So, we rise from the rubble...
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Tuesday, November 3, 2026
"Midterms: 'Despair or Extinction'”
"Midterms: 'Despair or Extinction'”
by John Leake
"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. - Woody Allen, “My Speech to the Graduates,” The New York Times (1979)
"As Ron Paul elegantly put it in the title of his essay today, “Republicans Deserve To Lose, but Democrats Do Not Deserve To Win.” President Trump promised “America First” but then chose Washington’s business as usual of more war, more debt, and more inflation. The Democrats are dumb opportunistic wretches.
Regardless of which political party gains control of Congress or the White House, the American people - especially of the working and middle classes - are thoroughly abused by the US government. Both political parties serve shadowy, undeclared interests that have little to do with the interests of ordinary citizens.
To my surprise - given that I’d long thought of Hegel as wrong about many things - the situation strikes me as a perfect example of what he wrote about in his 1824 book, "Elements of the Philosophy of Right," in which he defined the relationship between institutions and the ethical principles that give them legitimacy.
As he explicated it, institutions are not merely collections of laws, procedures, offices, and traditions, but an expression of an ethical spirit - the living embodiment of justice, freedom, and the common good. When this animating spirit departs, an institution may continue to exist in its outward form while losing the spirit that gave rise to it. In his view, the legitimacy of an institution does not only spring from its antiquity, legal authority, or established procedures. Legitimacy is conferred only when the institution continues to embody an ethical purpose.
The family, civil society, and the state are legitimate insofar as they give concrete expression to human morals and freedom. Their authority and activities are instruments through which these ethical purposes are realized, rather than ends in themselves.
Over time, institutions may become increasingly preoccupied with their own preservation and privileges. Officials may come to regard their activities as intrinsically valuable, even when they no longer serve the purposes for which they were created. What began as a living expression of a moral or political ideal may calcify into an apparatus of administration and authority that serves no one but the officials and their cronies.
This distinction between living substance and empty form lies at the heart of Hegel’s understanding of history. Human societies evolve, and institutions that once embodied rational principles may become inadequate to changing historical circumstances. Their continued existence does not necessarily mean they continue to be legitimate. The persistence of an institution’s outward structure may conceal the fact that the historical conditions and ethical convictions that sustained them in the past are no longer operative.
Hegel’s discussion of the decline of Roman political life provides an illustration. Republican institutions and legal forms persisted after the civic spirit that had once animated them died, and the driving force in public life became the ambitions and whims of an increasingly selfish and reckless oligarchy. Political participation became formal rather than substantive, while public authority became detached from the ethical life of the community. The preservation of institutional appearances could not compensate for the disappearance of their underlying ethical substance.
To be sure, Hegel did not regard institutional continuity as inherently suspect, nor did he believe that institutions should be discarded merely because they were old. On the contrary, he considered enduring institutions essential for the realization of freedom. His concern was whether their established forms continued to embody a living ethical order. Reform or transformation becomes necessary when a contradiction develops between an institution’s professed purpose and its actual operation.
A government may retain its constitution, a university its academic ceremonies, a church its liturgy, or a court its elaborate procedures long after the humans who occupy these offices have ceased to believe in their founding tenets. In such circumstances, institutional continuity can become an illusion of legitimacy. And so it is with the US government, which is now - with a few notable and decreasing exceptions - a coterie of ignorant and uncouth hucksters who neither understand nor care about the Constitution."
Snyder Reports, 11/3/26"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 11/3/26
"Trump Knows What's Coming -
Election Day Could Change Everything"
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Adventures With Danno, "Something Big Is Coming, We're Not Waiting"
Adventures With Danno, 11/3/26
"Something Big Is Coming, We're Not Waiting"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the Economy"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 11/3/26
"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in the Economy"
"The good, the bad and the ugly of the American economy. The stock market is booming, the Dow has crossed 50,000, and new Trump Accounts are giving children a head start on investing and retirement savings. But while Wall Street celebrates, millions of Americans are struggling with rising grocery prices, expensive gasoline, tariffs, and the increasing cost of everyday living. Are we really seeing a strong economy, or are American families being left behind? Today we're looking at the growing affordability crisis, Americans skipping meals, online grocery sales rising while in-store sales decline, and small restaurants struggling to find buyers. Plus, the IRS is identifying millions of potential nonfilers, speed cameras and new driving penalties are raising questions, and gold and silver are rebounding. This is business news you can use. What's happening in your household? Are things getting better or worse? Let me know in the comments."
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"The Ballot Box..."
“Dear future generations: Please accept our apologies.
We were rolling drunk on petroleum.”
- Kurt Vonnegut
Bill Bonner"Another Kick in the Pants"
"Another Kick in the Pants"
by Bill Bonner
Ardmore, Ireland - "Steve Hanke: "Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Defense reported that the cost of the Iranian war was $47.1 BILLION so far. It forgot more than $5 billion required to repair damaged U.S. bases that were destroyed by Iran. When all costs are tallied, they will amount to a STAGGERING $1,000,000,000,000." Another huge and preposterous boondoggle! Another brick in the wall. Another slap in the face...another kick in the pants...another $1 trillion down the drain…and into US debt.
You may be inclined to insult the ‘pubic servants’ responsible for it — those who are supposed to be the guardians of the taxpayers’ money. But what would be the point? They respond to incentives just like everyone else. But they should never have been allowed to touch our money or our economy. They know nothing about either one of them...and are far too busy seeking power to learn. Besides, their eagerness for electoral success leads them to two catastrophes at once - towards spending money they don’t have...and making war on countries they couldn’t find even with GPS and a flashlight.
