019. They worked out the kinks and rolled it out across the globe in January 2020. Maximum fear and the greatest PR campaign in history for the annual flu resulted in a global shutdown, allowing the Fed to increase their balance sheet to $9 trillion, a 140% increase in a matter of months. Meanwhile, the politicians did their part by driving the national debt from $23 trillion to its current level of $39 trillion, a 70% increase.
It now requires more and more new debt to service the old debt ($1.3 trillion per year of interest on the debt), so the Fed was only able to get their balance sheet to just below $7 trillion, before the system started to break again. They have begun increasing it once more. Nothing like an unnecessary war on behalf of Israel to drive the national debt to above $40 trillion and keep the printing presses humming. They know this empire of debt is unsustainable and in imminent danger of collapse, so they are accelerating the AI based technological prison phase of their plan.
Does anyone in their right mind believe the thousands of data centers they want to build are to benefit the average person? Of course not. These data centers will power your enslavement. And if you think one of the political parties will save you, then you aren’t paying attention. The uni-party is designed to screw you and benefit themselves. Electric cars to save the planet was, and still is, a ridiculous idea, unless those controlling the levers of power want an easy way to automatically keep you from traveling. Since the electric car boondoggle has petered out, both parties cooperated to install kill switches in all gas powered new cars starting in 2027. How exactly is that beneficial to the average person. They hate you and do not care what you think or want.
It is the same story with the CBDCs. How do they benefit the average person? They don’t. They will be able to track and tax every transaction you make. They will be able to create a profile based upon your spending. They will then use their AI tools to determine pre-crimes and arrest you in advance. If you make a social media post or comment offensive to the empire, your social credit score will be downgraded and you will be denied travel and grocery privileges. This is the techno-gulag these billionaire psychopaths in suits dream about. And they are accelerating these plans at breakneck speed. When they decide to pull the rug on this teetering financial system, the CBDCs will be the lifeline they offer.
Ed Dowd, former portfolio manager at BlackRock: The COVID vaccines “were designed to take care of a pension problem with the boomers, and then bring in 10 to 15 million younger, mostly male folks as replacement population.”
“If I was going to want to take care of a debt problem… pic.twitter.com/NYOGLNm32x
— illuminatibot (@iluminatibot) April 27, 2026
Ed Dowd’s suspicions about the Covid scamdemic are entirely accurate. It was the lynch pin of the depopulation phase of the Great Reset. With the average age of death during Covid of over 80 (from remdesivir and ventilators), they relieved the financial pressure from Social Security and Medicare. The Covid “vaccine” has been the more insidious method of depopulation. Some batches murdered their injectees immediately. Other batches are killing people through myocarditis and turbo cancers. It caused pregnant women to lose their babies. And it has reduced fertility rates across the board.
Replacing native white Americans with low IQ third world dregs is alive and well. Trump is not deporting the tens of millions of illegal invaders, like he promised. Young foreign males commit an inordinate amount of crime and these lowlifes accelerate the destruction and bankruptcy of our welfare system. Both parties cooperated to not pass the SAVE Act, meaning they want illegals to vote in our elections and do the bidding of those pulling the strings.
The billionaire overlords want chaos, economic suffering, and the destruction of the traditional family. And they appear to be winning. If the citizens of this country had a backbone, this KILL SWITCH moment would trigger our current day Boston Tea Party. But, I’m afraid we are too far gone, too soft, too sedated, too distracted, too cowardly, and too dumbed down to notice. So it goes."
Travelling With Russell, "Russia's Newest Shopping Mall in Moscow"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russell, 4/29/26
"Russia's Newest Shopping Mall in Moscow"
"What does Russia's newest shopping mall look like in 2026? Join me at Kraski Mall in Moscow, Russia, to discover what a brand new shopping mall in Russia really looks like inside. How have sanctions affected Russian shopping centers?"
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Food Prices Set to Skyrocket in Summer 2026"
Adventures With Danno, 4/29/26
"Food Prices Set to Skyrocket in Summer 2026"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the below gorgeously detailed image was taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130422.html
"So..."
“So, how do you beat the odds when it’s one against a billion? You’re just outnumbered. You stand strong, keep pushing yourself against all rational limits, and never give up. But the truth of the matter is, despite how hard you try and fight to stay in control, when it’s all said and done, sometimes you’re just outnumbered.”
- “Meredith”, “Gray’s Anatomy”
○
“In the movie “The Lion in Winter”, when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:
Richard: ”He’s here! He’ll get no satisfaction out of us! Don’t let him see you beg! Take it like a man!”
Geoffrey: “You chivalrous fool! As if the way one falls down matters!”
Richard: ”Well, when the fall is all that’s left, it matters a great deal.”
