Deuter, "Sea and Silence"
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Friday, July 25, 2025
"A Look to the Heavens"
"In the heart of the Rosette Nebula lies a bright open cluster of stars that lights up the nebula. The stars of NGC 2244 formed from the surrounding gas only a few million years ago. The featured image taken in January using multiple exposures and very specific colors of Sulfur (shaded red), Hydrogen (green), and Oxygen (blue), captures the central region in tremendous detail.
A hot wind of particles streams away from the cluster stars and contributes to an already complex menagerie of gas and dust filaments while slowly evacuating the cluster center. The Rosette Nebula's center measures about 50 light-years across, lies about 5,200 light-years away, and is visible with binoculars towards the constellation of the Unicorn (Monoceros)."
"The Consequences Of Our Choices..."
“Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices.”
- Richard Bach, “Running From Safety”
"The System Is Unraveling, The Debt Spiral Everyone Is Ignoring Isn't Going Away"
Jeremiah Babe, 7/25/25
"The System Is Unraveling,
The Debt Spiral Everyone Is Ignoring Isn't Going Away"
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"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"
"Cycles, Systems and Seats in the Coliseum"
by Charles Hugh Smith
"Contrary to first impressions, I am not a doom-and-gloomer; I'm a systems-cycles-er, meaning I'm interested in where systems and cycles are heading. Cycles work because we're still running Wetware 1.0 which entered beta testing around 200,000 years ago and was released, bugs and all, around 50,000 years ago. Since the processes and inputs haven't changed, neither do the outputs.
Nature is a mix of dynamic, semi-chaotic systems (fractals, etc.) and cyclical patterns which tend to operate within predictable parameters. Why should human nature and human constructs (societies, economies and political realms) be any different?
So longterm success breeds complacency, hubris, economic and intellectual sclerosis, draining political infighting and the overproduction of parasitic elites, to use Peter Turchin's apt description. Consumption of resources expands to soak up every last bit of what's available and then the supply of goodies plummets for a multitude of completely natural and predictable reasons (sunspot/solar activity, El Nino, etc.) and a host of unpredictable but equally natural semi-chaotic extremes (100-year droughts, floods, etc.).
Wetware 1.0's go-to solutions to all such difficulties are rather limited:
1. Ramp up magical thinking. If a couple of human sacrifices ensured good harvests in the good old days, let's slaughter a couple hundred now - and if that doesn't work, then...
2. Do more of what's failed spectacularly and slaughter a couple thousand fellow humans, because darn it, maybe everything will turn around if we just kill another couple dozen. This requires ignoring the novelty of the current challenges and clinging to what worked so well in the past even as whatever worked in the past can't possibly work now because circumstances are fundamentally different.
3. Seek scapegoats. It's those darn witches. Burn a bunch of them and our troubles will magically disappear.
4. Go take what we need from some other tribe. What's our oil doing under their sand?
5. Consolidate power and wealth in the hands of elites whose failures exacerbated the crisis. Because the obvious solution (to the elites with cushy offices around the palaces and temples) to repeated failures of a leadership that only excels in one thing, squandering rapidly depleting resources on infighting and self-aggrandizement, is to give us all the remaining wealth and power. Hey, this makes perfect sense once you understand #2 above.
6. Demand sacrifices of the many to protect the privileges of the few. The Empire needs some warm bodies to fend off the Barbarians, because it would be a real shame if the Barbarians reached our palatial estates and disrupted the flow of wine and festivities. No worries when you come back on your shield; the bureaucracy will give you a decent burial and your spouse and kids can join the multitude of half-starved beggars waiting for the dwindling distributions of bread and circuses. But never mind that, did you hear about the upcoming games in the Coliseum? Good seats are going fast.
7. Eat your seed corn to keep the party going awhile longer. Not every human group had the luxury of borrowing "money" to keep the fast-unraveling party going awhile longer, so they consumed their seed corn and drained the last of their reserves--which is the same thing as borrowing "money" from a future with diminishing resources and productivity.