The media loves the ‘gotcha’ moments, when a MAGA supporter can’t find Iran on a map…or a Democrat can’t name his own senators. But what does it matter? Ignorance never barred anyone from the ballot box or high pubic office. And so, today, the masses head to the poling stations. And what will be the outcome? That is the strange, quietly ticking package we left you with yesterday. Today, we still cannot answer the question...but at least we can have a look at it before it explodes.
Benzinga: "Steve Bannon, a former White House chief strategist and prominent MAGA figure, predicted the Republican Party will be engulfed in a “civil war” on Wednesday, Nov. 4, the day after the midterm elections, with lame-duck fights over the debt ceiling, federal spending and AI regulation to follow.
In an interview with the Financial Times, published on Saturday, Bannon, President Donald Trump’s chief strategist in his first term, said the lame-duck session will be “so brutal,” with “monster battles” over the debt ceiling, a large spending bill, defense policy and artificial intelligence. Those battles could have implications for defense contractors, technology stocks and Treasury yields.
While the Republicans go after each other with hammer and tongs, the Democrats are sharpening their knives, too. Washington Examiner: Michigan Democrats in disarray after Haley Stevens endorses Mike Rogers…"Democrats on Sunday faced an extraordinary political display of dysfunction just two days before the midterm elections: a Democratic congresswoman endorsed the Republican nominee for Senate, was kicked out of her own state party, and watched two of her top aides resign in protest."
The Hill: "‘Disarray’ doesn’t come close to describing it - Democrats are disintegrating."
Why can’t we all just get along? Because the stakes are gargantuan. And politics is a win-or-lose game. The only time Republicans and Democrats are in harmony is when they are ripping off the public. Let’s look first at what they are fighting over.
Federal spending alone is about a quarter of the nation’s entire GDP. Add state and local spending and you get about $12 trillion of spending - more than a third of the total US output.
And then there is the portion of the economy in private hands but under the federal thumb. The biggest items in that category are education and medical care, where the politicians call the tune, but the voters pay the piper. In the housing market too, the feds play a big role - subsidizing mortgages through Fannie Mae and using their financial clout to heavily influence mortgage rates. It’s supposed to be a free country, but more than half of it is owned, leased, or twisted by political elites - and it’s up for grabs today.
Today’s elections could set in motion many different squabbles, challenges...trends and countertrends. But what they won’t affect are the two things that matter most - money and war. On those two sacred rails the whole country rides to its destruction. But at least the two parties, scratching each other’s backs with an almost indecent tenderness, are enjoying the ride.
Forty trillion dollars of debt wasn’t just discovered, like a foundling at Union Station, abandoned on an economy class seat on the Northeast Regional train. The politicians of both parties sired it, nursed it, and voted for it. It is a monster...and it is their monster.
In very round numbers, the Republican, George W. Bush increased America’s debt by $4 trillion. Obama added $10 trillion more. And then, it was Trump’s turn...adding another $8 trillion. Next up, Biden, laid on another $8 trillion...followed by Trump again, who - less than two years into his second term - has heaped on another $4 trillion. So, there you have your answer. What thing of importance is likely to change today? Nothing."
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Monday, November 2, 2026
"Alert! Global Cyberattacks on Food Supply, Canadian Troops Move to Russian Border! Ebola Spreading"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 11/2/26
"Alert! Global Cyberattacks on Food Supply,
Canadian Troops Move to Russian Border! Ebola Spreading"
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Adventures With Danno, "Things Are Heating Up, Brace For Impact"
Adventures With Danno, 11/2/26
"Things Are Heating Up, Brace For Impact"
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"Welcome To The Hard Times America, It's About To Get Scary"
Jeremiah Babe, 11/2/26
"Welcome To The Hard Times America,
It's About To Get Scary"
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"We Are Alone: Carl Sagan’s Most Terrifying Warning"
Full screen recommended.
What If We're Wrong?
"We Are Alone:
Carl Sagan’s Most Terrifying Warning"
"Carl Sagan’s warning about humanity being alone in the universe is a sobering look at our cosmic isolation. We explore why the silence of space suggests we are on our own. This video examines the unsettling message left by one of science's greatest communicators. By visualizing our position among the stars, we consider the reality that no extraterrestrial civilization is coming to save us from ourselves. It is a reflection on the immense responsibility we hold as the potential sole stewards of life in the cosmos. We analyze the implications of planetary solitude and what it means for our future as a species. Understanding the Fermi paradox helps contextualize why our radio signals might be traveling into a vast, empty void. This is a look at the quiet reality of our existence and the importance of preserving our home."
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"Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the
Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
- Arthur C. Clarke
"A Look to the Heavens, With Chet Raymo"
“Reaching For The Stars”
by Chet Raymo
“Here is a spectacular detail of the Eagle Nebula, a gassy star-forming region of the Milky Way Galaxy, about 7,000 light-years away. The Eagle lies in the equatorial constellation Serpens. If you went out tonight and looked at this part of the sky – more or less midway between Arcturus and Antares – you might see nothing at all. The brightest star in Serpens is of the third magnitude, perhaps invisible in an urban environment. No part of the Eagle Nebula is available to unaided human vision. How big is the nebula in the sky? Hold a pinhead at arm’s length and it would just about cover the spire. I like to think about things not mentioned in the APOD descriptions.