"Buying Time"
"Buying Time"
Author Unknown
"A man came home from work late again, tired and irritated, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door. "Daddy, may I ask you a question? " "Yeah, sure, what is it?" replied the man. "Daddy, how much money do you make an hour?" "That's none of your business! What makes you ask such a thing? " the man said angrily. "I just want to know. Please tell me, how much do you make an hour? " pleaded the little boy. "If you must know, I make $20.00 an hour. " "Oh," the little boy replied, head bowed. Looking up, he said, "Daddy, may I borrow $10.00 please?"
The father was furious. "If the only reason you wanted to know how much money I make is just so you can borrow some to buy a silly toy or some other nonsense, then you march yourself straight to your room and go to bed. I work long, hard hours everyday and don't have time for such childish games. " The little boy quietly went to his room and shut the door. The man sat down and started to get even madder about the little boy's questioning. How dare he ask such questions only to get some money?
After an hour or so, the man had calmed down, and started to think he may have been a little hard on his son. Maybe there was something he really needed to buy with that $10.00, and he really didn't ask for money very often. The man went to the door of the little boy's room and opened the door. "Are you asleep son?" he asked. "No daddy, I'm awake," replied the boy. "I've been thinking, maybe I was too hard on you earlier, " said the man. "It's been a long day and I took my aggravation out on you. Here's that $10.00 you asked for."
The little boy sat straight up, beaming. "Oh, thank you daddy! " he yelled. Then, reaching under his pillow, he pulled out some more crumpled up bills. The man, seeing that the boy already had money, started to get angry again. The little boy slowly counted out his money, then looked up at the man. "Why did you want more money if you already had some? " the father grumbled. "Because I didn't have enough, but now I do, " the little boy replied. "Daddy, I have $20.00 now. Can I buy an hour of your time? "
"Al Swearengen's Take On Life"
Strong language alert!
"In life you have to do a lot of things you don't ****ing want to do.
Many times, that's what the **** life is... one vile ****ing task after another.
But don't get aggravated, then the enemy has you by the short hair."
- “Al Swearengen”, Ian McShane’s character on “Deadwood”
o
Strong language alert!
"Pain or damage don't end the world, or despair or f***ing beatings.
The world ends when you’re dead. Until then you got more punishment
in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back.”
- “Al Swearengen”, Ian McShane’s character on “Deadwood”
"Things We Don't Want to Do: Outside the Comfort Zone"
"Things We Don't Want to Do:
Outside the Comfort Zone"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM
"Doing things we don't want to do, or that scare us, creates flow in our lives and allows us to grow. Most of us have had the experience of tackling some dreaded task only to come out the other side feeling invigorated, filled with a new sense of confidence and strength. The funny thing is, most of the time when we do them, we come out on the other side changed and often wondering what we were so worried about or why it took us so long. We may even begin to look for other tasks we've been avoiding so that we can feel that same heady mix of excitement and completion.
Whether we avoid something because it scares us or bores us, or because we think it will force a change we're not ready for, putting it off only creates obstacles for us. On the other hand, facing the task at hand, no matter how onerous, creates flow in our lives and allows us to grow. The relief is palpable when we stand on the other side knowing that we did something even though it was hard or we didn't want to do it. On the other hand, when we cling to our comfort zone, never addressing the things we don't want to face, we cut ourselves off from flow and growth.
We all have at least one thing in our life that never seems to get done. Bringing that task to the top of the list and promising ourselves that we will do it as soon as possible is an act that could liberate a tremendous amount of energy in our lives. Whatever it is, we can allow ourselves to be fueled by the promise of the feelings of exhilaration and confidence that will be the natural result of doing it.”
"Few Things..."
"If your view of the world is that people use reason for their important decisions, you are setting yourself up for a life of frustration and confusion. You’ll find yourself continually debating people and never winning except in your own mind. Few things are as destructive and limiting as a worldview that assumes people are mostly rational."
- Scott Adams
○
"Never Explain Yourself, Never Argue, Strong People Act"
Full screen recommended.
Inspired Minds, 4/29/26
"Never Explain Yourself, Never Argue, Strong People Act"
"In this powerful Stoic teaching inspired by the timeless wisdom of Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca, you’ll discover why strong individuals don’t waste energy justifying their decisions, their boundaries, or their purpose. This video will challenge you to break free from the habit of over-explaining - a silent form of weakness that drains your confidence and places your worth in the hands of others. Instead, you’ll learn how to cultivate quiet strength, inner authority, and the kind of presence that speaks louder than words."
Comments here:
Greg Hunter, "Summer from Hell"
"Summer from Hell"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"At the beginning of April, renowned climate engineering researcher Dane Wigington was on USAW to warn about increasing extreme weather caused by geoengineering or manmade weather modification in the sky. Wigington talked about “Gargantuan Hail, Toxic Particles, Severe Drought & Chemtrails.” What happened just this week? We saw softball sized hail in Springfield, Missouri, wildfires in Georgia, multiple tornados at the same time and severe drought from coast to coast in the U.S. The drought and strange weather is so bad in many areas that agricultural experts are already talking about widespread crop failure. Wigington says, “On a warming planet, and I am not an Al Gore or an environmental group fan, they are all criminal hypocrites with their denial of climate engineering. On a warming planet, we must have more overall rain, not less. We have less. The only way it can rain less is if there is a factor we are not being told about, and that factor is climate engineering. We should not need to be told about this because it is an elephant in the sky above us. You have to be willfully blind not to see it. We can speculate on agendas and objectives being carried out, but climate engineering is core to so many factors that are playing out in the U.S. We have crop crushing, and it’s not just the flash freeze and lack of water. Hail decimates crops. Now, we have baseball, softball and soccer ball sized hail recently in Illinois.”
