Friday, December 18, 2020

"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/18/20"

"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/18/20"
Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/18/20:
"UPDATES: Stock Market, Gold, Silver, Dollar, Bitcoin, Crypto, Debt"
12/18/20: "Millions of Americans dropped out of the labor force during the first two months of the pandemic. Many have not returned. These nine charts show how the economy is faring."
Updated live.
Daily Update (Dec. 17th to 20th)
Insanity... 
And now... The End Game...

Musical Interlude: Eagles, "Take It To The Limit"; "Seven Bridges Road" (Live)

Eagles, "Take It To The Limit"
Eagles, "Seven Bridges Road" (Live)

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 12/18/20"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up 12/18/20"
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"The election battle is as much about public relations (PR) as it is about actual evidence. Massive amounts of evidence have come out about things like voting machines flipping votes, huge drops of ballots in the middle of the night and reports of outright fraud in multiple states. Still, not even the Supreme Court will give these claims a fair hearing. So, the PR and education from the Trump side continues to gain steam ahead of the all-important vote in Congress to make official the Presidential Election. Congress has the last word in who actually won the election. Did Donald J. Trump win in November with a record amount of votes for a sitting President? Or, is Congress going to certify Biden after campaigning out of his basement?

The Supreme Court has not heard a single case concerning what President Trump calls “massive voter fraud” in battleground states. The Supreme Court is missing in action (MIA) for the most important election case in history. Now, it has finally accepted a case but will not hear it until after January 14th at the earliest. Is there enough time for the High Court to rule before the inauguration of Biden to keep Trump in office?

It was another week of awful unemployment numbers. A fresh 885,000 people filed for new unemployment claims. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar is crashing to 6 year lows, and Bitcoin is vaulting well past $22,000 per unit. What’s going on?"

"Join Greg Hunter of USAWatchdog.com as he talks 
about these stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up."

"The Decimal Point That Blew Up The World" (Excerpt)

"The Decimal Point That Blew Up The World" (Excerpt)
by Jeffrey Tucker 

"What was the basis of panic that led the lights to darken on civilization? The most important date here might be March 11, 2020. That’s when Congress itself flew into an unwarranted panic, and acquiesced to a lockdown at the urging of the “experts.” State governors followed one by one, with few exceptions, and the rest of the world joined the lockdown frenzy. 

In February, people were aching to know the answer to the following. Would this “novel virus” have familiar patterns we associate with the flu, seasonal colds, and other predictable and manageable pathogens? Or would this be something entirely different, unprecedented in our lifetimes, terrifying, and universally deadly?

Crucial in this stage was public-health messaging. In previous pandemics from post-1918 throughout the 20th century, the central messaging was to stay calm, go to the doctor if you feel sick, avoid deliberately infecting others, and otherwise trust the systems in place and keep society functioning. This was long considered responsible public-health messaging, and this was pretty much where we stood throughout most of January and February, when publications regardless of their political outlook maintained sobriety and rationality. 

Something dramatically changed this time. They pushed panic, tapping into a primal fear of disease. The reality of pandemic, as it turns out, has been familiar. The severity of its impact has been radically disparate across demographics, hitting mainly the elderly and infirm with 40% of deaths tracing to long-term care facilities with an average age of death nearly equal to the average lifespan. It is regionally migratory. It follows a seasonal pattern from pandemic to its endemic equilibrium. 

What has been different has been the messaging that has almost universally been structured to create public frenzy, from the New York Times’s February 28 urge to “go medieval” to Salon’s latest demand that we panic even more. 

My own sense of impending doom began on March 6 with the cancellation of "South by Southwest" in Austin, Texas, an action of the mayor alone, and completely without modern precedent. I wrote about it on March 8. Four days later, President Trump gave a nationwide address that ended with a shocking announcement that all flights from Europe would be stopped to keep the coronavirus out even though the virus had been here since January. The next day, on March 13, the administration issued what amounted to a shutdown plan for the nation. 

This timeline, however, misses a crucial step. We should be grateful to Ronald B. Brown of Waterloo University for his extraordinary paper that appears in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (Vol 14, No. 3): “Public Health Lessons Learned From Biases in Coronavirus Mortality Overestimation.” It also appears on the website of the National Institutes of Health with a date of August 12.

Our author’s thesis was that the wild overreaction and unprecedented lockdowns of life began with what was a terminological mixup that led to a misplacement of a decimal point in a report from the National Institutes of Health. 

It was a seemingly small error but it provided the basis on which Anthony Fauci testified at the House Oversight and Reform Committee about the seriousness of novel coronavirus spreading across the globe."
Please view this complete, critically important article, here:

OMG...

“Retail Stores Collapse; Economic Warning Signs; Jobs Get Decimated; Dollar Will Lose”

Jeremiah Babe,
“Retail Stores Collapse; Economic Warning Signs; 
Jobs Get Decimated; Dollar Will Lose”

The Poet: Neil Gaiman, "What You Need To Be Warm "

"What You Need To Be Warm" 
by Neil Gaiman

 "A baked potato of a winters night to wrap
your hands around or burn your mouth.
A blanket knitted by your mother's cunning fingers. 
Or your grandmother's.

A smile, a touch, trust, as you walk in from the snow
or return to it, the tips of your ears pricked pink and frozen.
The tink tink tink of iron radiators waking in an old house.

