Jim Kunstler, "A Theory of the Case"

"A Theory of the Case"

by Jim Kunstler

"There was Scott Pelley of CBS’s 60-Minutes show on Sunday night - the prime-time slot of the new week - all cued up to run interference for the US State Department (and other Deep State “actors”) in the propaganda war over Ukraine. Let’s be brutally frank and get this out of the way: can you really trust either the US news media or the US government to tell you the truth?

Of course, you can’t. You have been boldly lied-to by them with absolute consistency for years now. Common knowledge, which is common sense’s twin sister, has it that the CIA “owns” The Washington Post, the FBI owns The New York Times, and the State Department owns CBS-News. All are conduits for official narratives. And since the State Department is most of all responsible for the Russian clean-up operation now underway in Ukraine, you can bet that CBS-News is in on the info-grift to protect State, its patron.

What Russia had to clean-up was the long-building after-effects of now Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland’s 2014 engineered Maidan coup against the elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych. The issue of that bygone day was a tug-of-war between the US and Russia, with Ukraine as the flag in the middle of the rope. Russia wanted Ukraine in the orbit of its economic “customs union” and the US was affecting to pull Ukraine into the Eurozone and NATO - or, at least, use Ukraine as a forward base for NATO, in order to antagonize Russia.

Russia has been the all-purpose hobgoblin that every US agency and many political personages turn to when they are caught doing something nefarious. When Hillary Clinton’s email trove was purloined through her poorly-defended illegal home server, Russia was to blame. That fiasco spawned the multi-year RussiaGate operation that bamboozled half the nation and ended up tainting the FBI, the DOJ, the FISA Court, and both the House and Senate Intel committees.

Then, along came Hunter Biden’s laptop, infamously labeled “Russian disinformation” by every retired senior intel spook still drawing a fat pension. The news about the laptop and its lurid contents was strenuously suppressed by every mainstream media company except The New York Post, and its coverage was banished from Facebook and Twitter which so many Americans rely on for news - an obvious and true conspiracy between government, high tech, and the news media.

All this coincided, you understand, with the horror-show official response to Covid-19 coming on the scene at exactly the same time: winter of 2019-2020. By then, half the country had already been groomed into a mass formation psychosis over the RussiaGate narrative that declared President Donald Trump was a stooge for Vladimir Putin…thus, Trump derangement.

There is the possibility that Covid-19 was hauled onstage deliberately to terrorize the American public, confound Mr. Trump, and prevent his reelection in November 2020. Hence, the panicky scramble ever since spring, 2020, among Anthony Fauci, Peter Daszak of the shadowy EcoHealth Alliance, and other public health officials to ward off the suspicion that Covid-19 was created in the Wuhan lab with American sponsorship, and released for the aforesaid purpose of queering the election. Mr. Daszak notoriously put together a paper for the preeminent British medical journal The Lancet, using a roster of medical luminaries to denounce the “lab leak” theory. The Lancet eventually had to withdraw the paper. The Lancet’s reputation will be diminished for years to come, merely one manifestation of medicine’s more general moral collapse and eventual total collapse.

Meanwhile, in the winter of 2020, came impeachment number one of Mr. Trump, provoked by CIA White House mole Eric Ciaramella and his companions-in-sedition Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman of the NSC, and Intel Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson. At issue, you recall, was Mr. Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zylenskyy, inquiring about rumored grifting operations among the Bidens in that foreign land. Managing Ukraine, you remember, was in Veep “Joe Biden’s” assigned portfolio of duties. The impeachment segued seamlessly into the Covid panic, distracting the public’s attention from the issues behind the impeachment, namely: what exactly was the Biden family up to in Ukraine, with crackhead Hunter pulling in millions in walking-around money from the Burisma oil-and-gas company? That turned out to be just the tip of the grift-berg.

Ten days before President Trump declared a national emergency over Covid 19 and the ensuing lock-downs, on March 3, 2020, the Super Tuesday primary was held. Joe Biden trailed badly with support in single-digits. Somehow, he miraculously trounced the rest of the field. The narrative constructed afterward attributed the miracle to a single endorsement from Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. (Dominion vote-counting machine hijinks, anyone?) Voila: there is your Democratic Party nominee, the former Veep, “Joe Biden,” not altogether sound of mind, compromised by already-revealed foreign influence-peddling, a malleable figure fronting for a Deep State cabal. Special Covid-19 election procedures (mail-in ballots) shooed him straight into the White House (thanks for your “help,” Mark Zuckerberg).

What you have here is an interesting chain of circumstance: Ukraine, 2014, the astounding flop of Hillary… RussiaGate… the mystifying Democratic primary race… the Ukraine-based impeachment… the Covid-19 fiasco (including deadly mRNA vaccines) … the election of “Joe Biden”… and now Ukraine again. The American Deep State is in a heap of deep trouble. It’s impossible anymore to hide its turpitudes. Even The New York Times and the WashPo have been forced to confess that Hunter Biden’s laptop is for-real, including the thousands of incriminating memoranda and emails on it, along with all the selfie-porn and drugging. It’s obvious that the “president” of the US is corrupt and compromised. Doesn’t look too good.