What is going to happen when summer starts? Wigington says, “This is the summer from Hell that we are approaching right now. This will be like no other. The snow pack in the Colorado River watershed is almost nonexistent. The snowpack in the Sierra Nevada averages about 20%. In the Northern Sierra, it is about 5%. That’s 5% of normal. Why isn’t that headline everywhere? People have no idea what is coming. What will happen in the Southwest? We are going to find out soon. Right now, they are frantically discussing desalination facilities in the Gulf of California. That is idiocy and not going to save anything. It can’t be done in any time frame that matters.”
I asked Wigington if he lived in the Southwest what he would be doing? Wigington said, “I would move immediately.” Wigington goes on to say, “Everything is tanking. You can’t fix what has been done, and people don’t want to understand the gravity of what has been done. Complete chaos, carnage and collapse, that is what is happening. There are about five dozen countries freefalling into collapse because there is literally not enough to eat. Americans delusionally think that can’t happen here. Really?”
In closing, Wigington still holds out hope that we can still salvage what is left of the environment if we can stop the destruction that geoengineering is causing. Wigington says, “There are converging catastrophes in every direction, but if we don’t deal with what is happening in our skies, all other causes and concerns will, very soon, be moot points. There is no argument that this is not happening. People cannot underestimate the difference they can make in this battle. We have free resources you can use at geoengineeringwatch.org. If you can wake those up around you, you won’t feel so isolated and alone. We can all make a difference if we can wake up enough people and waking up those involved with these programs and them standing down. That is the only way we are going to stop these operations.” There is much more in the 50-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes one-on-one with Dane Wigington, founder of GeoEngineeringWatch.org, as the huge damage caused by geoengineering continues unabated as the march to environmental collapse draws closer.
"Energy Lockdowns and the New Era of Government Control"
"Energy Lockdowns and the
New Era of Government Control"
by International Man
"International Man: Governments learned during COVID that populations will tolerate extraordinary restrictions if they’re sold as an emergency. Could an energy crisis become the next excuse for lockdown-style controls?
Doug Casey: We’re looking at something much worse than another lockdown, as bad as that was. The big question is whether we're now in World War III. I think we are. The US has increased its military budget by 50%, and is pushing the Europeans to double their military spending. The war in the Ukraine is ongoing, and the Europeans want to ramp it up further. Nor do I think that the current focus of everybody's attention, the war between the US/Israel, and Iran, will end anytime soon. It's going to drag on for many months or even years. And if the Americans or Israelis push the Iranians too far - which is likely - the Iranians could respond with not just drone and missile attacks in the region, but with all-out cyber war. Since the world runs on computers, that could be as devastating as a nuclear war.
At the moment, the war is centered on destroying or disrupting energy in the Middle East. But it can't possibly stay there. That’s because Asia, which is to say two-thirds of the world's population, is totally reliant on petrochemicals from the Persian Gulf. They can't remain passive observers as the war destroys their economies.
So the answer to the question is, yes, you should plan on severe energy shortages. We’ve already seen hints of this: four-day government workweeks, travel restrictions, remote schooling, scheduled power cuts, and flight cancellations. There’s already fuel rationing in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam. The US is shipping emergency gasoline and diesel to Australia, whose Green government idiotically has made it impossible for them to refine any themselves.
Napoleon once said, correctly, that in war the psychological is to the physical as three is to one. So if Western populations are propagandized enough, I suppose they can absorb an immense amount of damage. But they shouldn't be fighting the Iranians, the Chinese, or other largely imaginary enemies. The real malefactors in this scenario are Western leaders, especially in the U.S. Of course, most world leaders are sociopaths; I certainly don't support the mullahs. But at the moment, our leaders in the West are the most aggressive and virulent offenders.
International Man: If the Iran-U.S./Israeli war continues to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, Asian economies will face a serious energy shock. Do you think governments will use that crisis to impose temporary rationing measures, or are we looking at permanent energy controls and managed scarcity?
Doug Casey: Whenever governments impose controls or restrictions, they're always presented as "temporary." More than ever before, the world is dependent on energy. If you cut the supply of energy enough, the current order of things, civilization itself, could collapse. Governments notoriously like to rely on price controls to ration energy rather than letting the market do it by allowing prices to rise to whatever level necessary to ration supplies.