To surface from dreams in a bed, 
burrowed beneath blankets and comforters,
the change of state from cold to warm is all that matters, and you think
just one more minute snuggled here before you face the chill. Just one.

Places we slept as children: they warm us in the memory.
We travel to an inside from the outside. 
To the orange flames of the fireplace
or the wood burning in the stove. 

Breath-ice on the inside of windows,
to be scratched off with a fingernail, melted with a whole hand.
Frost on the ground that stays in the shadows, waiting for us.

Wear a scarf. Wear a coat. Wear a sweater. 
Wear socks. Wear thick gloves.

An infant as she sleeps between us. A tumble of dogs,
a kindle of cats and kittens. 
Come inside. You're safe now.
A kettle boiling at the stove. Your family or friends are there. 
They smile.
Cocoa or chocolate, tea or coffee, 
soup or toddy, what you know you need.
A heat exchange, they give it to you, you take the mug
and start to thaw.

While outside, for some of us, the journey began
as we walked away from our grandparentshouses
away from the places we knew as children: 
changes of state and state and state,
to stumble across a stony desert, or to brave the deep waters,
while food and friends, home, a bed, even a blanket become just memories.

Sometimes it only takes a stranger, in a dark place,
to hold out a 
badly-knitted scarf, to offer a kind word, to say
we have the right to be here, 
to make us warm in the coldest season.
You have the right to be here. "

- Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman reads "What You Need To Be Warm" here:

"Life's Funny..."

"Life's funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don't want to throw it away. But you can't really live it at all unless you're willing to give it up for the things you love. If you're not at least willing to die for something - something that really matters - in the end you die for nothing."
- Andrew Klavan

"This Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words"

"This Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words"
by Tyler Durden

"The New York Times' Hiroko Masuike captured customers at The Smith restaurant in Manhattan Wednesday evening, bundled up in winter jackets, underneath propane heaters on a sidewalk patio, while the first major winter storm of the season blanketed the city nearly one foot of snow. 

Thanks to Andrew Cuomo's decision to once again shut down indoor dining in New York on Monday, these patrons had to eat outside in the middle of a freakin' snowstorm. As the wind blew, the propane heaters appeared worthless as a few of the patrons were sipping on soup and have likely downed a liquor shot or two to stay warm. Perhaps the patrons on Wednesday night were devoted customers supporting their local restaurants, rain or shine, considering a record number of eateries across the country can't pay December rent. 

As we've mentioned before, Goldman Sachs has noted that if daily average temperatures slide below 40°F - then it would be associated with a steep drop off in consumer activity at eateries. 
So back to the picture - patrons can thank the government for why they had to eat a nice meal outside in the middle of a major snowstorm."

"Winter Is Coming: 62% Of U.S. Business Owners 'Fear The Worst Is Still To Come'"

"Winter Is Coming: 62% Of U.S. Business Owners 
'Fear The Worst Is Still To Come'"
by Epic Economist

"Winter will officially arrive in a few days, but its gloomy effects are already impacting the survival of our population, our businesses, and our economy. As the pace of economic deterioration picks up speed due to the new restrictions in economic activity, our nation keeps being devastated on several different fronts and the consequences of it won't be solved with the arrival of a vaccine nor with a utopian V-shape recovery. We will be seeing the results of this winter's economic devastation for years. That's what we will be talking about in this video.

The current economic situation is making business owners fear they won't be able to make it to the start of spring. Sectors that rely on face to face interaction have been particularly impaired by so many rounds of shutdowns and this time might be the final round for many of them.

Right now, according to a brand new U.S. Chamber-MetLife poll, 62% of small-business owners are concerned with further impacts of the health crisis, saying they believe the worst moment of the crisis is still ahead of them. The same poll has also highlighted that most small business owners are in desperate need of federal assistance, with nearly 74% of the owners saying they need further aid to weather the fallout of the crisis. That figure rises to 81% for minority-owned businesses.

As we head towards a dark winter, a considerable amount of them can't even afford rent. According to an Alignable rent survey, 35 percent of all small businesses in the U.S. couldn’t pay their rent this month, up 3% from 32% in November. When businesses don't even find the means to pay rent and stay open, we can clearly understand that we have gotten to a point where there's no way to argue that this is simply a recession. When over a third of all small businesses in the world's richest country can't make enough revenue to keep their doors open, that is called an “economic collapse”. 

To give you further proof, let's just spare a moment to examine what has been going on with federal tax receipts this year. In a recent note, former chief economist at Alliance Bernstein, Joseph Carson, has pointed out how weak tax receipts are sending a signal of economic distress. Carson outlines that now that we're 9 months into the downturn triggered by the health crisis, federal gross withheld income tax receipts declined 13% from a year ago. The tax data records from the US Treasury suggest that the slump in tax receipts over the past 9 months is the biggest ever recorded. The only historical parallel we can compare to is the 14% fall witnessed in 2009 during the Great Financial Recession.

In other words, the level of economic wreckage is just unprecedented. And every day it passes at the University of Chicago informed that the U.S. poverty rate has considerably climbed over the last five months, with 7.8 million Americans falling into poverty. The economists maintain that such a high spike in poverty was driven by two main reasons: Millions of Americans cannot find jobs, and government assistance for the unemployed has abruptly dwindled since the summer.

However, even in households with adult workers who are still collecting paychecks, poverty is not out of the picture. In fact, a recent report has described how thousands of military officials and their families have been suffering from food insecurity. This spring, the base has seen a 40 percent increase in requests for groceries.