If the Sun were at the bottom of the spire, Alpha centauri, our nearest stellar neighbor, would be about halfway up the column. Sirius, the brightest star in Earth’s sky, would be near the top. Let’s say you sent out a spacecraft from the bottom of the spire that travelled at the speed of the two Voyager craft that are now traversing the outer reaches of the Solar System. It would take more than 200,000 years to reach the top of the spire.
The Hubble Space Telescope cost a lot of money to build, deploy, and operate. It has done a lot of good science. But perhaps the biggest return on the investment is to turn on ordinary folks like you and me to the scale and complexity of the universe. The human brain evolved, biologically and culturally, in a universe conceived on the human scale. We resided at its center. The stars were just up there on the dome of night. The Sun and Moon attended our desires. “All the world’s a stage,” wrote Shakespeare, and he meant it literally; the cosmos was designed by a benevolent creator as a stage for the human drama. All of that has gone by the board. Now we can travel in our imagination for 200,000 years along a spire of glowing, star-birthing gas that is only the tiniest fragment of a nebula that is only the tiniest fragment of a galaxy that is but one of hundreds of billions of galaxies we can potentially see with our telescopes.
Most of us still live psychologically in the universe of Dante and Shakespeare. The biggest intellectual challenge of our times is how to bring our brains up to speed. How to shake our imaginations out of the slumber of centuries. How to learn to live purposefully in a universe that is apparently indifferent to the human drama. How to stretch the human story to match the light-years.”
Delta Blues Brother, "Quit Picking Flowers to Prove You Got a Garden"
Full screen recommended.
Delta Blues Brother,
"Quit Picking Flowers to Prove You Got a Garden"
"Why the Evil People in Your Life Are Being Exposed One by One"
Full screen recommended.
Native American Elder,
"Why the Evil People in Your Life
Are Being Exposed One by One"
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"Jiang Xueqin: Start Preparing Yourself"
Full screen recommended.
"Jiang Xueqin: 'Start Preparing Yourself'"
"Jiang Xueqin warns that the Iran war could trigger the collapse of the U.S. Empire and a devastating global economic crisis. He explains the potential collapse of the petrodollar system, rising U.S. debt, financial market bubbles, and the threat to global oil and food supplies. He also discusses Saudi Arabia, China's growing influence, and why the consequences could extend far beyond the Middle East. Could the Iran war trigger the collapse of the global economic system? Jiang Xueqin explains his alarming prediction."
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"Will Trump Resume Bombing Iran After Midterms?"
"Will Trump Resume Bombing Iran After Midterms?"
by John Leake
The installment of Ahmed Al-Sharaa as President of Syria in January 2025 reminded me of the two Battles of Fallujah in 2004. Al-Sharaa began his career with the Islamic State of Iraq (ISIL), joining the group in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
For those that don’t remember ISIL: the group was formed in 2004 by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and was known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). US Marine Corps veterans remember Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a key leader in the insurgency that fought the Marines during the two battles of Fallujah in 2004, which included some of the hottest house to house fighting in US Marine Corps history.
Indeed, the fighting got so fierce during the first battle in March 2004 that President Bush decided to pause it - ordering the Marines to pull back from the city and give up their initial gains - because it was creating political blowback in the US, and Bush was afraid it could hurt his reelection prospects. Two days after Bush was reelected in November, he sent the Marines back into the Fallujah meat grinder.
Not surprisingly, Iran’s influence in Iraq greatly expanded after the US overthrew Saddam Hussein in 2003. The removal of Saddam’s Sunni-dominated government created opportunities for Shiite political parties, some of which had longstanding relationships with Tehran, to acquire political power. Since the US and Israel started attacking Iran in February, Iran-aligned Iraqi militias have responded by attacking American interests and targets associated with American regional allies.
With Trump apparently determined to keep the US government’s tradition of pointless killing and mess-making in the Middle East alive and well, it wouldn’t surprise me if he resumes bombing Iran after the midterm elections on Tuesday, November 3, 2026. Please let me know what you think in the comments section."
o
Full screen recommended.
Larry C. Johnson, 11/2/26
"Israel Ready To Strike Iran,
U.S. Refueling Aircraft Mass At Airbase"
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"Taking the Houthis at Their Word: The Bill Saudi Arabia Doesn’t Want to Read"
"Taking the Houthis at Their Word:
The Bill Saudi Arabia Doesn’t Want to Read"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Riyadh has a simple method for dealing with Houthi claims. It announces that its air defenses intercepted something, says nothing about everything else, and hopes the world changes the subject. Aramco, a company that publishes its quarterly earnings to the decimal point, suddenly develops a vow of silence whenever someone asks whether its refineries are on fire.
So let me try something different. For the length of this column, I am going to ignore the Saudi government and Aramco entirely and take Ansar Allah’s military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, at his word. Not because Saree is a paragon of precision. Military spokesmen everywhere, including in Washington, inflate their results. I do it because the exercise tells you what the Houthis believe they are doing, what they are aiming at, and what Saudi Arabia stands to lose if even half of it is true. Since October 10, the answer is: quite a lot.
The target list: Between October 10 and October 29, Saree issued at least eight statements claiming strikes inside the kingdom. Read them together and a pattern jumps out. This is not random harassment. It is a campaign against three things: the capital, the oil export chain and the air bases that run the war in Yemen.
Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport appears in seven of those statements, on October 10, 11, 12, 19, 24, 26 and 29. Saree has declared it a “military target” and told airlines and travelers to stay away. The Houthis have also claimed King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, Abha airport three times and Najran airport three times.