Additionally, the Deep State must now try to hide the emerging attempted mass murder of the US population via the side effects of the Covid-19 “vaccines.” But the information can’t be hidden anymore and is, in fact, bursting out from unexpected places, for instance, from the life-insurance quarterly actuarial reports which show unprecedented “all-causes” deaths and injuries among people under 60-years-old. We know how this happened. On top of the deadly “vaccines,” introduced with falsified trials, the Deep State suppressed early treatment medications (is still at it, in fact), and instead forced protocols with the deadly drug remdesivir. In sum, America’s government has capped years of lying and conniving via high tech and the news media by killing its citizens. Rochelle Walensky & Company are still urging the public to vaxx-up and “boost.” How is that not criminal?

So, Ukraine is back onstage and the Deep State made sure it would be by refusing to rule out Ukraine joining NATO and by arming and subsidizing a large army that has spent eight years shelling and terrorizing the Russian-speaking population of Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Mr. Zelenskyy apparently was led to believe that NATO would come to his rescue, the poor chump, wherever he really is. CBS-News would have you believe that Russia is perpetrating war crimes by bombing hospitals in Ukraine. What they don’t tell you is that the hospitals were turned into fortresses by the Nazi-inflected Azov brigades.

They also would like you to believe that the Russian operation is a flop. That is not so, though it surely was not a cakewalk. What’s left of the Ukraine army (including its Azov brigades) is cut off from communication, out of diesel fuel, out of ammo, out of food, and soon to be shut down altogether. When that happens, Ukraine will not be used to make needless trouble in the world. The sanctions imposed on Russia have successfully destroyed the financial scaffold of the global economy so that an economic collapse of the nation states in Western Civ is a sure thing. The lingering question: will the hardships to come only reinforce America’s mass formation psychosis, or will it compel us to wake up and pay attention to the attempted suicide of our country?"

- https://kunstler.com/

"Day After Day..."

“I kept waiting for this momentous breakdown, with everything crashing down in some spectacular show. What I didn't recognize, is that all along I had been crumbling slowly and quietly, like unfired clay. It's almost boring how unspectacular it is. Nothing earth shattering happened, in fact that's the problem; day after day nothing happens. You just feel incapable, unfocused, disorganized, and defeated. Make some strong coffee and get to work. You're not alone.”

- Riitta Klint

"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! This Is Getting Crazy! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 4/4/22:

"Massive Price Increases At Aldi! 

This Is Getting Crazy! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Aldi and are noticing massive price increases! We are here to check out skyrocketing prices, and a lot of empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores seem to be struggling with getting products!"

○

• "German Retailers To Increase Food Prices By 20-50% On Monday"

• "Economic Crisis And Rising Prices Spark Protests According The World"

Coming soon to you, Americans...

"We Are Heading Into A Financial Lockdown"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 4/4/22:

"We Are Heading Into A Financial Lockdown"

"Everything is so expensive. We are headed into a financial lockdown. There are so many warning signs in regard to cybercrimes and potential losses to your bank account. The average person cannot afford to go eat out at a restaurant and is contemplating buying gas over buying food."

Gregory Mannarino, "Expect A Food And Energy Price SURGE, And Social Unrest"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/4/22:

"Expect A Food And Energy Price SURGE, And Social Unrest"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Social unrest"... such a polite term for riots. And riots are coming...

"30 Facts Which Prove The American Dream Is Turning Into A Nightmare For The Middle Class"

Full screen recommended.

"30 Facts Which Prove The American Dream 

Is Turning Into A Nightmare For The Middle Class"

by Epic Economist

"The U.S. middle class has been left with the nightmarish reality of decaying living standards, poor working conditions, and rising living expenses. During our golden era, the United States was known by the rest of the world as the country that had the largest, strongest, and most prosperous middle class. But those days are far behind us. Now, the American middle-class is falling apart as more and more people fall into poverty.

Not so long ago, middle-class families used to have nice homes, most households had a car or two, kids had good toys and comfy clothes, food was abundant, people could go on vacation and retire, and teenagers could even look forward to going to college if they wanted to. There was an implicit promise that this was the way that things were always going to be.

Today, there are simply not enough good jobs for everyone. In fact, the vast majority of jobs are "hardship jobs," in which workers don't even earn enough to keep up with their monthly bills. Labor conditions are so bad right now that millions of people are just dropping out of the labor force and relying on federal assistance programs to get by.

Nearly all of the long-term economic trends just keep getting worse and worse. We can't afford mortgage payments, we can't afford rent. We can't afford to buy a car, and we can't even afford gas. It seems like the future has been removed from our reach, and there's no hope that things will change for the better. Unless fundamental transformations are made economically, financially, and politically, the long-term trends that are destroying the U.S. middle class will continue to do so.

The number of decent jobs has been declining for years, and those positions that used to offer some sense of financial stability to millions of families decades ago don't exist anymore. They've been replaced by a smaller number of low-paying "service jobs".

And at the same time, the cost of everything continues to soar. So many of us can't afford to do basic things, such as putting food on the table and heating our homes. On top of that, health care costs are completely outrageous, and many people are falling into a devastating debt spiral just to pay for an unexpected health care expense.

Household debt rises by trillions of dollars each year, and credit card debt has absolutely exploded since the turn of the century. Meanwhile, college tuition is now out of reach for millions of American families, and social mobility is close to zero.