As opposed to civilian families who managed to collect federal benefits and qualified for food programs, considering military families are often provided with housing allowance, that leaves them ineligible to receive food assistance, a quirk in the law that Congress has repeatedly failed to address. Although military families are only a small part of the tens of millions of food-insecure Americans, hunger experts say most people have no idea that military servicers often rely on external help to have enough to eat.

Now, Congress remains deadlocked over the next bipartisan stimulus bill, and democrats are choleric that they are being forced to choose either enhanced unemployment benefits or $600 stimulus checks for our citizens. As there's no sign of when a relief bill will be launched, our collapse is only intensifying and all the bubbles in our economy are already in the process of bursting. For those expecting a “return to normal” next year, we're sorry to say that all evidences are pointing to a return to a much deeper recession. It appears that 2021 is going to be a really painful year."

Winter is here...

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/17/20: “Today New All Time Highs For the Market, But a Monster Is Coming”

Gregory Mannarino, PM 12/17/20:
“Today New All Time Highs For the Market, 
But a Monster Is Coming”

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Even Now"

2002, "Even Now"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“What will become of these galaxies? Spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427 are passing dangerously close to each other, but each is likely to survive this collision. Typically when galaxies collide, a large galaxy eats a much smaller galaxy. In this case, however, the two galaxies are quite similar, each being a sprawling spiral with expansive arms and a compact core. As the galaxies advance over the next tens of millions of years, their component stars are unlikely to collide, although new stars will form in the bunching of gas caused by gravitational tides.

Close inspection of the above image taken by the 8-meter Gemini-South Telescope in Chile shows a bridge of material momentarily connecting the two giants. Known collectively as Arp 271, the interacting pair spans about 130,000 light years and lies about 90 million light-years away toward the constellation of Virgo. Recent predictions hold that our Milky Way Galaxy will undergo a similar collision with the neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years.”

Chet Raymo, “Angling For Happiness”

“Angling For Happiness”
by Chet Raymo

“There is a concept in physics called angle of repose. Set an object, a book say, on a plank. Now slowly tip up one end of the plank until the moment when the book just starts to slide. The angle between the plank and the horizontal is the angle of repose, where the component of the gravitational force down the plank becomes greater than the maximum friction force holding the book at rest. Or, in more evocative terms - as I write I am lying on the couch with the laptop in my lap, in perfect repose. If you started tipping up the couch, at some point I'd go sliding into a heap at the bottom. That's the angle of repose, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it the angle of the end of repose.

This comes to mind because I just spent fifteen minutes on my knees in the yard watching ants excavate a nest in the ground. One by one they scurry out of the hole carrying a tiny grain of sand, which they dump in a ring around the hole. A circular pile. Now if the ants just dumped their burdens at the mouth of the hole, pretty soon the pile would get so steep that the sand grains would slide back into the hole. Instead, the circular ring gets higher and wider, with a slope that never exceeds the angle at which the grains will slip - the angle of repose. Now here's the thing: the ants almost invariably carry their grain to just beyond the top of the pile. If the grain slips, it will slide away from the hole. These tiny ants, hardly bigger than sand grains themselves, understand a little physics in their mysterious instinctive way.

Wallace Stegner has a novel titled "Angle of Repose." It is indeed an evocative phrase. In a job, in a relationship, in life itself, many of us instinctively seek that maximum degree of individual gratification that will satisfy emotional needs without doing violence to our essential repose, and that of those around us - the art of walking close to the edge, the thrill without the spill. Every day in the news we hear of folks - politicians or celebrities - who tipped the plank too far, whose lives went sliding into self-destruction, who failed to grasp, metaphorically speaking, something that a tiny ant instinctively understands.”

"In the Inbox"

"In the Inbox"

"From: Coordinator of Volunteer Services

We have a young man, thirty-six, on hospice who has a very young child. They want someone to help him do a life review and perhaps put some pictures together for he and his wife so the child will know him. Call me if you are willing to do this."

"The next time, friend, your life seems too hard, check your Inbox."

- Jose Orez

“The Christmas Truce of 1914”

“The Christmas Truce of 1914”
by Simon Rees

The tragedy of modern war is that the young men die fighting each other - 
instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals.”
- Edward Abbey

“You are standing up to your knees in the slime of a waterlogged trench. It is the evening of 24 December 1914 and you are on the dreaded Western Front. Stooped over, you wade across to the firing step and take over the watch. Having exchanged pleasantries, your bleary-eyed and mud-spattered colleague shuffles off towards his dug out. Despite the horrors and the hardships, your morale is high and you believe that in the New Year the nation’s army march towards a glorious victory.
But for now you stamp your feet in a vain attempt to keep warm. All is quiet when jovial voices call out from both friendly and enemy trenches. Then the men from both sides start singing carols and songs. Next come requests not to fire, and soon the unthinkable happens: you start to see the shadowy shapes of soldiers gathering together in no-man’s land laughing, joking and sharing gifts. Many have exchanged cigarettes, the lit ends of which burn brightly in the inky darkness. Plucking up your courage, you haul yourself up and out of the trench and walk towards the foe…
The meeting of enemies as friends in no-man’s land was experienced by hundreds, if not thousands, of men on the Western Front during Christmas 1914. Today, 106 years after it occurred, the event is seen as a shining episode of sanity from among the bloody chapters of World War One – a spontaneous effort by the lower ranks to create a peace that could have blossomed were it not for the interference of generals and politicians.
The reality of the Christmas Truce, however, is a slightly less romantic and a more down to earth story. It was an organic affair that in some spots hardly registered a mention and in others left a profound impact upon those who took part. Many accounts were rushed, confused or contradictory. Others, written long after the event, are weighed down by hindsight. These difficulties aside, the true story is still striking precisely because of its rag-tagged nature: it is more ‘human’ and therefore all the more potent.