8. Maintain supreme confidence that "it will all work out fine because it's always worked out fine" without any sacrifice required of "those who count." What's forgotten is that the luxe greatness that is now teetering on the precipice of ruin was won by the sacrifices of the elites far exceeding the sacrifices of the many.
Back in the day, joining the elite and maintaining one's position required constant sacrifices on behalf of the common good, and strict adherence to public virtue. Now that's all forgotten, and all that remains are elites possessed by the demons of shameless greed and self-interest. The idea that debt, leverage, speculation, greed, exploitation and parasitic elites can expand exponentially forever is magical thinking. Yet that is precisely what America and the rest of the global economic order insists is true and will always be true, forever and ever.
By all means, reject those horrid, awful doom-and-gloomers who look at systems and cycles. Everything will be fine as long as you secure seats for the next games at the Coliseum - they should be spectacular - but not in the way you expect."
Travelling With Russia, "Visiting the World-Famous Gorky Park in 2025"
Full screen recommended.
Travelling With Russia, 7/25/25
"Visiting the World-Famous Gorky Park in 2025"
"Gorky Park is by far the most famous park in all of Russia. Walking in Gorky Park really is something everyone must experience once in their life. The words "Going down to Gorky Park" really do give you goose bumps are you walk in the main entrance."
Comments here:
o
Full screen recommended.
Lisa With Love, 7/25/25
"Midnight At The Russian Metro"
Comments here:
"People Are Living In Run Down RV's All Over The Desert; People At The Food Bank Have Disappeared"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 7/25/25
"People Are Living In Run Down RV's All Over The Desert;
People At The Food Bank Have Disappeared"
Comments here:
Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s a Great Day to be a Criminal - Is Justice Broken?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 7/25/25
"It’s a Great Day to be a Criminal -
Is Justice Broken?"
"120 criminals freed in Boston - what's really going on with our justice system? In today’s video, I dive into the shocking situation unfolding in Boston, Massachusetts, where district attorneys are refusing to take on more cases until they receive a pay raise. This has resulted in 120 criminals walking free, with the potential for 1,000 more cases to be dismissed soon. From felonies to severe crimes, victims are left without justice, and the system seems to be failing. I break it all down for you, comparing attorney wages across states and exploring how this could set a dangerous precedent for other areas."
Comments here:
"From Epstein to Exponential Debt: Signs of a System Unraveling"
"From Epstein to Exponential Debt:
Signs of a System Unraveling"
by Chris MacIntosh
"So much to talk about and so little time. I will make this statement because it is relevant to the situation we all find ourselves in today: “Lord Anton says that ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’. But reflecting, it is key to understand that power does not transform, it amplifies. He who leads, shows what he really is… with more impact. Power doesn’t change people, it just takes away the need to pretend. The righteous protects, the ambitious abuses, the insecure becomes a tyrant. It is not power that corrupts, it is the true face of each that emerges when there is no longer fear of consequences.”
I believe that the reason we are seeing outright abuses is that the abusers used to operate in the shadows (covert). But now, as the cloak is forcibly removed, these actors move out of the shadows, becoming overt. The problem with being overt is that the strategies that are used under covert (Epstein blackmail operations) are very different from overt ones. Once the actions become overt, the cloak is removed and trust evaporates. The ability to control the peasants when trust is no longer there also evaporates. This is why we’re about to enter a time where authoritarian overt actions come to the table - where the pointy shoes drop the pretenses and show the peasants who they really are.
B.S. Fatigue: “President Trump’s Justice Department and FBI have concluded they have no evidence that convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein blackmailed powerful figures, kept a ‘client list’ or was murdered, according to a memo detailing the findings obtained by Axios.” Of course, this brings up the problematic question of Ghislaine, who was jailed for trafficking kids… to nobody. If there’s no list, then you can be darn sure her lawyers will be looking to spring her because… well, you can’t be convicted of a victimless crime, can you?