On the energy side, the Houthis claim to have hit Aramco’s Yanbu complex three times, the East-West pipeline and its pumping stations twice, the Ras Tanura refinery twice, the Rabigh refinery twice, and the Abqaiq processing plant, the Shaybah oil field and Aramco’s headquarters in Dhahran once each. Ghawar, the largest oil field on earth, was reportedly on the October 10 list as well.
And on the military side, they claim the King Khalid Air Base at Khamis Mushait four times, a military headquarters in Najran, transport aircraft at Najran airport, a “Saudi navy task force camp,” radar sites at Jabal al-Hisn, Jabal al-Rahmah and Bir Askar, and, twice, the Saudi Ministry of Defense in Riyadh. Read that last one again. The Houthis claim they have twice hit the building from which the Saudi war in Yemen is run.
Every link in the chain: Here is the part that should keep Saudi oil ministers up at night. Look at the energy targets on a map, and you realize the Houthis are not just hitting oil facilities. They are claiming to hit every single link in the one supply chain Saudi Arabia has left.
With the Strait of Hormuz closed to normal traffic, the kingdom’s exports depend on a single route. Crude comes out of Ghawar and Shaybah in the east. It is processed at Abqaiq, which has a capacity of 7 million barrels a day and is the heart of the entire Saudi oil system. It is then pushed 1,200 kilometers west across the desert through the East-West pipeline, which has been running at its full 7 million barrels a day since March, by a string of pumping stations. And it is loaded onto tankers at Yanbu on the Red Sea, which was shipping about 5 million barrels a day of crude.
The Houthis claim to have hit the fields at the beginning, Abqaiq at the processing stage, the pumping stations in the middle and Yanbu at the exit. That is not a target list. That is a flowchart. My friend Karl Miller, who watches this closely from the region, told me weeks ago that four of the 11 pumping stations on that pipeline had been severely damaged and were not functioning. The Houthis’ latest claims suggest they intend to finish the job.
Running the numbers: So what is this worth? Brent was trading near $115 a barrel on October 28, the day after the Houthis claimed Ras Tanura. Let’s do some arithmetic.
If the claimed strikes on the pipeline, the pumping stations and Yanbu have cut the Red Sea exports in half, Saudi Arabia is losing roughly 2.5 million barrels a day. At $115, that is about $290 million a day, or around $8.6 billion a month. If Yanbu were shut entirely, the loss would be about $575 million a day, more than $17 billion a month. Those are not rounding errors, even for a country that has been known to buy a football club on a whim.
Then add the refineries. Ras Tanura has a capacity of about 550,000 barrels a day. Rabigh has roughly 400,000. Yanbu is home to three more. Take the claims at face value and the Houthis have struck plants representing well over a million barrels a day of refining. That is not merely lost revenue for Aramco. It is diesel, jet fuel and gasoline that the world, already short of all three, can’t buy from Saudi Arabia, and that Saudi Arabia may have to import for itself. A petrostate buying refined products from abroad is the energy equivalent of a bakery buying bread at the supermarket.
And then there is Abqaiq. We have seen this movie before. In September 2019, a drone and missile strike on Abqaiq and Khurais knocked out 5.7 million barrels a day, half of Saudi production, overnight. If the Houthis’ October 29 claim against Abqaiq is even partly true, they don’t need to hit anything else. Abqaiq is the chokepoint inside the chokepoint.
The real damage is political: The oil losses are serious, but they are temporary. Pipes get welded. Refineries restart. The political damage to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is far harder to repair.
MBS has staked everything on Vision 2030, the promise that Saudi Arabia will become a global hub for business, tourism, sport and investment. Every one of those businesses depends on one thing: the perception that the kingdom is safe. The Houthis are attacking that perception directly, which is why the capital’s airport is the most frequent name on their list. You can’t sell Riyadh as the Dubai of tomorrow when the Houthis are telling the world’s airlines not to land there. King Khalid Airport was closed from October 11 to October 18. The day after it reopened, Saudi Arabia postponed the Future Investment Initiative, the “Davos in the Desert” that BlackRock’s Larry Fink and JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon were supposed to attend, until 2027. Nothing says “open for business” like canceling your flagship business conference.
Then consider the military claims. Saudi Arabia signed a $142 billion arms package with Washington in May 2025, the largest in history, on top of decades of Patriots, F-15s and everything else money can buy. If Saree is to be believed, the Houthis, a movement that controls the poorest country in the Arab world, have repeatedly struck the main air base in the south, the radar network that is supposed to see them coming and the Defense Ministry in the capital. That is a humiliation that no amount of PR can hide. It raises an awkward question in every Gulf capital: what exactly did all that money buy?
It also explains the diplomatic scramble I wrote about last week. Riyadh’s new allies in Pakistan and Turkey have made it clear they will not cross into Yemen. Saudi Arabia’s defense minister flew to Tehran. There are reports, unconfirmed by Riyadh, of a $1 billion down payment to buy calm. Countries that are winning wars do not send their defense ministers to the other side’s patron with a checkbook.
The fine print: In fairness, I said I would take Saree at his word, and his word has a curious feature. On October 31, after the Saudi-led coalition said it had shot down a Houthi drone over Medina, Saree indignantly denied it. The Houthis, he said, had “not carried out any operation directed towards the Saudi interior.” So Ansar Allah will happily claim the Defense Ministry, Abqaiq and the Riyadh airport, but it draws the line at the holy cities. That isn’t modesty. It’s message discipline. The Houthis want the Muslim world to see a war against the House of Saud, not against Islam’s holiest sites.