Months beforehand, millions of servicemen, reservists and volunteers from all over the continent had rushed enthusiastically to the banners of war: the atmosphere was one of holiday rather than conflict. But it was not long before the jovial façade was torn away. Armies equipped with repeating rifles, machine guns and a vast array of artillery tore chunks out of each other, and thousands upon thousands of men perished. To protect against the threat of this vast firepower, the soldiers were ordered to dig in and prepare for next year’s offensives, which most men believed would break the deadlock and deliver victory. The early trenches were often hasty creations and poorly constructed; if the trench was badly sighted it could become a sniping hot spot. In bad weather (the winter of 1914 was a dire one) the positions could flood and fall in. The soldiers – unequipped to face the rigors of the cold and rain – found themselves wallowing in a freezing mire of mud and the decaying bodies of the fallen.

The man at the Front could not help but have a degree of sympathy for his opponents who were having just as miserable a time as they were. Another factor that broke down the animosity between the opposing armies were the surroundings. In 1914 the men at the front could still see the vestiges of civilization. Villages, although badly smashed up, were still standing. Fields, although pitted with shell-holes, had not been turned into muddy lunarscapes. Thus the other world – the civilian world – and the social mores and manners that went with it was still present at the front. Also lacking was the pain, misery and hatred that years of bloody war build up. Then there was the desire, on all sides, to see the enemy up close – was he really as bad as the politicians, papers and priests were saying? It was a combination of these factors, and many more minor ones, that made the Christmas Truce of 1914 possible.

On the eve of the Truce, the British Army (still a relatively small presence on the Western Front) was manning a stretch of the line running south from the infamous Ypres salient for 27 miles to the La Bassee Canal. Along the front the enemy was sometimes no more than 70, 50 or even 30 yards away. Both Tommy and Fritz could quite easily hurl greetings and insults to one another, and, importantly, come to tacit agreements not to fire. Incidents of temporary truces and outright fraternization were more common at this stage in the war than many people today realize – even units that had just taken part in a series of futile and costly assaults, were still willing to talk and come to arrangements with their opponents.

As Christmas approached the festive mood and the desire for a lull in the fighting increased as parcels packed with goodies from home started to arrive. On top of this came gifts care of the state. Tommy received plum puddings and ‘Princess Mary boxes’; a metal case engraved with an outline of George V’s daughter and filled with chocolates and butterscotch, cigarettes and tobacco, a picture card of Princess Mary and a facsimile of George V’s greeting to the troops. ‘May God protect you and bring you safe home,’ it said. Not to be outdone, Fritz received a present from the Kaiser, the Kaiserliche, a large meerschaum pipe for the troops and a box of cigars for NCOs and officers. Towns, villages and cities, and numerous support associations on both sides also flooded the front with gifts of food, warm clothes and letters of thanks.

The Belgians and French also received goods, although not in such an organized fashion as the British or Germans. For these nations the Christmas of 1914 was tinged with sadness – their countries were occupied. It is no wonder that the Truce, although it sprung up in some spots on French and Belgian lines, never really caught hold as it did in the British sector.
With their morale boosted by messages of thanks and their bellies fuller than normal, and with still so much Christmas booty to hand, the season of goodwill entered the trenches. A British Daily Telegraph correspondent wrote that on one part of the line the Germans had managed to slip a chocolate cake into British trenches. Even more amazingly, it was accompanied with a message asking for a ceasefire later that evening so they could celebrate the festive season and their Captain’s birthday. They proposed a concert at 7.30pm when candles, the British were told, would be placed on the parapets of their trenches. The British accepted the invitation and offered some tobacco as a return present. That evening, at the stated time, German heads suddenly popped up and started to sing. Each number ended with a round of applause from both sides. The Germans then asked the British to join in. At this point, one very mean-spirited Tommy shouted: ‘We’d rather die than sing German.’ To which a German joked aloud: ‘It would kill us if you did’.

December 24 was a good day weather-wise: the rain had given way to clear skies. On many stretches of the Front the crack of rifles and the dull thud of shells ploughing into the ground continued, but at a far lighter level than normal. In other sectors there was an unnerving silence that was broken by the singing and shouting drifting over, in the main, from the German trenches. Along many parts of the line the Truce was spurred on with the arrival in the German trenches of miniature Christmas trees – Tannenbaum. The sight these small pines, decorated with candles and strung along the German parapets, captured the Tommies’ imagination, as well as the men of the Indian corps who were reminded of the sacred Hindu festival of light. It was the perfect excuse for the opponents to start shouting to one another, to start singing and, in some areas, to pluck up the courage to meet one another in no-man’s land.