It’s all a bit absurd. Anyone asking obvious questions is called crazy. Shut up, you peasants, with your conspiracy theories. Wear your mask. It’s for your protection. Trust the news, they’re there for you. This reminds me of how the documents relating to the moon landing held by NASA went missing. The most important and groundbreaking event in the history of NASA, and whoops, lost it. Weird! And it all kicked off around 2021. It’s all so puzzling. I wish someone could figure it out.
Why point this all out? Easy. It is what happens at the end of empires. The peasants lose faith in their masters. I mean, who but the retarded believes the guvmint, media, big pharma, big banking, big AG or any of the pointy shoes at this point? And you know where trust in the pointy shoes is expressed in financial markets? Yup, the sovereign bond markets.
Let’s revisit the numbers…Just before the plandemic, federal debt was $20 trillion and GDP was $21 trillion. Ever since then, the path of travel has been accelerating in one direction. Consider that now we’ve $37 trillion of federal debt, while GDP is $29.1 trillion, putting US government debt to GDP at 127%. So the parasitic guvmint sector has climbed by 85% while GDP grew only about 20%. Why am I not surprised? To keep it going, the pointy shoes are now running a 7% annual deficit. Keep in mind the average for the last few decades was around 3.8%. This all matters because debt always matters, even if only eventually.
Recall in some issues back we listed out the four elements which exist for a massive change in the geopolitical order of the world and consequent repricing of assets which takes place. To refresh your memory, they are:
• The monetary and credit cycle where nations get into a sovereign debt problem, which needs to be dealt with.
• Domestic conflict, typically beginning as political disagreement, but where disagreement isn’t resolved by discourse.
• A rising power challenging the existing power and causing international conflict.
• Technological changes that assist in disrupting the status quo.
This brings up the question of, “Oh well, how can they deal with the debt problem?” History provides a solid list of actions. There are four options:
• Taxation.
• Confiscation or seizure of assets.
• Confiscation or seizure of assets.
• Austerity (the pointy shoes looking around and saying, “By golly, we’re a bunch of parasitic muppets, destroying things, best we rein ourselves in.” This, of course, rarely, if ever happens.
• Debt restructuring, which is what Orange Man was attempting to do with tariffs, which amounted to a negotiation with creditors and which has, for the most part, failed.
As of right now, the federal debt is skyrocketing, and traditional policy levers are no longer working effectively. Raising interest rates simply inflates debt service costs, causing losses for bond holders while presenting a real risk of not only maturing debts NOT being rolled over but holders of these debt instruments selling them.
My colleague Lyn Alden makes a point regarding the total debt vs base money. She argues that total credit is expanding with base money lagging and that past shocks such as the global financial crisis of 2008 and CONVID didn’t reverse this. Her argument - one I agree with - is that this trend ain’t going backwards… ever."
"Fire the Fed, Raise Tariffs, and Hope for the Best"
"Fire the Fed, Raise Tariffs, and Hope for the Best"
by MN Gordon
“Protectionism is a policy of wasting a
country’s resources to support inefficiency.”
- Ludwig von Mises, "Planning for Freedom "(1952)
- Ludwig von Mises, "Planning for Freedom "(1952)
Paris, France - "Uh, oh… here comes the counter-punch. French newspaper, Le Monde, has the latest…"EU approves €93 billion in counter-tariffs on US goods. Brussels prepares to strike back with up to 30% levies on US goods and services starting August 7 if no deal is reached, responding to US President Donald Trump's tariff threats.
EU states on Thursday, July 24, approved a €93 billion ($109 billion) package of counter-tariffs on US goods that would kick in from August 7 if talks with the United States fail, European diplomats said. US President Donald Trump blindsided the European Union this month when he threatened a 30% levy on EU goods unless the two sides reach a trade deal by August 1."