Price controls inevitably require new bureaucracies and result in massive corruption as people try to get around the rules. Governments tend to find the worst possible solutions to the problems that they've caused. Throughout history, war has been a huge driver for the expansion of the State. As Randolf Bourne said, war is the health of the State. As the State expands, personal freedom contracts. Especially for those who aren't already rich and politically well-connected. The next five or ten years are going to be pretty grim.
The dangers of this energy crisis are greatly compounded by the world’s financial and economic instability. We've been looking at the eventuality of what I call the Greater Depression for years. There's every chance that this war will put us over the edge.
International Man: How should investors think about a world where governments can restrict travel, mandate work-from-home, shut schools, or ration fuel in the name of "energy security"?
Doug Casey: Ideally, you should position yourself to be self-sustaining. This is a bad time to live in or near a major city. You should position your portfolio by owning companies that can capitalize on energy shortages and monetary instability. The good news is that energy and mining stocks are still very cheap, certainly relative to other investments. I've been beating that drum here for years, and the results have been excellent. But the trend is still in motion.
International Man: Which countries or regions are most vulnerable to energy lockdowns, and which places still offer the best odds of personal freedom, reliable power, and economic resilience?
Doug Casey: You certainly don't want to be anywhere near a war zone. That rules out much of Europe and the Middle East. Dubai, in particular, will be in a lot of trouble as this war persists. Not just because of the physical danger, but because governments everywhere crack down on personal freedoms in the phony name of "national security." I'm pretty happy having major investments in Argentina and Uruguay. In the Pacific region, I still like New Zealand.
International Man: For the individual who doesn’t want to be trapped by rationing, digital IDs, carbon limits, or emergency decrees, what practical steps should he be taking right now?
Doug Casey: Everyone should have a good stash of small gold and silver coins purchased for cash, privately. It makes good sense to have a pantry full of long-life foods. Adequate weapons. Plenty of tobacco and alcohol, which will store indefinitely. It's a bad idea to have an apartment in an urban area, either as an investment or a residence.
But on the bright side, things have looked grim a number of times over the last 50 years. And each time society has recovered and gone on to bigger and better things. Hopefully, that will happen this time as well, although I wouldn't plan my life around it. Don't forget that Ray Kurzweil's predictions about the Singularity are at hand. If we can get through the oncoming rough patch, life on this planet could be better than ever. Let's hope so. But remember, hope is not a strategy for prosperity, or even survival."
A Much Needed Get-Away-From-It All Musical Interlude: Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Full screen recommended.
Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
o
"55 Percent Of Americans Say That Their Financial Situations Are Getting Worse – That Is An All-Time Record High"
by Michael Snyder
"Americans were not even this stressed about their financial situations during the Great Recession. As you will see below, a brand new Gallup survey has discovered that 55 percent of Americans believe that their finances are getting worse. That is higher than any reading that Gallup recorded during the recession of 2008 and 2009, and it is higher than any reading that Gallup recorded during the pandemic. But of course this shouldn’t exactly be a surprise to any of us. We have been in a historic cost of living crisis since 2020, and our standard of living has been steadily deteriorating as the purchasing power of our money has gone down.
If you are making the same amount of money as you did at the beginning of this decade, you are in far worse shape financially today. That is just the reality of the time that we are living in. The cost of just about everything has been going up and up and up. As a result, people are more concerned about the economy than anything else.
According to Gallup, the percentage of Americans that believe that their finances are getting worse has been rising for five years in a row and is now at the highest level ever recorded…"Americans’ financial outlook in 2026 is also historically poor, with a record 55% now saying their financial situation is getting worse. While similar to last year’s 53%, this is up from 47% in 2024 and marks the fifth consecutive year more Americans say their finances are worsening rather than improving." The only similar multiyear period when the larger share felt their financial situation was worsening was during the Great Recession.
At this stage, there is no denying the trend that we are witnessing. Gallup found that Americans are particularly concerned about monthly bills, healthcare and retirement…"Majorities worry about not having enough money for retirement (62%) and being unable to cover medical costs in the event of a serious accident or illness (60%). Slightly smaller majorities (54% each) worry about their investment returns and maintaining their standard of living. Nearly half are concerned about routine healthcare costs (48%), while 41% worry about paying their normal monthly bills and 40% about affording college. Fewer worry about housing costs (35%) or making minimum credit card payments (28%)".
Living paycheck to paycheck is not fun at all. Many of you know exactly what I am talking about. Today, much of the country is just one major setback away from financial ruin…According to a recent national survey, a little over $6,000 in additional debt is all it takes to push a family over the edge. Six thousand dollars. The cost of a half-decent secondhand car. A modest kitchen renovation. In the country that put a man on the moon, mapped the human genome, won two world wars, and produces more billionaires per capita than anywhere on earth, that’s the cliff edge.
The old vocabulary no longer fits. The conservative catechism of thrift, discipline, and delayed gratification has aged poorly in light of the evidence. Tariffs, as the survey notes, rippled through supply chains and left a sizeable dent in consumers’ pockets. Health care waits in the background, capable of dismantling a decade of careful saving with a single bad diagnosis. American households have always lived under financial pressure. The difference now is the direction - or rather, the directions. It is coming from everywhere at once, which is what makes it almost impossible to outrun.