With each passing month, more American families fall out of the middle class. Today, there are more Americans on food stamps than ever before, while more than one out of every five U.S. children is living in poverty. Things are getting really, really gloomy out there.

We all grew up thinking that if we studied a lot, if we worked really hard, if we stayed out of trouble, if we did everything that the ‘system’ told us to do, then we would guarantee a spot in the middle class just like our parentes did. We believed that we were going to be able to live comfortably and peacefully. But it turns out that the ‘system’ is breaking down, and the promises that have been made to our generation were empty. That era of prosperity is far gone.

We can no longer deny that the U.S. middle class is being shredded, ripped apart, and systematically wiped out. And if you still doubt this, just check out the statistics. Here are '30 Facts Which Prove The American Dream Is Turning Into A Nightmare For The Middle Class.'"

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Must Watch! "Credit Cards Will Be Shut Down; Financial Addicts Will Overdose; Homebuyers Won't Qualify For Loans"

Jeremiah Babe, 4/3/22:

"Credit Cards Will Be Shut Down; Financial Addicts

 Will Overdose; Homebuyers Won't Qualify For Loans"

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Sea of Dreams”; "Oceans Of Life"

2002, “Sea of Dreams”

○

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Oceans Of Life"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"This shock wave plows through space at over 500,000 kilometers per hour. Moving toward to bottom of this beautifully detailed color composite, the thin, braided filaments are actually long ripples in a sheet of glowing gas seen almost edge on. Cataloged as NGC 2736, its narrow appearance suggests its popular name, the Pencil Nebula.

About 5 light-years long and a mere 800 light-years away, the Pencil Nebula is only a small part of the Vela supernova remnant. The Vela remnant itself is around 100 light-years in diameter and is the expanding debris cloud of a star that was seen to explode about 11,000 years ago. Initially, the shock wave was moving at millions of kilometers per hour but has slowed considerably, sweeping up surrounding interstellar gas."

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120924.html

"The Definition Of Hell..."

 

The Poet: Thomas Centolella, "Splendor"

"Splendor"

"One day it's the clouds,

one day the mountains.

One day the latest bloom of roses-

the pure monochromes, the dazzling hybrids-

inspiration for the cathedral's round windows.

Every now and then there's the splendor of thought:

the singular idea and its brilliant retinue-

words, cadence, point of view,

little gold arrows flitting between the lines.

And too the splendor of no thought at all:

hands lying calmly in the lap, 

or swinging a six iron with effortless tempo. 

More often than not splendor is the star we orbit

without a second thought,

especially as it arrives and departs. 

One day it's the blue glassy bay,

one day the night and its array of jewels,

visible and invisible.

Sometimes it's the warm clarity

of a face that finds your face

and doesn't turn away.

Sometimes a kindness, unexpected,

that will radiate farther than you might imagine.

One day it's the entire day itself,

each hour foregoing its number and name,

its cumbersome clothes, 

a day that says come as you are,

large enough for fear and doubt,

with room to spare: the most secret

wish, the deepest, the darkest,

turned inside out."

- Thomas Centolella

Free Download: "The Essential Rumi"

"All day I think about it, then at night I say it. Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing? I have no idea. My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that, and I intend to end up there. Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul? I cannot stop asking. If I could taste one sip of an answer, I could break out of this prison for drunks. I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way. Whoever brought me here, will have to take me home."

- Rumi, "The Tavern," Ch. 1:, p. 2, from "The Essential Rumi"

Freely download "The Essential Rumi" here:

- https://littlethingsaboutmeeh.files.wordpress.com

"A Strange Honey..."

"Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest. Don't try and press it down. Don't hide from it. Don't escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That's the way life goes."

- Ben Okri

The Daily "Near You?"

Ciudad De Huajuapan De Leon, Oaxaca, Mexico

Thanks for stopping by!

“There Is No Reality Anymore…”

“There Is No Reality Anymore…”

by Thad Beversdorf

“I‘d love to change the world, but I don‘t know what to do,

so I’ll leave it up to you…”

“What a great lyric that is from the late 60′s, early 70′s English band “10 Years After.” I believe this describes that uneasy feeling of discontent that sits deep in the stomach, beneath the day to day exteriors, of so many people today. The world is like a black hole in that it seems to be getting smaller and smaller as the years go by but also heavier and heavier with each passing day.

When I was a teenager and my friends and I were taking reality obscuring substances, one of my buddies (this means you Nichol) would stop us at certain points throughout the night for a reality check. This was just a few moments where we ‘d all gather our senses to make sure the world was still right and then we’d venture back into obscurity. I feel that reality is an old world term. There is no reality anymore. With advances in technology came unending possibilities of if you can dream it they can make it so. The ubiquitous flow of information ensures that the truth is always available but never known with certainty. It means there is no such thing as a reality check. It’s like that dream inside a dream inside a dream. Which reality is real anymore? How deep does the rabbit hole go?

We are raised with pretty standard ideals of what the world is meant to be but these ideals seem to take place only in the movies. It must be incredibly difficult for our young people to reconcile the two worlds, I know it is for me. That which they learn as a child and that which they find has replaced it as a young adult. Our leaders are despicable, arrogant and egotistical fools who pretend we elect them because we don’t see them for what they are. But we elect them because we feel we have no choice. We know what we want the world to be. We know what it should look and feel like. And we know it is not the world in which we live today. I know I’d love to change the world but I don’t know how and so I’ll leave it up to you. And so we continue to move forward down this path, each step uneasy as though something ungood is lurking just around the next corner.