Brussels and Washington appear to be inching toward a deal with a baseline 15% levy on EU goods, but the bloc is still forging ahead with detailed retaliatory plans in the event of no accord. Trade wars might be a useful tool to rouse the rabble, but they rarely work out well for the people themselves. More taxes… more friction… more state intervention in what ought to be win-win deals; the history of tariffs does not argue in their favor.
Ah, but perhaps this time is different. President Trump is a genius, his supporters argue. He understands the “Art of the Deal.” Maybe. Maybe not... All we know is we never met a government program – be it tax, subsidy or market intervention by any another name – that didn’t inspire a furrowed brow and a heavy heart. Recall Ludwig von Mises’s warning, from Human Action (1949): “The worst thing that can happen to a nation is not to be conquered by a foreign power but to be subjected to domestic policy of protectionism.”
In today’s guest essay, MN Gordon takes a closer look at this topic du jour. As mentioned before in these Notes, we have no financial arrangement with Mr. Gordon and do not profit from publishing his work… we simply enjoy his thought-provoking articles and reckon you might, too.
Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Trump’s tariffs, it’s worth taking a step back and considering them from the macro perspective. Check out Gordon’s latest musing, in today’s guest column, below. And if you like it, be sure to comment and share. Cheers ~ JB
"Fire the Fed, Raise Tariffs, and Hope for the Best"
by MN Gordon
"President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent want lower interest rates so they can lower the financing costs of America’s massive debt. The net interest on the debt for fiscal year 2025 is on track to hit $1 trillion.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has resisted daily lambasting from Trump to cut rates. Powell wants to first wait and see how Trump’s tariff policies impact consumer price inflation. Moreover, with unemployment moderately low, the CPI rising at an annual rate of 2.7 percent, and the stock market at all-time highs there is no compelling reason to cut rates.
Nonetheless, Trump’s had enough of Powell’s disobedience. This week Bessent revealed that active steps are being taken to fire Powell before his term runs out next year. He will be replaced with someone who will comply with Trump’s rate cut demands.
Of course, a sensible way to lower interest rates would be to eliminate deficit spending. With a balanced budget, the Treasury would no longer have to issue new debt. It could merely finance the existing debt. Under this scenario the pool of Treasuries would no longer be expanding. As the supply of Treasuries is reduced the continued demand would likely drive interest rates down. This would help Trump and Bessent achieve their desire for lower interest rates.
But instead of forcing Congress to balance the budget, Trump pushed his One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The combination of tax cuts and spending increases will add over $3 trillion in additional debt – over and above the already projected debt – over the next decade. This will blow the national debt out to over $60 trillion by 2040.
Can Tariffs Reduce the Deficit? The addition of all this new debt makes the prospect of lower interest rates highly unlikely. Still, Trump thinks he can influence the budget through other means. His big idea is to generate revenue from tariffs. He believes this will reduce the budget deficit.
Until the monthly Treasury Statement for June was reported, it appeared the U.S. government was on track to run a budget deficit of $2 trillion for fiscal year 2025. But something remarkable happened in June. The U.S. government ran a surplus of $27 billion. This is on the heels of a $315 billion deficit in May. Of note, the $27 billion surplus was the first time there has been a budget surplus in June since 2017. In June 2024, there was a $71 billion budget deficit. Tariffs do appear to have had a positive effect on the budget.
The monthly Treasury Statement shows that custom duties for June were $27 billion. This is up from $22 billion in May. What’s more, since October, total tariff revenues are $108 billion, which is the highest they’ve ever been for the first nine months of a fiscal year. At this point in the 2024 fiscal year, only $56 billion in custom duties had been collected. And for the full 2024 fiscal year custom duties totaled just $77 billion.