Which brings me to the bottom line. Even if Saree is exaggerating by half, and he may be, Saudi Arabia is now fighting a war it cannot win on the ground, cannot stop from the air and cannot afford to keep losing at the pump. The Houthis don’t have to destroy Aramco. They only have to convince the world’s airlines, insurers and investors that the kingdom is a war zone. On present evidence, they are doing a pretty good job of it.
Somewhere in Riyadh, an Aramco spokesman is drafting another statement that says nothing. In Sanaa, Yahya Saree is drafting another target list. I know which one I’d read first."
"Israel's Alert Level Spikes As Iran’s 80,000 Drones Could Swarm Before US Troops Even Get There"
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 11/2/26
"Israel's Alert Level Spikes As Iran’s 80,000 Drones
Could Swarm Before US Troops Even Get There"
"Israel has reportedly raised its military alert level amid growing fears of renewed conflict with Iran, as US military movements and intelligence coordination with Israel draw attention. An Israeli assessment cited in reports estimates that Iran possesses around 1,700 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel and an arsenal of approximately 80,000 drones. Meanwhile, the UAE has warned that a confrontation with Tehran could be approaching. With Washington weighing its next steps, concerns are mounting over the possibility of another major escalation in the Middle East."
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Adventures With Danno, "Expect A Run On Essentials, Rough Times Ahead"
Adventures With Danno, 11/2/26
"Expect A Run On Essentials, Rough Times Ahead"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "They Want To Tax Every Mile You Drive!"
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Dan, I Allegedly, 11/2/26
"They Want To Tax Every Mile You Drive!"
"California is considering a mileage tax that could charge drivers for every mile they travel. And this isn't just a California story. States across the country are studying road-usage charges, raising questions about what drivers could pay, how mileage would be tracked, and what happens to personal privacy. We're looking at California's budget problems, existing gasoline taxes, government spending, the California Lottery, and the growing debate over mileage-based fees. Who collects the money? Who monitors your miles? What will the bureaucracy cost? And will these charges replace existing taxes or become another expense? This is personal finance, business news, government accountability and national news that could affect drivers across America. Your vote has consequences. Make sure you understand the issues."
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"Snyder Reports, 11/2/26"
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 11/2/26
"Fake Nuclear Alerts Spark Fear
As Cyberattacks Raise New Concerns"
"Emergency alerts just went off with fake nuclear warnings in Russia and Ukraine - while a cyber attack shut down grocery freezers across Europe. Here is what happened and what to stockpile now. In this video we break down the overnight hack on Ukraine and Russia's emergency alert apps that sent false radiation, chemical and street-combat warnings, the second cyber attack in two weeks that pushed supermarket freezers to 50 degrees Celsius and destroyed food, why 33 countries are now telling citizens to stockpile food, water and backup heat, and what the midterm election and rising US-Iran tensions could mean for power outages, food shortages and supply chain disruptions here in the US. This is about emergency preparedness, food storage and cyber attack readiness - not panic. Do what you can to prepare now."
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o
Full screen recommended.
Snyder Reports, 11/2/26
"Why They Are Worried About The Power Grid Now"
"DC just went dark - and it's not isolated. Smoke from manholes in Foggy Bottom, 1,100+ customers without power, plus outages in Louisiana, New Mexico and Florida on the same day. In this video I break down what happened in Washington DC one day before the midterms, why electric companies say demand is outpacing supply heading into an El Nino winter, and why multiple governments are now warning to prepare for cyber attacks, physical attacks, and grid-down scenarios. I also cover the hacked grocery freezers in Europe and U.S. military commissaries, what that means for food supply, and the simple prep steps you can start with - water, food, and backup power to stay warm even if you team up with family within walking distance. Were you impacted in DC? How long were you without power? Let me know in the comments."
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"The Great Political Train Wreck: Will a Blue Tsunami Sweep the Republican Trump Train Right Off its Rails?"
"The Great Political Train Wreck: Will a Blue
Tsunami Sweep the Republican Trump Train Right Off its Rails?"
by David Haggith
"We all know polls can be wrong - grossly wrong. So, we need to keep that in mind as we read through the headlines today. Still, there is not only unanimous agreement between the polls, there is widespread fear in Republicans that the polls are right. The number of major Republican social-media supporters of Donald Trump who have turned decidedly against them and who have hundreds of thousands, and some even millions, of followers certainly indicates there has been a tidal shift of support away from Trump and maybe away from the Republicans who have empowered and enabled his almost dictatorial form of government by decree in which he has often claimed powers that the conservative Supreme Court has ruled are not his to claim.
The biggest issue of contention in terms of dictatorial presidential power right now is the Iran war. Having overturned a good part of Trump’s tariffs wars as being never his to initiate in the first place, the court has not made any clear determination on the president’s Putinesque non-declaration of the not-a-war that is raging in the Middle East like the worst war we’ve seen America in since Vietnam - worst in that it has far more potential to go nuclear than, say, Iraq or Afghanistan did, and worse because it is destroying the entire global economy, making global enemies of all nations for the US and Israel - something that will be far more apparent a year down the road when the oil shortages and high inflation and inevitable soaring interest rates have taken their toil.
The president promises a bigger war right after the election, and the Dems, even if they do win, will have no power to stop him until they take office in December. If the president’s party loses this election, the president may become more hostile this time in the not-war than he has been during his past threats because he’ll know there is a possibility that he only has about a month in which to finish whatever it is he’s going to do.