By now, the British high command – comfortably ‘entrenched’ in a luxurious châteaux 27 miles behind the front – was beginning to hear of the fraternization. Stern orders were issued by the commander of the BEF, Sir John French against such behavior. Other ‘brass-hats’ (as the Tommies nick-named their high-ranking officers and generals), also made grave pronouncements on the dangers and consequences of parleying with the Germans. However, there were many high-ranking officers who took a surprisingly relaxed view of the situation. If anything, they believed it would at least offer their men an opportunity to strengthen their trenches. This mixed stance meant that very few officers and men involved in the Christmas Truce were disciplined. Interestingly, the German High Command’s ambivalent attitude towards the Truce mirrored that of the British.
Christmas day began quietly but once the sun was up the fraternization began. Again songs were sung and rations thrown to one another. It was not long before troops and officers started to take matters into their own hands and ventured forth. No-man’s land became something of a playground. Men exchanged gifts and buttons. In one or two places soldiers who had been barbers in civilian times gave free haircuts. One German, a juggler and a showman, gave an impromptu, and given the circumstances, somewhat surreal performance of his routine in the centre of no-man’s land.

Captain Sir Edward Hulse of the Scots Guards, in his famous account, remembered the approach of four unarmed Germans at 08.30. He went out to meet them with one of his ensigns. ‘Their spokesmen,’ Hulse wrote, ‘started off by saying that he thought it only right to come over and wish us a happy Christmas, and trusted us implicitly to keep the truce. He came from Suffolk where he had left his best girl and a 3 h.p. motor-bike!’ Having raced off to file a report at headquarters, Hulse returned at 10.00 to find crowds of British soldiers and Germans out together chatting and larking about in no-man’s land, in direct contradiction to his orders. Not that Hulse seemed to care about the fraternization in itself – the need to be seen to follow orders was his concern. Thus he sought out a German officer and arranged for both sides to return to their lines.

While this was going on he still managed to keep his ears and eyes open to the fantastic events that were unfolding. ‘Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir was exchanged addresses given and received, photos of families shown, etc. One of our fellows offered a German a cigarette; the German said, “Virginian?” Our fellow said, “Aye, straight-cut”, the German said “No thanks, I only smoke Turkish!” It gave us all a good laugh.’ Hulse’s account was in part a letter to his mother, who in turn sent it on to the newspapers for publication, as was the custom at the time. Tragically, Hulse was killed in March 1915.

On many parts of the line the Christmas Day truce was initiated through sadder means. Both sides saw the lull as a chance to get into no-man’s land and seek out the bodies of their compatriots and give them a decent burial. Once this was done the opponents would inevitably begin talking to one another. The 6th Gordon Highlanders, for example, organized a burial truce with the enemy. After the gruesome task of laying friends and comrades to rest was complete, the fraternization began.

With the Truce in full swing up and down the line there were a number of recorded games of soccer, although these were really just ‘kick-abouts’ rather than a structured match. On January 1, 1915, the London Times published a letter from a major in the Medical Corps reporting that in his sector the British played a game against the Germans opposite and were beaten 3-2. Kurt Zehmisch of the 134th Saxons recorded in his diary: ‘The English brought a soccer ball from the trenches, and pretty soon a lively game ensued. How marvelously wonderful, yet how strange it was. The English officers felt the same way about it. Thus Christmas, the celebration of Love, managed to bring mortal enemies together as friends for a time.’
The Truce lasted all day; in places it ended that night, but on other sections of the line it held over Boxing Day and in some areas, a few days more. In fact, there were parts on the front where the absence of aggressive behavior was conspicuous well into 1915.

Captain J C Dunn, the Medical Officer in the Royal Welch Fusiliers, whose unit had fraternized and received two barrels of beer from the Saxon troops opposite, recorded how hostilities re-started on his section of the front. Dunn wrote: ‘At 8.30 I fired three shots in the air and put up a flag with “Merry Christmas” on it, and I climbed on the parapet. He [the Germans] put up a sheet with “Thank you” on it, and the German Captain appeared on the parapet. We both bowed and saluted and got down into our respective trenches, and he fired two shots in the air, and the War was on again.’ The war was indeed on again, for the Truce had no hope of being maintained. Despite being wildly reported in Britain and to a lesser extent in Germany, the troops and the populations of both countries were still keen to prosecute the conflict.

Today, pragmatists read the Truce as nothing more than a ‘blip’ – a temporary lull induced by the season of goodwill, but willingly exploited by both sides to better their defenses and eye out one another’s positions. Romantics assert that the Truce was an effort by normal men to bring about an end to the slaughter. In the public’s mind the facts have become irrevocably mythologized, and perhaps this is the most important legacy of the Christmas Truce today. In our age of uncertainty, it comforting to believe, regardless of the real reasoning and motives, that soldiers and officers told to hate, loathe and kill, could still lower their guns and extend the hand of goodwill, peace, love and Christmas cheer. The Irish poet, Thomas Kettle, who was killed in the War in September 1916, captured that spirit in a poem he wrote to his little daughter, Betty, shortly before he died:
“So, here while the mad guns curse overhead,
And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor –
But for a dream, born in a herdsman’s shed,
And for the secret scripture of the poor.”

The Daily "Near You?"

Ronkonkoma, NY, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"We Are All..."

 

"Year Zero" (Strong Language Alert!)

"Year Zero"
by CJ Hopkins 

"2020 was GloboCap Year Zero. The year when the global capitalist ruling classes did away with the illusion of democracy and reminded everyone who is actually in charge, and exactly what happens when anyone challenges them.