We are able to put that feeling out of our minds for the most part but our subconscious is always aware that things are off. We have all kinds of self help books and new age theories that attempt to make sense of it all and explain why we just aren t happy the way we envision happy should be. Perhaps the only reality is the reality that the world isn’t what we had hoped it would be and we don’t know how to make that right. I’d love to say that if we just stand up and do the right thing, act from our hearts and have good intentions that it could change the world. But quite honestly there are ill-intentioned people that are constructing this new world in which we sub-exist.It is them and us, but they’d never say it that way. Certainly though their intention is not for us to co-exist along side them.

But so we carry on and we, move forward, to the best of our abilities. We accept the good with the bad and acknowledge that everything is a trade off. We believe that if we go to college we stand a better chance in life and so we borrow our first 10 years of post college wages to get an edge over the next guy who is doing the same. When we get out of school we know that it is time to buckle down and get serious. We put our lives on hold in order to focus on the future with the idea that one day we will be sitting on the porch with the person we love, the one we put on hold for all those years, and we will then enjoy our life’s work then.

But then we get further in debt because we need a sleeker car and we need a bigger house but it’s ok because we can just work a little more. And then the kids come and as far as we got to know them they are great, I think. But it’s ok because they just finished college and now they’ve moved back in as the job market is tough out there and so we’re paying off their student loans. Eventually they get away and begin their life’s journey and they take their debt with them. And then we realize, god I’m almost 60. But it feels great because that means soon I’ll be there on the porch getting to know the one I love again and life will be grand at that point.

But then we turn 65 and we realize all those policies that were implemented by all those well-intentioned decision makers have actually left us with very little. And we say it’s ok because we’d be bored anyway just sitting on the porch. And so we take a job waving at people in Walmart but feel like OMG how did I get here. But the shift ends and we go home anxious to spend time with the one we love because, although it’s a terrible thought, we are aware we’re both getting long in the tooth. And so we arrive home only to realize the one we love is now sick and that it’s too late for our days sitting on the porch getting to know each other again. We do everything we can but we cannot afford to help that person who stood quietly behind us all those years as healthcare costs are unrealistically out of touch with reality. And then it hits us that despite taking all the right steps to ensure we have a great life we failed to ever really be happy, to really love and to really accept love. And then it really hits us, this world provides but one shot.

Well, then that feeling of uneasy discontent that shadowed us when we were young is now an intense pain in our heart. And we look out at the world and we ask ourselves how could this have happened? I did everything they told me I was supposed to do, I did everything right! And it becomes clear that life was a chance to change the world, but we didn’t know what to do, and so we left it up to…”

- http://www.zerohedge.com/

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"It's What You Know For Sure..."

- Mark Twain

○

“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.“

- Nouriel Roubini

"The Age of Experts"

"The Age of Experts"

by Joel Bowman

“How did you go bankrupt?” Bill asked.

“Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.”

~ Ernest Hemingway, from "The Sun Also Rises"

"Joel Bowman, Seshing it up this Sunday from Buenos Aires, Argentina - Welcome back to another Sunday Sesh, that time of the week where we gather at the local watering hole to lick our wounds, celebrate our wins, vent our spleen and generally solve the world’s problems, one round at a time. We jest, of course. Only a humble public servant has it within his job description to chart the collective destiny for all of mankind. The rest of us are happy if we can break bread with friends, see a bit of this vast planet before we die and maybe find someone with whom to wander life’s winding path.

And yet... wherever we turn, there are our betters, ever at the ready to direct us hither and thither, to instruct us as to the ways of the wise, to issue decrees and edicts from on high, and curtail our wayward tendencies when we do invariably stray from the herd.

They walk among us, these self-proclaimed thought leaders and social influencers, occasionally stooping to lend some unsolicited advice, to help us “check our privilege” and to remind us that we didn’t build this or that, blood, sweat and tears be damned. They may put their trousers on one leg at a time, just like the rest of us, but these beneficent bipedal benefactors are only too glad to draw lines around your life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and, if it truly comes down to it, to lay your life down for their cause and country.

So kind.

Over the past couple of years, decent, private individuals across “the west” have witnessed these public overlords engage in the kind of high-minded mission creep that rarely ends well. What began as a gradual assumption of power (always temporary and always under “emergency” circumstances) turned, rather suddenly, into a kind of broad, permission-based living... one where your rights devolved into favors, your personal freedoms wilted into shared sacrifice and your liberties became bargaining chips of ever-diminishing value. And invigilating the whole parade, a caste of unquestionable experts and elites preside. All of which brings us to today’s musing...

"The Age of Experts"

by Joel Bowman

"In Holland, everyone is an expert in painting and in tulips."

 ~ Albert Camus

"Once upon a time – and a very good time it was – a man could brandish his doubt in public with a certain degree of dignity and honor. To be unsure was the mark of an inquiring mind, one open to further study, fresh evidence and new horizons. The thinking fellow, therefore, was one who weighed competing theories, who wrestled with the “facts,” such as they were, and who was ever ready to change his position.