Would the Democrats, however, actually rein in his war? That’s hard to say because they have never seen a war that, as a party, the would not support, They went along with the war on terror; they went along with its subparts - the war on Afghanistan, then the war on Iraq. They started war on Libya, then the war on Syria. The fact is, their party is as controlled by the warlords of the MIC as the Republicans. Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Weaponry, Big Steel and Big Rubber all make bank off of oil wars, and this is an oil war like no other that we have seen. As the president, himself, said, America is getting rich of this war and the high oil prices it has delivered. By that he meant those groups I just listed are getting rich - the same ones that always get rich off of big wars.
There is a reason Eisenhower warned of the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). This is it! With all that is at stake let’s look at the big Blue wave that is predicted by all polls to sweep over Trump Train like a tsunami, ripping it its the rails.
States as red as blood may end black and blue: One headline states below that Republicans now appear to be facing an evening of absolutely bruising - even brutal - losses tomorrow. The Trump economy is the driving issue for everyone. With his beloved tariffs and the oil war he claims to love, and the return of high inflation both types of war are bringing, which is driving interest rates, he gets to full own the economy, especially with his campaign promise that this would be a golden era. Trump’s betrayal of major MAGA promises to Republicans have chiseled away his base as well.
Republicans are bracing for a brutal election night, convinced they’re set to face some previously unthinkable losses in deep-red Trump territory as key battleground races hang on a knife’s edge. This is what happens when a dictatorial leader betrays all of his own supporters on so many major issues, and the congressional cult that backs him lets him get away with all of it with no restraint whatsoever. It means they get to fully own all of this, too. (And the Democrats only response seems to have been, “Let’s just give Trump enough rope to hang himself.”) It is what happens when his own party, in control of both houses of congress, lets him run far outside the constitution. Payback time DOES arrive.
House Republicans are privately discussing not just if they’ll lose their majority, but by how many seats. Imperiled GOP incumbents in once safe districts have been begging party leaders for more money in the final few days to stem the bleeding
There are plenty of betrayed Republican voters who are ready to let some blood out of their own party, so good luck with the money from billionaires buying those voters off, as Elon has been trying to do … again. Trump has even tried desperately to buy them off with promises of free tax-payer money if they will only enable his team of enablers to win again. Talk about desperate when the whole nation is suffering from bleeding red ink out of its budget during a time of soaring interest rates and screaming inflation threats and intensifying bloody-hot wars - the very wars Trump supporters believed they were getting out of if they voted for the Red Team.
With all of that, Trump is going to throw out another trillion-plus in additional government spending for no other stated reason than to try desperately to capture votes. He may also hope it will serve as a stimulus package to jump-start his moribund golden era, but it is a sugar diet, not protein, that is fiscally irresponsible in the extreme.
One Republican strategist working on midterm races simply responded to a question about the [political] environment with a video of a dumpster on fire that was being swept away by flood waters. Top GOP officials and lawmakers have long known the political landscape would be bad, amid voter anger over the cost of living and aspects of Trump’s policy agenda. But they’re facing a worse position than they expected earlier this year. And they have exactly one day left now to change all of that.
Republicans for weeks have worried that young men who’d voted for Trump, including white and Hispanic working class voters, will stay home amid disillusionment with high costs and the Iran war.
They certainly should! And they no doubt will. I’ll be the one surprised here if the Republicans don’t get trounced after all of this economic wreckage, savage oil war and betrayal of major promises to Trump’s base. Republican voters ought to turn away from their own gang just over the Epstain betrayal. Certainly over the economic catastrophe that is now starting to show its ugly head. Even more over the blatant wars and threats to attack friendly nations.
The twisted wreckage
Here is an example of how twisted some of the leaders in the party have become: Republicans have watched with horror as GOP governor nominee “Vivek’s [Ramaswamy’s] numbers have gone off a cliff” in the last few days after he ran an ad featuring Democrat Amy Acton’s estranged mother saying her daughter is a liar.
Who could have guessed that bright idea of a rape-belittling ad in these Epstained times (which Trump fully endorsed) would backfire? That is how tone-deaf and desperate the party has become. Throw someone’s rape back in their face with mom calling daughter a dirty liar, even though her dad was so guilty of rape he fled the courts for the rest of his life.
Acton’s stepfather was charged with raping her when she was 12. Her dad was so afraid of being convicted, he disappeared until he died two decades later, and that was during a time when rape convictions were rarely granted by courts. She must have had a pretty strong case for him to go into hiding for two decades during a time when only the strongest cases ever won.
That’s the hill you want to die on, Ramadamna Ding Dong? (I borrowed that from a friend as a nickname for Ramaswamy. I thought it was pretty good.) Throwing rape back in your opponents face? Good grief! This party has tarantulas crawling out of its cracks.
But in one of the most dire signs, once-unimaginable GOP worries have started to creep about deep-red Louisiana. Yeah, the swamps that Trump never drained during Trump 1.0 as he filled the White House with Goldman Sachs executives, ivy-league bankers, and Exxon execs. are looking a little bloody down in Louisiana.
The blue tsunami may be a Halloweenish outcome for EVERYONE because it make the ghoul who is caged in his gold-plated home all the more erratic as his frontal-lobe dementia - now easily every bit as obvious as the brain rot that took over the White House’s previous skeleton occupant—takes over what is left of his bruised and leg-dragging, apparently diapered body. For those who cannot see the dementia and physical deterioration in TheRump’s rambling, word-salad speeches, his peculiar little noises and mouth blips, his daily cussing tirades and his bizarre new fetish for using rallies to carry on repeatedly about the butts of other men as if that is going to win back MAGA …
The Atlantic has joked the octogenarian commander-in-chief is losing his inhibitions as he ages and, after a lifetime of staunch heterosexuality, is succumbing to “gay dementia”. Still, he’s not always gay in his blatant ogling: “By the way, I looked at one hell of a beautiful ass before, Nicki Minaj,” he confided. “That’s hard to miss. Stand up, Nicki. That’s hard to miss….” Mostly, however, Mr Trump’s praise at his rallies this month has been confined to men: “handsome guys” from the Secret Service, “massive, beautiful, handsome generals”, and of course Mr Husted, a “handsome sort of guy”.