At a recent White House cabinet meeting Bessent noted that the U.S. could grow its tariff revenue to $300 billion by the end of the 2025 calendar year. Trump said he believes “the big money will start coming in on August 1.” Trump, however, didn’t elaborate on where the big money will come from…
Tariffs are Taxes: The status of Trump’s “on-again, off again” tariffs is hard to keep up with. As we understand it, the average U.S. tariff rate increased from 2.5 percent to an estimated 27 percent by April 2025, the highest in over a century. Trump’s apparent strategy has involved announcing tariffs, then pausing them for negotiation periods, only to re-impose or adjust them. If you recall, after announcing reciprocal tariffs on Liberation Day, April 2, 2025, a universal 10 percent tariff took effect, with additional tariffs for 57 trading partners initially planned but then paused for 90 days when Wall Street panicked.
The pause on reciprocal tariffs has now been pushed out to August 1, with Trump sending letters to countries detailing new tariff rates. These new tariffs are why Trump expects the “big money” to start coming in on August 1. Certainly, reducing the budget deficit via increased tariff revenue sounds like a positive outcome. But what are the consequences?
Trump’s trade tariff policies are designed to protect domestic production, bring manufacturing jobs home, and reduce America’s massive trade deficit. However, there are two sides to every coin. The flipside to Trump’s trade policies is higher prices. Very simply, tariffs are taxes. They are not paid by foreign producers out of some generous desire to subsidize American consumers. They are duties levied on imported goods. And like all taxes, they are ultimately paid by the end-user. In this case, American consumers.
For example, when Trump slaps a 10 percent, 25 percent, or even a 60 percent tariff on goods from China, Europe, Mexico, or anywhere else, that cost is absorbed into the price of those goods. Importers pay more, distributors pay more, retailers pay more, and eventually, you pay more.
Fire the Fed, Raise Tariffs, and Hope for the Best: Tariffs, and their associated effects, will touch just about every consumer good that people regularly buy and use. The clothes people wear, electronic gadgets they use, the car components they rely on, and raw materials for manufacturing. As you know, a significant share of these originate from beyond America’s borders.
When tariffs are imposed, the cost of bringing these goods to market escalates. Businesses, operating on razor-thin margins, have two choices. Absorb the cost and potentially go bankrupt or pass the cost along to the consumer. Most retailers will choose the latter, as this is the inevitable path of survival.
But the inflationary impacts don’t stop there. Tariffs, by their very design, are meant to make foreign goods less competitive. The objective is to give domestic producers an advantage. These protectionist policies result in higher consumer prices. They also reduce the competitive pressure that keeps prices in check. With less competition from abroad, domestic industries face reduced incentives to keep their prices low. Why innovate? Why cut costs? Why offer discounts?
If the playing field is artificially tilted in the favor of American producers, they can simply raise their prices to match the now-inflated cost of imports. This is the downside of protectionism. It breeds complacency and, ultimately, higher prices for everyone. It also reduces the choices consumers have and generally leads to lower quality goods. Trade tariffs also mess with the broad and complex economic supply chain. A tariff on steel, for example, doesn’t just make imported steel more expensive, it makes everything that uses steel – from cars to refrigerators to construction materials – more expensive.
The cumulative effect of these actions is a direct assault on the purchasing power of the average American. Your hard-earned dollars buy less. Real wages decline. The cost of living goes up.
Tariff induced higher prices act as a stealth tax on every household. This erodes savings and makes it harder for families to make ends meet. Gambling to close the budget deficit through massive trade tariffs and artificial rate cuts is madness. The consumer – that’s you – will be the one who pays the “big money” Trump’s counting on. The real solution is to cut spending. Yet politics won’t allow it. Thus, the folly continues."
Bill Bonner, "Ghost Wealth"
"Ghost Wealth"
by Bill Bonner
Poitou, France - "Today, we wonder about money itself. We come to no conclusion...for now, we just wallow in it, like a pig rolling in mud. In the Capital city, the money pours in...and the swamp waters rise. Politico: "The first six months of President Donald Trump’s term have produced a cash cow of historic magnitude for the lobbying industry, with record-breaking demand for help navigating the administration’s constant stream of policy pronouncements - or trying to avoid becoming a pay-for in the GOP’s megabill.