The middle class is being systematically eviscerated all around us. It is a national crisis that just keeps intensifying year after year. As finances have gotten tighter and tighter, millions upon millions of Americans have fundamentally changed their behavior…The response has been behavioral rather than political, which is another way of saying people have given up waiting for someone to fix it. Nights out get canceled. Rent falls behind. Medical appointments get postponed and rarely rescheduled. None of this is irrational. When survival takes priority, everything else enters a waiting room with no clear appointment time. What makes it particularly disturbing is that financial distress doesn’t stay financial. It moves through relationships and communities, rearranging what people believe is possible for themselves.
Some will call it hyperbolic to suggest the American Dream is dead. Perhaps. But a dream balanced on a six-thousand-dollar ledge, in a stiff wind, is not exactly thriving. With energy prices soaring and the probability of a recession climbing with every new data release, the wind is picking up.
What about you? Have you found yourself changing your spending behavior in recent years in an attempt to save money? If so, there are countless others that are in the exact same shoes. Unfortunately, the outlook for the months ahead is not promising at all.
On Tuesday, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States rose to the highest level that we have seen since the war with Iran began… Gas prices climbed Tuesday to their highest level since the Iran conflict began. The national average for a gallon of regular hit $4.18, up 15 cents from a week earlier and about $1 higher than a year ago, according to AAA.
As energy prices rise, it is going to affect the cost of everything else too. Meanwhile, the government just continues to tax us into oblivion. As I have detailed in other articles, each year Americans are hit with literally dozens of different taxes and fees. When you add all of them together, some Americans end up paying more than 50 percent of their incomes in taxes and fees. In fact, Bill Maher is claiming that he pays about 60 percent of his income in taxes and fees…"Even for liberal HBO host Bill Maher, the math behind Tax Day no longer adds up.
Maher took to his platform on “Real Time” to sound the alarm on a staggering personal tax burden that he says claims the majority of his earnings, sparking a wider debate on whether the American government is simply “incompetent and corrupt” despite a $5 trillion revenue stream. “Last week was Tax Day… I paid to the government, if you add in state tax, local, sales, property, fees, Obamacare, probably almost 60% of what I earn. That’s a lot,” Maher said on a recent episode.
If you have to hand over more than half of what you earn to the government, you are no longer living in a capitalist system. Some people out there don’t seem to have figured that out yet. In this environment, you should be thankful if you still have an income coming in, because we continue to see mass layoffs all over the nation.
For example, Nike just announced yet another round of layoffs…Nike announced a new round of layoffs Thursday affecting approximately 1,400 employees across the organization, mostly concentrated in its technology department. In a note from COO Venkatesh Alagirisamy, the company said the layoffs were part of Nike’s broader “Win Now” turnaround strategy aiming to reshape its technology team, modernize its Air manufacturing, move some of its Converse Footwear operations and integrate its materials supply chain work into its footwear and apparel supply chain teams.
Our economy is coming apart at the seams all around us. And now the crisis in the Middle East threatens to plunge the entire global system into an extended downturn. We really are facing a nightmare scenario, and it won’t be too long before that is completely and utterly obvious to everyone."
o
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 4/29/26
"Americans Are Cutting Back Everywhere - Here’s Why"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Across The States, 4/29/26
"Millions of Americans Don't Have Homes Anymore…
They're Living in Their Cars"
"Working homeless in America is rising fast - and most people don’t even see it. This video breaks down the hidden reality of people with jobs living in their cars and why it’s happening now. Here’s the thing: the image most people have of homelessness is outdated. A growing number of people are working full-time, showing up every day, and still have nowhere stable to sleep. What most people miss is how invisible this situation is - cars blend in, and the system wasn’t built to track them. The reality is, this isn’t about people “not trying.” It’s about math. Rent has surged far beyond what many jobs pay, and even if you can afford it, strict rental requirements can shut you out completely. Add rising costs, unstable income, and fewer safety nets, and the margin disappears fast. And here’s another angle: living in a car isn’t cheaper the way people assume. Daily survival costs stack up, while stress and exhaustion make it harder to climb out."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 4/29/26
"Farmers Are Giving Up, Millions Will Feel This Soon"
Comments here:
"Shots Heard Around the World"
An illustration by Achille Beltrame showing the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (1863-1914), heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. From a cover of the Italian newspaper Domenica del Corriere.
"Shots Heard Around the World"
by Joel Bowman
“It is not to be supposed that the death of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand
will have any immediate or salient effect on the politics of Europe.”
~ The Guardian, June 29, 1914
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "History is a fickle mistress, dear reader. Vague, aloof, deceptive, at times downright devious, she twists and she turns, pouts and prevaricates, to the constant consternation of man. Indeed, so crafty are her ways, that even the paragons of prognostication in the popular press occasionally mistake an elephant for an anvil. Recall the words of a few false prophets:
“Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.”