Look, I’m not trying to talk about what he should like sexually, but I am asking is turning every campaign into an opportunity to carry on about your sexual proclivities what presidential politics is now about in America, or is this dementia removing all inhibitions? Is this what a brilliant man who is losing the election decides is a brilliant use of this campaign time? Or is this what a creepy old man with a rotting brain stem carries on about, even when on television? Can you imagine George Washington carrying on like that? Abraham Lincoln? Even Ronald Reagan? Is this the hell in which American politics dies?
This is what we have for presidential candidates these days. Let’s be honest here: Those who still hang with their man, the New Don of Indecency, are as willfully blind toward their own guy’s dementia as all the Democrats who suddenly wondered on a debate night what went wrong with bicycle-toppling, curtain-greeting, often-ranting, rambling, stage-tripping, dog-faced-pony-soldier, creepy, hair-sniffing Uncle Joe.
There is no good ground for Democrats to stand on here. They lost because the antique candidate they literally threw up against Trump was every bit as washed out and demented as Trump now is. So, then they reached into their bag of Halloween tricks and pulled out a little treat named Kamala, who was every bit as much tossing out word salad as her former boss, Joe. Remember the airhead talks that went like this: “I am for solving these problems together because when we all work together then we have togetherness, and the problems come together to be solved together….” Every interview was like listening to an automaton stuck in a brain loop.
This is the best garbage the clown cars seem able to put out on election night for pickup in the morning. So, both parties deserve the garbage Trump has delivered. Fully! The rest of us could only wonder how on earth it took the Blue-Pill Team that long to figure out how bad ol’ Joe was as we looked at the stone-cold, jaw-hanging faces of the liberal media after the debate that night who seemed genuinely bewildered at how their skeleton suddenly came out of the closet. Such is partisan politics and the Halloween clown cars both parties regularly deliver. Probably the same reason ultra-blue Seattle hasn’t figured out why it is failing so badly:
Isn’t it long past time to get out of partisan politics and recognize that the uniparty never delivers any good to the US? I got out long ago, leaving me free to criticize both clown cars for the horror shows that they really are."
Jim Kunstler, "Forcing Function"
"Forcing Function"
by Jim Kunstler
“Where Enlightenment philosopher Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am,’
the Communist says, ‘I’m right, therefore I’m in charge.’
- Data Republican on X
"It was supposed to be an election, but the event we’re in is actually an attempt to overthrow the government. The coup is underway. It’s a turnstile into the next phase of this Fourth Turning. We know who the perps are. They have outed themselves. They have declared war on the republic on video. Is there any other remedy except to arrest the bums, take them off the game board, and stuff them into a courtroom?
And how might that happen? First of all, who are they? At the operational level, a gang of a thousand or so bureaucrats, retired bureaucrats, current and ex-military officers, politicians, lawfare artists and their accomplice judges, billionaire activists, and not a few non-citizen hostiles working through a constellation of well-funded NGOs and lesser groups, partnered-up with the Democratic Party to give them the aura of legitimacy.
Their plan is to cheat like hell in the election tomorrow, rendering the outcome inconclusive and contestable in order to foment enough civil unrest to force the president to declare an emergency - triggering a sequence of actions to, in turn, declare the president and his administration illegitimate and pass off authority to a select handful of state governors such as Newsom (CA), Pritzker (IL), Spanberger (VA), Whitmer (MI), Polis (CO), and Hochul (NY), and then hold a new constitutional convention to radically change the structure of the government to establish permanent one-party rule.
One big reason for staging the coup is that many of the plotters’ heroes and leaders have already committed many crimes against the nation and the people, and are afraid of finally being held accountable for them. They don’t want to lose their fortunes, their power, their status, and end up in prison. These would be former presidents Obama and Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Brennan, James Comey and many many other familiar names. Some of these may still be active in the current shenanigans.
The lower level operational plotters only became known very recently: Danielle Reiff (former USAID, the Democracy Renewal Group); Paul Zeitz (Renew to Thrive); Rear Admiral (Ret.) Mike Smith (National Security Leaders for America); Erica Chenoweth (Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and the United Democracy Alliance); Julia Roig (The Horizon’s Project and Partners Global); her husband, Enrique Roig (former USAID / State Department official (Renew American Democracy, RAD); Ezra Levin, Leah Greenberg, and Matt Traldi (Indivisible).
Who elected them the bosses of our outfit? In fact, they are wannabe commissars, eager to push the rest of us around. They came up through a bureaucratic ecosystem of commissars. They are creatures of it. It’s all they know. We have seen their like before in the governments of the old Soviet Union and its spinoffs.
They are in company with another layer of better-known coup plotters outside and above the NGO orbit. Norm Eisen, head lawfare ninja who has been involved in every Deep State hoax of the past decade, including RussiaGate, the Ukraine Impeachment, the J-6 op and the House Committee that pretended to investigate it, the Mar-a-Lago raid, and most of the frivolous lawsuits engineered through the two years of Trump 2.0. Marc Elias is the election lawfare ninja who has engineered and organized much of the ballot fraud in at least four recent national elections. Mary McCord is a former FBI and DOJ executive officer, also involved in every hoax and attempted subversion since 2016. Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD) and Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) are also active plotters.