The result is a new set of power brokers in Trump’s swamp. Firms with strong ties to the White House have skyrocketed to the top of the pecking order of lobbying outfits in town, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest quarterly lobbying disclosures filed this week.
No firm has benefitted more than Ballard Partners, which is led by Trump fundraiser Brian Ballard. The firm previously employed White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Ballard brought in $20.6 million in lobbying revenues during the second quarter of the year from clients including Palantir, American Express, TikTok, Ripple Labs and UnitedHealth. Its haul is more than four times what the firm brought in during the second quarter of 2024."
Public Citizen elaborates: "According to Bondi’s financial disclosure report filed in January, she received over $1 million in income from January 2023 to January 2025 as a lobbyist, partner, and chair of the Corporate Regulatory Compliance practice at Ballard."
The real genius of ‘Big Man’ leaders is being able to convince the masses that they are working for them, while the money still flows to the insiders. Another way to look at it: as the empire of laws declines, the degenerate rule of men takes over. They make money by offering to fix the problems their own policies cause. But let’s keep our eyes on the money. It gushes into financial assets too.
Stocks are at or near all-time highs. The S&P 500 is over 6,300. The Nasdaq is over 21,000. The Dow is over 45,000. And the total value of all US publicly traded stocks is over $50 trillion. ‘Anti-stocks’ - gold and crypto - are also getting more money. Gold is over $3,400. And it was just last week that USA Today reported a new breakthrough for bitcoin: "Bitcoin leapt past $120,000 for the first time on Monday, marking another milestone for the world's largest cryptocurrency as investors bet on long-sought policy wins for the industry this week, which has been dubbed "crypto week" by U.S. Republicans." Bitcoin BTC scaled a record high of $123,153.22 before pulling back. The increase brings the year-to-date gains for digital currency to 30%.
Everything seems to be getting more grease…except the real economy. So far this year, GDP went down in the first quarter. The second quarter shows some growth...leaving the first half of the year with about 1% net increase in output.
That puts the gain from bitcoin at about 30 times as much. Bitcoin has no material existence...no connection to any durable or tangible asset...no team of economists to manage and guide it...and no backing from anyone. It has nevertheless gained a full third in value this year against the dollar, while the dollar lost about 10% against other currencies and 20% against gold.
And here is where this ghost currency gets interesting. The total market cap of bitcoin is around $2.3 trillion. All the cryptos put together are worth over $4 trillion. Is this a $4 trillion increase to the world’s money supply? If so, where did it come from? What wealth does it represent? Or is it...like the new money itself...a kind of ghost wealth, ready to disappear in the light of day?
The ‘wealth’ implied by stock prices has gone way up too...about ten times as much as GDP. Corporate earnings don’t explain it. Instead, price/earnings leverage has increased to the second highest level on record. Even as late as 1980, stocks were selling for only 6- or 7-times annual earnings. But that was the end of an era. Since then, stocks have gone up...and up...and up...never again selling for as little as 10 times earnings.
And today, on the S&P, a dollar’s worth of corporate earnings is enough to justify $30 worth of stock price - a number greatly inflated by the fake dollar that appeared in 1971 and has been with us ever since. This suggests that as much as two-thirds of the stock market’s value – about $33 trillion - is also ‘ghost wealth.’
No hunter-gatherer tribe ever happened upon a Tesla pick-up truck. Not a single one of the Maya aristocracy...even in the hot jungle of Mesoamerica... turned on the air-conditioning...or opened a can of cold Coca Cola while watching the Super Bowl on his big screen TV. Nope, wealth is not discovered. It is created. So, there must be a connection between the makers and the made...between producers and their products...and between the income and the capital accounts.