- Irving Fisher in The New York Times, October 1929
“The truth is, no online database will replace your daily newspaper.”
- Clifford Stoll in Newsweek, Feb 1995
“By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s i
mpact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
- Paul “Future Enron Consultant” Krugman in Red Herring, 1998
“The impact on the broader economy and financial markets
of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained.”
- Ben Bernanke, as quoted in The New York Times, March 2007
Nor, it seems, is proximity of much aid, whether measured in time or space. The great spiritual anarchist, Leo Tolstoy, observed as much in his magnum opus, War & Peace: “The closer a man is to the center of an event, the less he can judge it; the farther away he is, the more confidently he thinks he understands it.”
The Passing Parade: Even in the moment, his eyes firmly on the prize, finger on the pulse, nose pressed to the salient events of his time, man is often insensible to the parade passing right before him. He understands that causes have effects, of course, that actions have reactions and that one thing follows along from another. He doesn’t need to have misread Hume to call “left ball, corner pocket” with some degree of consequential confidence. Sometimes he sinks the shot... sometimes he buys the next round.
But the moment he leaves the bar and returns to “real life,” simple, linear calculations soon morph into complex, dynamic, cascading equations. Our man quickly finds himself up to his elbows in emergent effects, latent consequences, unintended repercussions and downstream reverberations the likes of which dwell far beyond his eight-ball comprehension.
Not only is he incapable of understanding what is right in front of him, but his ability to discern its historical import is often breathtaking. A spontaneous tea party in Boston... a roguish defenestration in Prague... a bullet whizzing through the air in Sarajevo...And lo!
Nursing a sore head from the night before he wakes to read the news, only to discover a country... a continent... the whole damned world plunged headlong into war! Then, with the cannons blasting and the cavalry charging, the fog of battle settles over what remains of his threadbare modesty, leaving him with a confidence that appears to increase in direct proportion to his blindness. A few crackers from the vault:
“You will be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees.”
- Kaiser Wilhelm II addressing his troops in August, 1914
“We have reached an important point when the end begins to come into view.”
- William Westmoreland predicts victory in Vietnam
at the National Press Club in November, 1967
“Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
With such a woeful track record, what then are we to make of events as they unfold in the present, before our very own eyes, in this, the Age of Certainty? Modern man is inundated with no ends of data – real and artificial, intelligent and foolish, useful and extraneous, dangerous and benign, etc. But for all his apps and bots, his hacks and headlines and never-ending newsfeeds, the question remains... Is he any wiser?
We watch with amusement those mandarins of public opinion in the mainstream media, struggling to get their arms around “the narrative.” Like witnessing a man trying to embrace a giant squid, the scene is strange, perverse, and likely to end in injury.
Reporting on the shots fired over the weekend, at the White House Press Gala, the long-disgraced Guardian (quoted up top) was uncharacteristically – ahem – guarded regarding the motivations of the assailant, Cole Allen: “Allen’s motive is still unknown, but a family member who spoke to investigators after the attack said Allen made statements about wanting to do something to fix problems in the world...”
Never mind that Mr. Allen had gone to the considerable trouble of sending his waffling manifesto to multiple family members immediately before embarking on his grand mission, in which he detailed in no uncertain terms his exact motivations. Under the section helpfully subtitled, “On to why I did any of this,” Allen described what he saw as his “role as an American citizen” and even outlined his specific “rules of engagement,” albeit, in his own words, “probably in a terrible format, but I’m not military so too bad.”
The entire diatribe need not be reprinted here, although you can read it in the original New York Post article, as well as in a bazillion other outlets, which wholly reprinted or quoted from the screed throughout the day. And yet, 7 hours later, former President Barack Obama was still mystified as to Allen’s motivation. “Although we don’t yet have the details about the motives behind last night’s shooting at the White House Correspondents Dinner...” he wrote on X.
In their transparent attempts to “frame” events in real time, to spin and contextualize and stage manage the news, such that it supports one agenda or another, bad directors affect to guide history with a foresight they simply do not – and cannot – possess.
Had Allen’s bullets found their mark over the weekend, the assassination might have brought down an empire... or rallied its people. It might have kicked off a great global conflagration... or ushered in Pax Americana II. It could have unleashed the whirlwind... or become a storm in a teacup. And while we cannot read the history that was not written, we can observe the enduring nature of political violence throughout the ages, and so expect more of it to come...
God Save the Kings: In the years immediately preceding the murder of Archduke Ferdinand in the summer of 1914, high profile assassinations were common enough to be something of a banality to the casual observer.
Indeed, the 20th Century began with a bang, when the King of Italy, Umberto I, was gunned down in Monza. Then, in 1901 in Buffalo, New York, came the assassination of US President William McKinley, a man for whom the current target du jour has expressed deep admiration.