Alas, in this modern era of superabundance, stuffed with overfed problems and Great Causes galore, there is little room for good ol’ fashioned doubt. One must be certain of one’s position, especially if one knows nothing about it. Whatever the matter, man’s mind must be made up. He must be a virologist on Monday... a climatologist on Tuesday... an expert in Eastern European geopolitics on Wednesday... an economist on Thursday... a Critical Race Theorist on Friday... and still have enough energy left over to disappoint his wife and children on the weekend.

Even as our globalized world economy becomes increasingly specialized, modern man must present a polymath’s comprehension of any and all questions posed to him. And woe to he who dares sidestep the debate du jour, who forgets to black out his Instagram profile or don a colored ribbon on his lapel or fly the flag of the week or remember what the “2S” stands for in the ever-expanding alphabet soup of sexual orientation. In this Age of Certainty, of 140-character zingers and bumper-sticker morality, silence is not merely a sign of humility or respect... or even an admission of ignorance. Silence is violence. Because... rhyming.

With such a high value assigned to infallible certitude, to the point where flagrant overconfidence risks getting you elected to public office, one might be forgiven for thinking we were closer to objective truth than at any time in history... that mistakes were but a quaint anachronism... and that, as Francis Fukuyama opined back in the early ‘90s, we had finally reached the “end of history.”

In his earnest attempt to keep pace with the maelstrom of subject matter with which he must be au courant, modern man turns to the “Expert Class” for blind guidance. And blind guidance is what he gets.

Indeed, on the Grand Subjects and Great Causes of our time, these lodestars of knowledge are rarely in doubt. When it comes to what the global temperature ought to be half a century from now, and what sacrifices people without private jets need to make to get us there...

Regarding when and where you must mask your children - “yes” in school... “no” in restaurants, provided they’re seated... and not on the way to go pee-pee... (for covid lurketh there?)

When setting the exact price of credit, determining what precisely constitutes “full” employment, and deciding the hourly wage beneath which no human being should labor, even if the alternative is no work at all... Our oracles of omniscience are as confident as they are myopic. But what about “slippage”... retroactive edits... revisions... redacted emails... and fat finger fudges? Benevolent angels though they may be, even our betters in public service are entitled to the occasional blunder, right?

After all, didn’t the President of the United States of America assure us covid-19 was a “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” that “you’re ok, you’re not going to get covid if you’ve had these vaccinations,” that the vaccinated “do not spread the disease to anybody else” and that, to shut-up and get the jab was somehow part of your duty as an American... because, patriotism? 

“Freedom? What’s the big deal, man?”

Oh yeah, and didn’t Federal Reserve Chairman, Jerome Powell, tell us not one year ago that inflation could be “quite low”... then “transitory”... before, just this past week, with “official” inflation at a 40-year high, suggesting the term transitory “has different meanings to different people” and may, after all, need to be retired?

And here’s White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, explaining that when it comes to ordinary folks feeling the pinch at the pump, “temporary” high prices means anywhere from Spring 2021 to the end of 2022... and longer, if necessary.

Of course, we hear from experts all the time, riffing on subjects we mental field mice could not possibly comprehend. Most folks don’t expect their unelected wonks to get things right all of the time... or even some of the time... but there is a basic expectation that they will at least give the public a straight-forward, honest answer, at least to the best of their ability to do so. And yet...

Remember when Netflix’s favorite medical advisor, Anthony Fauci, quashed all chatter of The Covid potentially originating in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the very same lab his government institute just happened (purely by coincidence, mind you) to be funding? Until relatively recently, to so much as flirt with the much-maligned “lab leak” theory was tantamount to suggesting that the moon was made of gorgonzola or that only a woman could give birth. An imminently cancelable offense, in other words. But lo! Since-published emails (brought to light by various Freedom of Information requests) show that Fauci himself was not only made aware of the likelihood that the virus emerged from the Wuhan lab, but actively colluded with then-director of the NIH, Francis Collins, to discredit the theory before the public ever got wind of it.

To be clear, and as unfashionable as this may seem, we do not claim to know that which we do not know... in this case, the origins of the coronavirus. That said, it does appear that open scientific inquiry was here actively kneecapped in favor of “narrative-shaping.” Call it Plato’s “noble lie” if you must. Just don’t call it “truth.” But never mind all that, say the experts. Regular citizens need not concern themselves with such lofty matters anyway. Higher minds are on the case.

Speaking of St. Francis Collins... it was around this same time that he wrote to his mate, Tony “The Science” Fauci, to stifle another critical debate, this one regarding the questionable empirical basis for lockdowns, after three “fringe” epidemiologists (from those well-known, alt-right conspiracy cauldrons; Harvard, Stanford and Oxford universities) dared voice an alternative viewpoint (in what became known as the Great Barrington Declaration.)

Click image for larger size.

Huh? What happened to open discussion, you ask? To free inquiry? To peer reviews and unbiased findings and transparency and objective truth-seeking? What happened to good ol’ fashioned doubt and skepticism?

Oh, you silly duffer! Why go to all that trouble when you could simply resort to “devastating take downs” (known in medical academic circles as “devestatus takus downus.” Latin, yo.)