In the relatively short span of the last ten months, societies throughout the world have been transformed beyond recognition. Constitutional rights have been suspended. Protest has been banned. Dissent is being censored. Government officials are issuing edicts restricting the most basic aspects of our lives … where we can go, when we can go there, how long we are allowed to spend there, how many friends we are allowed to meet there, whether and when we can spend time with our families, what we are allowed to say to each other, who we can have sex with, where we have to stand, how we are allowed to eat and drink, etc. The list goes on and on.

The authorities have assumed control of the most intimate aspects of our daily lives. We are being managed like inmates in a prison, told when to eat, sleep, exercise, granted privileges for good behavior, punished for the slightest infractions of an ever-changing set of arbitrary rules, forced to wear identical, demeaning uniforms (albeit only on our faces), and otherwise relentlessly bullied, abused, and humiliated to keep us compliant.

None of which is accidental, or has anything to do with any actual virus, or any other type of public health threat.

Yes, before some of you go ballistic, I do believe there is an actual virus, which a number of people have actually died from, or which at least has contributed to their deaths… but there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of any authentic public health threat that remotely justifies the totalitarian emergency measures we are being subjected to or the damage that is being done to society. Whatever you believe about the so-called “pandemic,” it really is as simple as that. Even if one accepts the official “science,” you do not transform the entire planet into a pathologized-totalitarian nightmare in response to a health threat of this nature.
The notion is quite literally insane.
GloboCap is not insane, however. They know exactly what they are doing… which is teaching us a lesson, a lesson about power. A lesson about who has it and who doesn’t. For students of history it’s a familiar lesson, a standard in the repertoire of empires, not to mention the repertoire of penal institutions.

The name of the lesson is “Look What We Can Do to You Any Time We F**king Want.” The point of the lesson is self-explanatory. The USA taught the world this lesson when it nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. GloboCap (and the US military) taught it again when they invaded Iraq and destabilized the entire Greater Middle East. It is regularly taught in penitentiaries when the prisoners start to get a little too unruly and remember that they outnumber the guards. That’s where the “lockdown” concept originated. It isn’t medical terminology. It is penal institution terminology.

As we have been experiencing throughout 2020, the global capitalist ruling classes have no qualms about teaching us this lesson. It’s just that they would rather not to have to unless it’s absolutely necessary. They would prefer that we believe we are living in “democracies,” governed by the “rule of law,” where everyone is “free,” and so on. It’s much more efficient and much less dangerous than having to repeatedly remind us that they can take away our “democratic rights” in a heartbeat, unleash armed goon squads to enforce their edicts, and otherwise control us with sheer brute force.

People who have spent time in prison, or who have lived in openly totalitarian societies, are familiar with being ruled by brute force. Most Westerners are not, so it has come as a shock. The majority of them still can’t process it. They cannot see what is staring them in the face. They cannot see it because they can’t afford to see it. If they did, it would completely short-circuit their brains. They would suffer massive psychotic breakdowns, and become entirely unable to function, so their psyches will not allow them to see it.

Others, who see it, can’t quite accept the simplicity of it (i.e., the lesson being taught), so they are proposing assorted complicated theories about what it is and who is behind it … the Great Reset, China, the Illuminati, Transhumanism, Satanism, Communism, whatever. Some of these theories are at least partially accurate. Others are utter bull-goose lunacy. They all obscure the basic point of the lesson. 
The point of the lesson is that GloboCap - the entire global-capitalist system acting as a single global entity - can, virtually any time it wants, suspend the Simulation of Democracy, and crack down on us with despotic force. It can (a) declare a “global pandemic” or some other type of “global emergency,” (b) cancel our so-called “rights,” (c) have the corporate media bombard us with lies and propaganda for months, (d) have the Internet companies censor any and all forms of dissent and evidence challenging said propaganda, (e) implement all kinds of new intrusive “safety” and “security” measures, including but not limited to the physical violation of our bodies… and so on. I think you get the picture. (The violation of our bodies is important, which is why they love “cavity searches” in prison, and why the torture-happy troops at Abu Ghraib were obsessed with sexually violating their victims.)

And the “pandemic” is only one part of the lesson. The other part is being forced to watch (or permitted to watch, depending on your perspective) as GloboCap makes an example of Trump, as they made examples of Corbyn and Sanders, as they made examples of Saddam and Gaddafi, and other “uncooperative” foreign leaders, as they will make an example of any political figurehead that challenges their power. It does not matter to GloboCap that such political figureheads pose no real threat. The people who rally around them do. Nor does it make the slightest difference whether these figureheads or the folks who support them identify as “left” or “right.” GloboCap could not possibly care less. The figureheads are just the teaching materials in the lesson that they are teaching us.

And now, here we are, at the end of the lesson… not the end of the War on Populism, just the end of this critical Trumpian part of it. Once the usurper has been driven out of office, the War on Populism will be folded back into the War on Terror, or the War on Extremism, or whatever GloboCap decides to call it… the name hardly matters. It is all the same war.

Whatever they decide to call it, this is GloboCap Year Zero. It is time for reeducation, my friends. It is time for cultural revolution. No, not communist cultural revolution… global capitalist cultural revolution. It is time to flush the aberration of the last four years down the memory hole, and implement global “New Normal” Gleichschaltung, to make sure that this never happens again.

Oh, yes, things are about to get “normal.” Extremely “normal.” Suffocatingly “normal.” Unimaginably oppressively “normal.” And I’m not just talking about the “Coronavirus measures.” This has been in the works for the last four years.