Next was the Serbian King, Alexander Obrenović, who was murdered in his palace (along with his wife) during a military coup in 1903... then came the regicide of Carlos I of Portugal, who was killed (alongside his son) in 1908 in Lisbon... followed by the assassination of the President of the Dominican Republic, Ramón Cáceres in 1911... then the Spanish Prime Minister, José Canalejas, who was killed in Madrid in 1912... and of course the King of the Hellenes, George I of Greece, whose half century reign came to an abrupt end when he was shot to death in Thessaloniki in 1913.
Given the regicidal bloodbath of the times, perhaps the papers of record could even be forgiven for indulging a little “normalcy bias.” Who was to know what “immediate and salient” effects the Archduke’s assassination would precipitate? We are apt to imbue our own moment in time with a gravitas bordering on the solipsistic. Perhaps we are not so omnipotent after all?
In the second epilogue to his famous tome, Tolstoy used a maritime analogy to explain his own thoughts on the matter: “A man sitting in the stern of a boat, holding a tiller that is not connected with the rudder, and seeing the waves that the boat cuts, imagines that he is directing its course. But he is only being carried along by the movement of the boat itself.” Thus does history unfurl, dear reader… an ongoing triumph of unlikely reality over pedigreed consensus, immune to the flailing machinations of man. Don’t forget to enjoy the ride."
John Wilder, "China’s Unrestricted Economic War on America"
"China’s Unrestricted Economic War on America"
by John Wilder
"I’ll admit it right up front. For years I did exactly what millions of other Americans did. I rolled into Walmart©, grabbed a cart, and filled it with cheap Chinese stuff: tools that broke after one use, plastic Godzilla© toys that lit up for a week, and clothes that wore out by the second wash. It was easy. It was affordable. And yeah, I played along, just like everybody else.
We called it “free trade.” What was it really? It was the slow, deliberate hollowing out of American manufacturing. Factories closed. Main street died. Towns emptied. Skills vanished. Whole supply chains got shipped overseas under the polite fiction that cheap imports would make us all richer. They didn’t, at least long term. They made China richer and left us weaker. The base of our economy, the ability to make things, got gutted while we congratulated ourselves on saving a few bucks on a toaster while the Chinese progressed to manufacturing iPhones® on a global scale.
But manufacturing was just the opening act. Now let’s talk about our farms. In the last couple of years we’ve seen Chinese nationals caught red-handed trying to bring biological weapons straight into the heart of American agriculture. Take the 2025 case out of Michigan:
"Two Chinese citizens, one a University of Michigan scholar with a PhD in plant pathogens from a Chinese university and the other her boyfriend, got busted trying to smuggle fusarium graminearum into the country through Detroit Metro Airport. That fungus isn’t some harmless underarm cheese cultivated by AntiFa. Nope. This fungus wrecks wheat, barley, and corn before they can be turned to their highest possible use, making booze.
This fungus can wipe out entire harvests and has the added bonus terror of pumping out mycotoxins that poison livestock and people. Being late to the party for any crime not committed by white guys who were their paid informants, the feds called it an “agroterrorism weapon.”
The “scholar” is a Chinese Communist Party member. They were caught in July 2024. The FBI noted this was the second such case involving a Chinese national tied to the same university in a matter of days. The second. In days."
How long have these shenanigans been going on. Florida is known for cocaine, Florida Man®, and orange. Back in 2005, citrus greening showed up in Miami. The disease is caused by a bacterium native to Asia, spread by the Asian citrus psyllid, another Asian import. Nobody knows exactly how it arrived. Within a few years, citrus trees stopped producing decent fruit. Groves died by the thousands. Production got cut in half. Farmers went broke. Entire communities that had grown oranges for generations watched their livelihood rot on the diseased trees. Florida used to be the orange juice capital of the world. Is it a coincidence that a devastating Asian disease suddenly explodes in America’s second biggest citrus state or part of a longer pattern?
Then there’s the poultry industry. Since early 2022 the chicken farmers have been culling birds by the tens of millions because of highly pathogenic avian influenza: bird flu. Under the Biden administration the numbers got biblical: over 168 million birds affected across commercial and backyard flocks in nearly every state. The result? Massive egg shortages, price spikes, farmers watching their entire operations wiped out in days. The virus spreads through wild birds, sure. But the timing, the scale, and the economic damage line up awfully neatly with a strategy that weakens America’s food production without a single missile being fired.
I’ve said it before on this blog and I’ll say it again: the Chinese government actually seems to care about making the majority of its people successful. Yeah, individual rights get stepped on. That’s how Chinese society has operated since at least 232 B.C., when Wang Chung won the battle of Win Kong over the Chang Sing and something like 78 million people died.
Are the Chinese ruthless? Absolutely. But the rulers in Beijing have always understood that a strong, productive Chinese population is the foundation of their national and international power. They invest in their people and push them to succeed to keep the machine humming. Contrast that with our own leadership, which often seems to compete to be the bigger champion for bringing in illegals: Democrats as voters and welfare targets or Republicans who want cheap labor. If having millions of illegals or millions of Indians in a society is an advantage, well, China must be falling behind. Right?