Pay no attention to the hundreds of billions of dollars of lost economic activity caused by the panicked lockdowns and lockouts... the disrupted education of tens of millions of schoolchildren... the hundreds of thousands of closed restaurants, bankrupt businesses, waylaid earnings... the missed weddings and funerals... the trillions of dollars in government handouts... the isolation and fear and loneliness and anxiety... the suicide, domestic violence, alcoholism and drug addictions... the army of finger-wagging tut-tutters with their endless fonts of do-nothing hand gel, prowling behind every store counter... the separated families... the surrendered civil liberties...

The experts are nothing if not certain about what (if anything) you should know and when (if ever) you should know it. And by all indications, that’s not likely to change anytime soon. In the profound words of the multi-talentless Kamala Harris, “It is time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.”

When it comes to the matters that have the rest of us scratching our heads – transitory myocarditis... patriotic inflation... two weeks to flatten Lia Thomas’s curve – you can rest assured, the experts have the situation well in hand. Just don’t ask them to define a woman...

Sen. Marsha Blackburn: "Can you provide a definition for the word woman?"

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson: "I can't. Not in this context. I'm not a biologist."

- https://twitter.com/TPostMillennial/status/1506456342835437568

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"WARNING: All Hell is About to Break Loose As SHTF; Recession? Economic Collapse"

Full screen recommended.

Ron Yates, 4/3/22:

"WARNING: All Hell is About to Break Loose As SHTF; 

Recession? Economic Collapse"

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead: US Farmers Warn- Expect Much Higher Food Prices"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 4/3/22:

"Markets, A Look Ahead: 

US Farmers Warn- Expect Much Higher Food Prices"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"If You Feel Like Something Bad Is Coming, You Are Right On Target"

"If You Feel Like Something Bad Is Coming, 

You Are Right On Target"

by Michael Snyder

"Do you ever feel like you are banging your head into a wall? I certainly do. For years, I have been trying to warn people about very specific things that were coming, and now many of those things are literally making headlines on a daily basis. You would think that should be enough to wake most people up, but unfortunately most of the population is still in a deep state of sleep. Thankfully, there is a sizable minority that is awake, and I have been hearing from so many of you. In recent weeks so many readers have told me that they feel like really bad times are ahead of us, and if you feel that way too I want you to know that you aren’t alone.

On January 2nd, I penned these words: “I have such a bad feeling about 2022”. Of course that wasn’t the only time that I made such a statement. In fact, I issued many similar warnings in the months leading up to the beginning of the year.

Since that time, war in Ukraine has erupted, global energy prices have gone completely nuts, the inflation rate in the United States has hit the highest level in 40 years, the global supply chain crisis has gotten even worse, and a new bird flu pandemic has begun that has already killed nearly 17 million chickens and turkeys in the United States alone. And that is hardly an exhaustive list of all the things that have gone wrong over the past 3 months.

So many of the things that I specifically warned about in "Lost Prophecies" and "7 Year Apocalypse" are either happening or the stage is being set for them to happen. But I suppose that is just a giant “coincidence”, right?

I believe that we are at such a critical turning point in history at this moment. The war in Ukraine threatens to spark a much broader global war, and the United States and Russia are already engaged in a very vicious economic war. The COVID pandemic and the bird flu pandemic are just two of the pestilences that are currently afflicting our planet, and I believe that even more pestilences are on the way.

In addition, the worst global energy crisis in decades is combining with the worst global inflation crisis in decades to create a global food crisis that one UN official has called the worst since World War II. And what we have experienced so far is just the beginning.

At this point, even the global elite are publicly admitting that we are potentially facing a global nightmare in the months ahead. For example, World Economic Forum Chairman Klaus Scwhab just stated that “we do know the global energy systems, food systems, and supply chains will be deeply affected” during an address at the World Government Summit 2022.

NEW – Klaus Schwab says "we do know the global energy systems, food systems, and supply chains will be deeply affected" at the World Government Summit 2022.

pic.twitter.com/uY271thlJ8

- Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) March 30, 2022

And Joe Biden is openly warning that the coming global food shortages are “going to be real”…"President Biden warned Thursday that there could be global food shortages resulting from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and announced steps to prevent a potential crisis. “We did talk about food shortages. And it’s going to be real. The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it’s imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well,” Biden said at a press conference from Brussels, where he is meeting with NATO leaders."

They are literally telling you what is going to happen. But so many people out there have such a deeply ingrained “normalcy bias” that they can’t wrap their heads around the fact that conditions are rapidly changing for the worse. If you are not familiar with “normalcy bias”, the following is how Wikipedia defines it…

"Normalcy bias, or normality bias, is a cognitive bias which leads people to disbelieve or minimize threat warnings. Consequently, individuals underestimate the likelihood of a disaster, when it might affect them, and its potential adverse effects. The normalcy bias causes many people to not adequately prepare for natural disasters, market crashes, and calamities caused by human error. About 70% of people reportedly display normalcy bias during a disaster."

Most people out there simply assume that life will eventually return to “normal” somehow. But that isn’t going to happen. Global events are reaching a great crescendo, and the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions are starting to crash down upon us all at once. A few years ago I started warning that we were about to enter a “perfect storm”, then I started warning that we had entered a “perfect storm”, and now I am warning that this “perfect storm” is going to get a whole lot worse. If you plan to make it through what is ahead, you need to take action.