A stock gets its value from its company output (real or imagined). We’ve seen that stock prices have risen far more than corporate profits. But where does bitcoin get its value; it produces no profits at all? No one working for bitcoin makes sales, let alone profits. No employees produce anything - no income...no output...no product...no nothing. Owners get no W-2 forms. No dividends. No tchotchkes. So where’s the ‘wealth’ implied by a $2.3 trillion capitalization? Tune in next week...we’ll look more closely at this ‘ghost wealth’…where does it come from; where does it go? And when does it go bye-bye?"
Since you asked...
The Rolling Stones, "Money (That's What I Want)"
Gregory Mannarino, "A Great Reckoning Is Coming"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/25/25
"A Great Reckoning Is Coming"
Comments here:
Jim Kunstler, "Baseless?"
"Baseless?"
by Jim Kunstler
"If you can arrest a former president named Donald Trump,
you can arrest a former president named Barack Obama."
- Peachy Keenan on "X"
"Don’t you think it’s time for The New York Times to stop using the cliché “baseless” when referring to allegations - now, actually, official accusations - of the seditious conspiracy to run President Trump out of office after the 2016 election? Of all the fake “journalistic” blurts emanating from this bastion of degenerate sell-outs, “baseless” is the fakest, as if the word printed in a headline were so magically potent, the sheer assertion of it can make all your problems just - poof! - go away.
It’s the thought process of wicked children who fail to develop a sense of true or false, right or wrong, who grow into adults specially licensed, by some new perversion of the social contract, to get away with anything. And those wicked children have become America’s managerial class, the elite who are supposed to do your thinking for you op-ed style, the credentialed experts, such as Tony Fauci, “economist” Paul Krugman, DEI avatar and NPR honcho Katherine Maher, Harvard law prof Lawrence Tribe...the list is interminable, but you get the picture.
This class is also the owner/operator of America’s political Deep State, which by 2016 had grown into a colossal racketeering operation, money-laundering gazillions of taxpayer dollars into NGOs dedicated to the country’s cultural and political destruction while it processed campaign donations into fantastic fortunes for people officially earning less than $200-K a year. The racket also managed to pay for the support of multitudes allergic to working for living, as long as they were available for riots and ballot-harvesting drives.
It was working at such a high pitch by the end of Barack Obama’s two terms, with the most stupendously privileged creature in the Boomer bestiary ready to take her “turn” in the Oval Office - after amassing a $300-million-plus fortune serving as US senator (salary, $174-K / year) and Secretary of State (salary $199,700/year, then) - that you must imagine the mighty freak-out at the prospect of one Donald John Trump, outsider vulgarian extraordinaire, promising to step in and drain the whole massive, putrid, necrotic, parasitical nepo-infested quagmire of predatory grifters, leaving them gasping for their lives on the stinking Potomac mudbanks like so many grunions dying on the beach at Redondo.
Barack Obama, apparently, Darth Vadar-ized himself and was handed a light-saber (Hillary’s Steele dossier) by John Brennan, Grand Duke of Planet Intel...and the rest should have been history - but instead festered in the US body politic for more than ten years like an inflamed tuberculoma and is now bursting out of the Beltway’s peritoneal cavity in a spectacular spray of ordure, sticking to everyone and everything like a thousand tails pinned on the everlasting Democratic donkey. Alas, Babylon-on-the-Potomac...
Also: “baseless,” my ass...The basis for all this mischief is in the process of having proof supplied by the one figure, DNI Gabbard, in a position to retrieve the evidence, in writing, from the various heavily ring-fenced agencies over which she is the ultimate overseer, which has not been done before, especially back in the crucial weeks of late 2020 when John Ratcliffe was in that position. The reason Tulsi succeeded this time where Ratcliffe did not is probably due to newly available A-I systems which make collation of cross-searches much easier through the countless servers of the many intel agencies. And so, now it pours forth day by day.