China looks at the world and sees that there’s only one nation standing between them and outright global dominance: the United States. Open war? Too expensive, too risky, and today’s Chinese just won’t make the sacrifices the old Chinese would to eat their enemies. But why bother when you can win without firing a shot?
That’s exactly what two People’s Liberation Army colonels spelled out back in 1999. Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui wrote a treatise called Unrestricted Warfare. This is nothing less than a blueprint for beating a technologically superior enemy by doing, well, whatever was necessary. Forget tanks and jets. Qiao and Wang (good name for a urologist) talked about “beyond limits combined war”, and it was exactly that.
Trade warfare, financial warfare, resource warfare, PEZ™ warfare, ecological warfare, psychological warfare, smuggling warfare, media warfare, drug warfare, network (cyber) warfare, technological warfare, fabrication warfare, economic aid warfare, and international lawfare. The idea was simple: use every possible tool to erode the enemy’s strength while pretending you’re just a friendly neighbor. How many of those boxes have they checked?
ͦ Trade warfare? Done. They flooded our markets, stole our manufacturing base, and used the WTO like a Trojan horse.
ͦ Financial warfare? They’ve been buying up U.S. debt, manipulating currency, and positioning themselves to pull the rug out when the time is right, which might be now.
ͦ Ecological warfare? See the citrus groves and the poultry barns and the Michigan fungus folks. Introduce a pathogen here, a pest there, and watch the food supply strain.
ͦ Smuggling warfare? Fentanyl, anyone?
ͦ Cyber and network warfare? Constant hacks, intellectual-property theft, missing hard drives from Los Alamos, and infrastructure probes that never quite rise to the level of “war.”
ͦ Psychological and media warfare? Want to bet that China was stoking the fires on both sides in Minnesota during George Floyd?
The playbook was published over twenty-five years ago while we patted ourselves on the back for cheap socks and iPhones. China has been at war, and hope to win before the rest of the world even notices. It’s unrestricted economic warfare, and it’s already here. But thankfully, we’ve had Godzilla® help us learn the true source of economic wealth in society. Flipping houses."
Dan, I Allegedly, "The Economy Is in a Death Spiral - Here’s the Proof"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 4/29/26
"The Economy Is in a Death Spiral -
Here’s the Proof"
The economy is not “fine” - and people know it. In this video, I break down nearly two dozen real-world warning signs showing just how bad things have actually gotten. From record-low consumer confidence to exploding credit card debt, rising living costs, and people draining their retirement just to survive… this isn’t theory. This is what people are dealing with right now. I talk to people every single day, and the message is the same - everyone is changing how they spend, because they have to. The numbers don’t match reality, and the pressure is hitting every corner of the economy. If you’re feeling it, you’re not alone. Subscribe to iAllegedly for daily updates, and let me know in the comments - what are you seeing where you live?"
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Michael Bordenaro, 4/29/26
"Why Millions Of Workers Are Raiding
Their Retirement Accounts Just To Survive Right Now"
Comments here:
Tuesday, April 28, 2026
Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal"
Strong Language Alert!
Gerald Celente, 4/28/26
"From Boomer Miniskirts To Blimpitis Maxiskirts:
The World Is Carrying A Heavy Load"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What's Next in these increasingly turbulent times.
Comments here:
LOL, Gerald's in fine form!
"Alert! There's Nothing To Negotiate, A Bigger War Is Coming"
Full screen recommended.
Prepper News, 4/28/26
"Alert! There's Nothing To Negotiate,
A Bigger War Is Coming"
Comments here:
"They're Not Telling You The Truth, The Day of Reckoning is Nearing"
Jeremiah Babe, 4/28/26
"They're Not Telling You The Truth,
The Day of Reckoning is Nearing"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Grand spiral galaxies often seem to get all the glory. Their young, blue star clusters and pink star forming regions along sweeping spiral arms are guaranteed to attract attention. But small irregular galaxies form stars too, like NGC 4449, about 12 million light-years distant. Less than 20,000 light-years across, the small island universe is similar in size, and often compared to our Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC).
Click image for larger size.
This remarkable Hubble Space Telescope close-up of the well-studied galaxy was reprocessed to highlight the telltale reddish glow of hydrogen gas. The glow traces NGC 4449's widespread star forming regions, some even larger than those in the LMC, with enormous interstellar arcs and bubbles blown by short-lived, massive stars. NGC 4449 is a member of a group of galaxies found in the constellation Canes Venatici. Interactions with the nearby galaxies are thought to have influenced star formation in NGC 4449.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110225.html
"The Universe"
“Nothing is ever lost in this adventure of all adventures. The lessons and discoveries of every single life, no matter how large or small, difficult or easy, are added to the whole. Like stones in the base of a pyramid, they permanently raise and forever support every manner of adventure that follows. And so it is that the hearts of those who came first continue to beat in all subsequent generations forevermore. Every single life is added to the whole, and yet each remains its precious unique self.”
“I got you, babe -”
The Universe
“Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)