After reading the article that I posted last week about what a nuclear war between the United States and Russia would look like, one of my regular readers asked me to write an article about getting prepared. So in this article I will give you some of the most important basics, and if you want to learn more you can read the entire book that Barbara Fix and I co-authored a number of years ago.

When it comes to preparation for what is ahead, there are four major categories that you need to focus on. Those four categories are food, water, energy and shelter. If some sort of major emergency causes the grid to go down and the stores get completely emptied out, how would you survive? You need to be able to supply what you and your family will need to survive for multiple years without being able to depend on the system at all. If that sounds really difficult, that is because it will be really difficult. That is why you must get prepared ahead of time.

And it isn’t just about storing up buckets of food. Yes, I am a big advocate of storing away emergency food that can last for many years, but there is so much more to preparation than that. In a previous article, I shared a list of 50 things that Americans should be stockpiling for the difficult times that are coming…

#1 A Conventional Generator And A Solar Generator

#2 A Berkey Water Filter

#3 A Rainwater Collection System If You Do Not Have A Natural Supply Of Water Near Your Home

#4 A Large Emergency Medical Kit

#5 Rice

#6 Pasta

#7 Canned Soup

#8 Canned Vegetables

#9 Canned Fruit

#10 Canned Chicken

#11 Jars Of Peanut Butter

#12 Salt

#13 Sugar

#14 Powdered Milk

#15 Bags Of Flour

#16 Yeast

#17 Lots Of Extra Coffee (If You Drink It)

#18 Buckets Of Long-Term Storable Food

#19 Lots Of Extra Vitamins

#20 Lighters Or Matches

#21 Candles

#22 Flashlights Or Lanterns

#23 Plenty Of Wood To Burn

#24 Extra Blankets

#25 Extra Sleeping Bags

#26 Ammunition

#27 Extra Fans If You Live In A Hot Climate

#28 Hand Sanitizer

#29 Toilet Paper

#30 Extra Soap And Shampoo

#31 Extra Toothpaste

#32 Extra Razors

#33 Bottles Of Bleach

#34 A Battery-Powered Radio

#35 Extra Batteries

#36 Solar Chargers

#37 Trash Bags

#38 Tarps

#39 A Pocket Knife

#40 A Hammer

#41 An Axe

#42 A Shovel

#43 Work Gloves

#44 Lots Of Warm Socks

#45 Seeds For A Garden

#46 Canning Jars

#47 Extra Supplies For Your Pets

#48 A Substantial Emergency Supply Of Cash

#49 Bibles For Every Member Of Your Family

#50 A “Bug Out Bag” For Every Member Of Your Family

You should also be thinking about where you plan to ride out the extremely painful years that are ahead of us. If you are currently living in a major city, your chances of survival will be much lower than someone living in a very rural area when things finally hit the fan. And even if you are living in a rural area, you need to have an alternate place where you can go if conditions in your current area become untenable for some reason.

This is not a drill, and this is not a game. A day of reckoning is now at hand, and so many of the things that the watchmen have been relentlessly warning about are starting to come to fruition.

For years, many in the general population made fun of “preppers” and entire television shows were created to mock us. And even though global events have begun to spiral out of control, most of the population still refuses to get prepared. That deeply frustrates me, but I am going to continue to do my best to sound the alarm."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

"How It Really Is"

Greg Hunter, "Deep State Controlled Demolition of America"

"Deep State Controlled Demolition of America"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Award winning journalist Alex Newman says the big problems in America are all caused by the Deep State. Newman wrote a popular book called “Deep State.” In it, Newman identified the players, tactics and plans that they are executing today in the United States and the rest of the world. Neman explains, “I think this is what we are witnessing right now. We are seeing the controlled demolition of American power, of American prestige, economic might, military might and credibility. We are also seeing the implosion of cohesion in the United States. You can see division, riots, hatred, and it’s all for the purpose of ushering in this new system. Part of the reason they are working on this so quickly is they are deathly afraid of the United States at this point because of what happened in 2016. They thought they had plenty of election fraud to get their minion Hillary Clinton elected. Boom – it blew up in their face. They said, oh my goodness, if the American people retake control of their government, we are all going to jail. They had to accelerate this process, and I think that is what we are looking at, and there is massive amounts of evidence that support this.”

Newman says there is still time to stop, or at least put off, what is happening to the United States. Newman thinks, “If Americans can regain control of our government through the electoral process, a lot of things can change. Some things are already baked into the cake. They have absolutely undermined the U.S. dollar. They are trying to blame it on Russia and Ukraine. Gas prices are so high because of Russia and Ukraine - baloney. They have been printing trillions of dollars and blowing up the money supply. They have been destroying the supply chains deliberately. So, it’s inevitable we are going to be dealing with very serious economic pain.”

On the other hand, Newman says, “It is not inevitable that the United States collapses as the world’s sole superpower. If we could regain control of our government, prosecute the criminals and send a serious message that anybody that tries that again is going to be dealt with. We need to get rid of the tyranny. Get rid of the bureaucracy. Get rid of the unconstitutional laws. We saw how quickly Donald Trump turned this around after 8 years of the Obama Administration. After 8 years of Obama, this country was in disastrous shape, yet in a period of two to three years, things turned around. The markets were rallying, the dollar was strong and the energy was flowing. In fact, we became a net exporter of energy since the first time since the 1950’s. It can be turned around again.”