Senator Elissa Slotkin, involved in the setup for Maidan coup in Ukraine, 2014, when she worked for Veep Joe Biden, happened to be in Poland about a month ago. You might have noticed over the weekend that an attempted coup was staged there by forces seeking to bring Poland under tighter EU control - to give up their currency (the Zloty) for the Euro, and to open up their border to “migrants.” The coup in Poland has apparently failed. But, at the same time that France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Belgium are exploding in riots starring their migrants. Is the coup in America an extension of what looks like an international effort to overthrow Western Civ? Kinda smells like it.
So, these birds are daring President Trump to exercise his maximum executive power. Seems to me that Mr. Trump has the will to take them on. Let them make their move. Let them attempt to foment riots here post-election. The president and his agency heads at the DOJ, FBI, and Homeland Security already have probable cause (reasonable, fact-based belief) that a crime is being committed, or is about to be committed, by certain persons in a particular place. The plotters have laid it all out in Zoom calls that they foolishly believed were not recorded and email memoranda that were not supposed to get loose. And keep in mind that the President also happens to be Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, in case things get spicy.
Arrest these plotters for seditious conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 2384), insurrection (18 U.S.C. § 2383), advocating overthrow of the government (18 U.S.C. § 2385), and conspiracy to defraud the United States (18 U.S.C. § 2385). If they have done any of this plotting in concert with persons associated with foreign governments, charge them with treason (18 U.S.C. § 2381) and misprision of treason (knowing of it and failing to report it) (18 U.S.C. § 2382).
That ought to take the starch out of them. To this point, President Trump has been notably scrupulous in dealing with his political enemies, while they have employed every conceivable underhanded tactic, including attempted assassination. Their effrontery is monumental. The battlespace is prepared. Better believe the Gray Champion is moving to meet them there."
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“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
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Bill Bonner, "The Final Frontier"
"The Final Frontier"
by Bill Bonner
"To go boldly where no man has gone before."
- "Star Trek"
Ardmore, Ireland - "What happened last week? Well, we got (tentative) answers to two important questions.
1. When is the AI bubble going to pop? Answer: this is as good a time as ever. Wall Street Journal: "OpenAI has raised less than half of the $30 billion it had initially targeted for its latest funding round, with market jitters over the AI trade dampening investor appetite for one of the industry’s biggest names. After receiving tepid interest from some large investors, OpenAI has so far secured roughly $11 billion in commitments for the new financing, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal values the company at $1.25 trillion - less than the $1.4 trillion valuation that it had earlier hoped to achieve."
And here’s CNN on the story: "NASDAQ suffers worst month in over a year as AI nerves roil markets."
Investor’s Business Daily, meanwhile, tells us that when AI goes down...the whole market will follow: "Dow Jones futures: Stock market sells off as Apple, Palantir, midterm elections loom; what to do."
In our view, it is extremely unlikely...verging on impossible...for AI bets to pay off. People could spend more on AI toys and tools...but there’s just not enough profit that could be squeezed out of current output to justify all the fertilizer that has been dumped onto the AI seedlings. The only way AI investments could theoretically pay off would be for these little shoots to grow into real wealth that we haven’t seen before - adding trillions in jobs, houses, cars...fuel...meals...and so forth. Could AI do that? There’s no evidence of it. AI can do remarkable things; but, so far, it can’t pay the mortgage.
2: Why don’t we just put our wealth into bitcoin? The argument was persuasive. Bitcoin is cheap to store. Easy to move around. Safe. Secure. Private. As you know, our Bonner Private Research allocation model recommends only a token exposure to crypto - just 1% of the portfolio. Crypto fans suspected that we didn’t understand how it worked...or that we were afraid of such a mysterious form of wealth. They were right on both counts! And now we do see how it works. And the very thing we feared has come to pass. Fox: "Expert warns of ‘AI hacking bloodbath’ following massive Binance cryptocurrency theft."
According to a financial and reputation management expert … the worst may be yet to come. Eric Schiffer, chairman of Patriarch and Reputation Management Consultants, told FOX Business that the scale of the theft underscores the growing cybersecurity challenges facing major financial institutions. “I look at this as one of the world’s greatest thefts of all time, and it’s sad,” Schiffer said.
The Financial Times gave a fuller report on Saturday. It was full of jargon and techie mumbo jumbo...but as near as we could make out the folks at Binance still don’t know how the heist was pulled off...nor by whom. Crypto is a way of keeping track of who owns what. And the crypto guys were sure the ‘information’ was safe and sound. But it wasn’t. And wasn’t it either extreme naïveté or remarkable hubris to think that today’s technology was so advanced that tomorrow’s technology would pose no threat to it? There are always lock makers...and the lock pickers are right behind them.
In other news, the US president continued his anatomical observations. Nicki Minaj has a ‘beautiful ass,’ he remarked. He started ‘studying [Jon Husted’s] ass’ two weeks ago; this last week he noted that the Ohio senator had fingers like ‘sausages.’
Finally, two actors from "Star Trek" died last week. The Independent: "Star Trek" community rocked by two major losses in one week Walter Koenig and Sir Patrick Stewart have died."
That was last week. This week the important thing is probably the US mid-term elections. Who will win? Who will lose? What will it mean? Polymarket:
72% chance Democrats take the Senate
94% chance Democrats take the house
And to what new galaxy will this take us? Stay tuned."
"Economic Market Snapshot 11/2/26"
"Economic Market Snapshot 11/2/26"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
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Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
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