That’s where things stand and the dust has not even begun to settle, with former President Obama seemingly hoisted on the petard of his own making back in December of 2016. Whether or not all the declassified info can be crafted into prosecutable cases is not yet determined, but you might imagine it will come together soon enough, if at all possible. It may not add up to treason per se, but there are plenty of other serious charges generally proceeding from deprivation of rights under color of law (18 U.S.C. § 242), to seditious conspiracy, i.e., overthrow of the president (18 U.S.C. § 2384) to stuff a number of former officials into orange jumpsuits behind bars.
I doubt, though that we have reckoned the worst damage done by the perpetrators of RussiaGate and the serial crimes it entailed, which is how it drove half the population of our country plumb batshit crazy. Once RussiaGate was put over, any absurdity was force-fed to the increasingly delusional opposition to Donald Trump largely aggregated under the “Democratic Party” banner. You were suffered to believe such patent nonsense as men can become women, that riots with arson were mostly peaceful protests, that the US/Mexico border could not be controlled without vast new legislation, and that a demonstrably corrupt and obviously senile Joe Biden was an able, functioning chief executive.
The Covid-19 op was the coup de grâce for the Left’s mental health - while it was also a silver bullet to get rid of Mr. Trump in the 2020 election. There is even reason to believe that the mRNA vaccines, with their spike protein payloads, delivered physical brain injury by way of induced vascular disorder. Millions who took them may never recover their senses - but so far that is just hypothesis.
If cases are brought against those who acted in the long-running coup, and are proven in court via an honest and upright process, we’ll find out whether half the country can recover enough rationality to accept the outcome. The signs for now are discouraging, as they seem to veer deeper into delusion, nominating outright jihadi communists for important offices and continuing their lawfare campaign to disable all and any actions by Mr. Trump’s executive branch.
The ultimate goal, for those interested in continuing the project of this American republic, will be to see if it’s possible to restore a workable consensus about a common culture and the common good on principles that are anything but baseless: equal protection under the law, fair play, the rights of property, and respect for verifiable truth."
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Changes At Walmart"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 7/25/25
"Massive Changes At Walmart"
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Thursday, July 24, 2025
Musical Interlude: Soothing Relaxation, "Dance of Life"
Full screen recommended.
Soothing Relaxation, "Dance of Life"
Be kind to yourself, forget all the troubles for
a little while and enjoy this beautiful video...
"A Look to the Heavens"
“The Cat's Eye Nebula (NGC 6543) is one of the best known planetary nebulae in the sky. Its more familiar outlines are seen in the brighter central region of the nebula in this impressive wide-angle view. But the composite image combines many short and long exposures to also reveal an extremely faint outer halo. At an estimated distance of 3,000 light-years, the faint outer halo is over 5 light-years across.
Planetary nebulae have long been appreciated as a final phase in the life of a sun-like star. More recently, some planetary nebulae are found to have halos like this one, likely formed of material shrugged off during earlier episodes in the star's evolution. While the planetary nebula phase is thought to last for around 10,000 years, astronomers estimate the age of the outer filamentary portions of this halo to be 50,000 to 90,000 years. Visible on the left, some 50 million light-years beyond the watchful planetary nebula, lies spiral galaxy NGC 6552.”
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"Our planet is a tiny porthole, looking over a cosmic sea.
Can we learn what lies beyond our own horizons of perception?"
"You Think..."
"You think you will never forget any of this, you will remember it always just the way it was. But you can't remember it the way it was. To know it, you have to be living in the presence of it right as it is happening. It can return only by surprise. Speaking of these things tells you that there are no words for them that are equal to them or that can restore them to your mind. And so you have a life that you are living only now, now and now and now, gone before you can speak of it, and you must be thankful for living day by day, moment by moment, in this presence. But you have a life too that you remember. It stays with you. You have lived a life in the breath and pulse and living light of the present, and your memories of it, remember now, are of a different life in a different world and time. When you remember the past, you are not remembering it as it was. You are remembering it as it is. It is a vision or a dream, present with you in the present, alive with you in the only time you are alive."
~ Wendell Berry
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