Remember, back in 2016, when everyone was so concerned about “normality,” and how Trump was “not normal,” and must never be “normalized?” Well, here we are. This is it. This is the part where GloboCap restores “normality,” a “new normality,” a pathologized-totalitarian “normality,” a “normality” which tolerates no dissent and demands complete ideological conformity.

From now on, when the GloboCap Intelligence Community and their mouthpieces in the corporate media tell you something happened, that thing will have happened, exactly as they say it happened, regardless of whether it actually happened, and anyone who says it didn’t will be labeled an “extremist,” a “conspiracy theorist,” a “denier,” or some other meaningless epithet. Such un-persons will be dealt with ruthlessly. They will be censored, deplatformed, demonetized, decertified, rendered unemployable, banned from traveling, socially ostracized, hospitalized, imprisoned, or otherwise erased from “normal” society.

You will do what you are told. You will not ask questions. You will believe whatever they tell you to believe. You will believe it, not because it makes any sense, but simply because you have been ordered to believe it. They aren’t trying to trick or deceive anybody. They know their lies don’t make any sense. And they know that you know they don’t make any sense. They want you to know it. That is the point. They want you to know they are lying to you, manipulating you, openly mocking you, and that they can say and do anything they want to you, and you will go along with it, no matter how insane.

If they order you to take a f**king vaccine, you will not ask what is in the vaccine, or start whining about the “potential side effects.” You will shut up and take the f**king vaccine.

If they tell you to put a mask on your kid, you will put a f**king mask on your f**king kid. You will not go digging up Danish studies proving the pointlessness of putting masks on kids.

If they tell you the Russians rigged the election, then the Russians rigged the f**king election. And, if, four years later, they turn around and tell you that rigging an election is impossible, then rigging an election is f**king impossible.

It isn’t an invitation to debate. It is a GloboCap-verified fact-checked fact.

You will stand (or kneel) in your designated, color-coded, social-distancing box and repeat this verified fact-checked fact, over and over, like a f**king parrot, or they will discover some new mutant variant of virus and put you back in f**king “lockdown.” They will do this until you get your mind right, or you can live the rest of your life on Zoom, or tweeting content that no one but the Internet censors will ever see into the digital void in your f**king pajamas. The choice is yours… it’s is all up to you!

Or… I don’t know, this is just a crazy idea, you could turn off the f**king corporate media, do a little f**king research on your own, grow a backbone and some f**king guts, and join the rest of us “dangerous extremists” who are trying to fight back against the New Normal. Yes, it will cost you, and we probably won’t win, but you won’t have to torture your kids on airplanes, and you don’t even have to “deny” the virus!

That’s it… my last column of 2020. Happy totalitarian holidays!"

"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/17/20

"Market Fantasy Updates AM 12/17/20
"Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
"The more I see of the monied classes, 
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
"Initial Jobless Claims Surge To Highest In Almost 4 Month"
Click image for larger size.
"After rising for three of the last four weeks (with a big surge in the previous week) as lockdowns re-accelerate across America, analysts expected initial jobless claims to slow modestly this week, but instead claims soared from an upwardly revised 862k to 885k - the highest number of Americans seeking first-time unemployment benefits since September. Illinois and California saw the biggest surge in jobless claims as Texas and Georgia improved most. 
Click image for larger size.
These numbers are about to get dramatically worse as the widespread lockdowns imposed on Americans this holiday season begin to really bite." Source: Bloomberg
Updated live.
Daily Update (Dec. 16th)
Insanity... 
And now... The End Game...

Must Watch! Gregory Mannarino, “Situation Hyper-Critical! The Meltdown Accelerating - Be Really For Anything”

Gregory Mannarino, 
AM 12/17/20: “Situation Hyper-Critical! 
The Meltdown Accelerating - Be Really For Anything”

"How It Really Should Be"


"Parallel Ballots Cast In 7 States: Election Not Over"

"Parallel Ballots Cast In 7 States:
Election Not Over"
by GlobalIntelHub

"If you turn on TV, they will play a reality for you that affects your brain in ways that science is only beginning to understand. But the results are clear - TV affects the subconscious brain in subliminal programming of the reptilian brain. The irony about the control paradigm as presented by the globalists is that everyone has the ultimate vote that counts: TURN OFF YOUR TV. TV is literally the only control they have over the brains (or what's left of them) of the masses. While the Biden vomitorium had the appearance of 'closure' to leftists and those who can't see beyond their TV screens, Electors in 7 states cast dueling votes for Trump:

Republican electors in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico cast alternative slates of votes for President Donald Trump on Dec. 14, as the certified Democrat electors in the same states cast votes for former Vice President Joe Biden.

While there’s precedent for dueling sets of electors casting votes in a presidential election, the number of states involved in the action sent the 2020 election into uncharted territory. Democrats successfully executed the same gambit in Hawaii in 1960 by casting an alternative set of votes for John F. Kennedy after the state’s governor certified the electors for Richard Nixon.

Aside from speculation on the internet, if we are following 'house rules' laid out in the constitution, here is what happens next. On January 6th in a Congressional session Vice President Mike Pence counts the votes. If he receives votes for Biden and Trump from the same state, the state would likely be cancelled (voided). If the 7 states were deleted for Biden, neither candidate would have the 270 required, and the solution would be to have the Congress vote for President, but with 1 state holding 1 vote each, which has a Republican majority in both houses. In this scenario, Congress would re-elect President Trump.

Furthermore, this is not without precedent, something far more extreme happened in 1876: The results of the election remain among the most disputed ever. Although it is not disputed that Tilden outpolled Hayes in the popular vote, after a first count of votes, Tilden had won 184 electoral votes to Hayes's 165, with 20 votes from four states unresolved: in Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon, one elector was replaced after being declared illegal for being an "elected or appointed official". The question of who should have been awarded these electoral votes is the source of the continued controversy. An informal deal was struck to resolve the dispute: the Compromise of 1877, which awarded all 20 electoral votes to Hayes; in return for the Democrats' acquiescence to Hayes' election, the Republicans agreed to withdraw federal troops from the South, ending Reconstruction.

Also, January 6, 2021 is 22 days away. That's more time for cases to work through the courts. Also, DNI Ratcliffe who said 'We'll see if there's a Biden Administration' is going to release information on the criminal investigation of Hunter Biden and the China situation. Corruption may just be the tip of the iceberg. He may be a Chinese Spy, blackmailed by the Chinese, or a combination therein. Although the case is against Hunter and not Joe Biden, Joe Biden is named in the information as being very close to the Chinese operation "Have keys made for me."

Aside from Zero Hedge, watch theepochtimes.com and other alternative media that aren't compromised. As explained in Splitting Pennies - the world is not as it seems."
Related:

Wednesday, December 16, 2020

“Wealthy Escape California; Fed Rescues Wall St.; Million Dollar Lake Havasu; Joel Osteen Bailout”

Jeremiah Babe,
“Wealthy Escape California; Fed Rescues Wall St.; 
Million Dollar Lake Havasu; Joel Osteen Bailout”

"Americans Are Panic Buying Lots Of Food As Fears Of A Deep Dark Winter Continue To Rise"

"Americans Are Panic Buying Lots Of Food As
 Fears Of A Deep Dark Winter Continue To Rise"
by Epic Economist

"Panic buying is getting worse amongst anxious consumers as we approach Christmas and New Year's Eve celebrations. Since the burst of the sanitary outbreak, we have witnessed several rounds of panic purchases that wiped out grocery shelves and prompted supply shortages all over the nation. After new lockdowns started to be enforced in several states, people rushed into the stores one more time to stockpile on essentials fearing strict movement limitations amid a dark winter. 

Now, as festivities get closer, buyers have been massively stocking up on holidays related goods, even causing an unexpected shortage in Christmas trees due to the sudden and incredibly high spike in demand. But while some are being driven by panic, others have already exhausted all of their options and are being driven by complete desperation. That's what we are going to discuss in this video. 

Goods have been flying off the shelves, and this time around their purchases aren't limited to toilet paper and cleaning supplies. Wine, meat, dairy products, pasta, baking mixes, and several holidays related products are disappearing from stores fairly quickly. Although some major food retailers have affirmed to have enough to attend to the demand, in multiple locations they have started to reinstate purchase limits on high-demand items, which has sparked anxiety among shoppers. Retailers have affirmed it's essential that to impose restrictions to prevent buyers from hoarding and ensure there won't be another round of shortages. 

However, due to transportation issues supply shortages are expected to occur during the winter, and prices are projected to keep soaring in months ahead. At this stage of the crisis, the panic buying trend has extended its range to several different products, as Iacocca revealed. According to the National Retail Federation, the sale of holiday decorations, candy and gifts is expected to rise this year too. But as some of the most preferred items are already scarce on the shelves, prices for holiday items are also expected to rise. 

The latest U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data pointed out that the consumer price index is up 3.6%. This current round of panic-driven stockpiling tendencies is being led by Americans' increasing fear of what might happen during this dark winter as well as a need for comfort by relying on traditions to shift the focus from the tragic events we have experienced this year. However, for some, this growing desire of running away from the spectrum of disconcerting news and upsetting circumstances has become a little too extreme, and now, they have been trying to overcompensate by celebrating the holidays to the max. 

Consequently, and also very unexpectedly, a Christmas tree shortage is being registered across the nation. Jennifer Greene, the executive director of North Carolina Christmas Tree Association highlighted that media coverage about tree shortages may have spurred some of the panic buying behavior, but there are underlying reasons why people are in a hurry to guarantee their valued holiday symbol. “I think people want some joy and a bright spot, a light at the end of the tunnel,” Greene said. “It’s been a rough year for everyone, and Christmas is a happy time. They’re wanting to get that earlier and make it last longer in such a gloomy year.”

From food to cleaning products and even Christmas trees, panic buying is a reflection of how the sanitary outbreak and its collateral damages have impacted on the mindset of our population. In any case, those who can still work from home and buy their own food are on the most fortunate side of the spectrum. 

A new survey conducted by market research company OnePoll found that roughly 4 in 10 Americans report that they experienced food insecurity for the first time this year, with about half of them revealing they’ve struggled to afford food, while 37% affirmed to have skipped meals so there was enough food for their children to eat. On average, there was a 60% increase in those seeking help from food banks across the nation. In some counties, one in two children are now facing hunger. 

To make things worse, the high level of demand is pushing several pantries to an inevitable food cliff, which means many of them are about to exhaust their resources. Additionally, with the expiration of federal aid programs set to happen in a couple of weeks, millions more are likely to suffer from the desperation and anguish of not knowing when it will be their next meal. And as the economic deterioration deepens, we will be headed to more challenges as we enter 2021."