Newman also talks about how the Democrat Party may disappear. Newman says, “Democrats are traitors and so are the RINO’s helping them.” Newman also talks about the implications on the 2022 and 2024 elections from the CV19 injections. Democrats took the jabs at a much higher rate than Republican and Independent voters.

Newman wrote his book “Deep State” so you know who the enemy is and anticipate what he will do to destroy your life and your country."

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with award winning journalist Alex Newman, founder of LibertySentinel.org and author of the recent popular book “Deep State.” (There is much more in the 46 min. video interview.)

- https://rumble.com/

"A Rubicon of Methane"

"A Rubicon of Methane"

by Joel Bowman

Buenos Aires, Argentina -  "A not-so funny thing happened on the way to... global petrodollar hegemony. (Didn’t see that coming, did ya?) As the rest of the world debated what must (“MUST!”) be done to address the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, one Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin quietly declared that the Rubicon shall henceforth flow (or not) with methane. The newswires were on the story..."March 31 (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he had signed a decree saying foreign buyers must pay in roubles for Russian gas from April 1, and contracts would be halted if these payments were not made.

"In order to purchase Russian natural gas, they must open rouble accounts in Russian banks. It is from these accounts that payments will be made for gas delivered starting from tomorrow," Putin said in televised remarks. If such payments are not made, we will consider this a default on the part of buyers, with all the ensuing consequences. Nobody sells us anything for free, and we are not going to do charity either - that is, existing contracts will be stopped."

As of this writing, Russian gas heats and lights up one in every three homes across Europe, a not-insignificant contribution to the power supply for the entire continent. And, as our friend Byron King mentioned in this space before, Europe has been steadfastly hampering its own ability to produce energy, from shuttering nuclear plants in Germany to “going green” elsewhere.

As such, more than a few nations are fast approaching a crucial decision point: abide by western sanctions and freeze in the dark... or renegotiate in Vlad’s rubles? For quick reference, Russia accounted for about 45% of Europe’s total gas imports in 2021, with Germany, Turkey, Italy, Belarus, and France receiving most of the feed.

Plenty are those happy to stand with their Ukrainian brothers... as long as they can do so from a safe, warm, well-lit distance. The world will see who is left standing after this latest development. As for importers of Russian oil, China leads the pack... followed by Germany, the Netherlands, the U.S., Poland and South Korea.

Meanwhile... At the behest of democratic lawmakers, President Biden this week announced an unprecedented release from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves – 1 million barrels per day for the next 180 days. For those doing the sums at home, 1 million barrels equals roughly 1/20th of the US daily consumption... or about the same amount as the Keystone XL pipeline is NOT delivering from your friendly, NATO card-carrying neighbors north of the 49th parallel. (That project was friendly-fired on Mr. Biden’s first day in office.)

Bonus Irony: Readers will recall that it was Senator Chuck Schumer who, last November, began urging Biden to tap the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve. “We’re here today because we need immediate relief at the gas pump and the place to look is the Strategic Petroleum Reserve,” Schumer pleaded at a press conference in New York at the time.

If you feel like you’ve heard Chucky’s name in conjunction with the SPR before, that’s because you have. It was the very same Senator Schumer who was seen crowing from the rafters not two short years ago, after having proudly blocked the previous administration’s initiative to refill the reserve tanks “to the brim” back in March, 2020. Crude oil was $24.49 per barrel at the time, or about a quarter of today’s price. Boy, that extra capacity sure would have been nice to have on tap now, eh? Oh well..."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

Musical Interlude: "Dance of Life, Relaxing Fantasy Music for Relaxation & Meditation"

Full screen recommended.

Peder B. Helland,

"Dance of Life,

Relaxing Fantasy Music for Relaxation & Meditation"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Riding high in the constellation of Auriga, beautiful, blue vdB 31 is the 31st object in Sidney van den Bergh's 1966 catalog of reflection nebulae. It shares this well-composed celestial still life with dark, obscuring clouds recorded in Edward E. Barnard's 1919 catalog of dark markings in the sky. All are interstellar dust clouds, blocking the light from background stars in the case of Barnard's dark nebulae. For vdB 31, the dust preferentially reflects the bluish starlight from embedded, hot, variable star AB Aurigae.

Exploring the environs of AB Aurigae with the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed the several million year young star is itself surrounded by flattened dusty disk with evidence for the ongoing formation of a planetary system. AB Aurigae is about 470 light-years away. At that distance this cosmic canvas would span about four light-years.”

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

"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"

"Time: It’s The Only Thing You Have"

by John Wilder

"Time. Of things that have long fascinated me, time is at the top of the list. Even when I was a little kid, time fascinated me. The idea that time, of all of the physical parameters of the world there was the one that we couldn’t control. Humanity has mastered the power of the atom, at least partially. We haven’t tamed fusion, but we can create it, and have several fewer islands in the Pacific because of it.

Humanity has dammed the largest of rivers, giving us power. We have used technology to shrink the world. The first recorded circumnavigation of the world took 1082 days. Magellan didn’t quite make the whole trip, but he still gets the credit on a technicality. Now? The International Space Station does an orbit in 90 minutes or so at 17,150 miles per hour, which is nearly as fast as Haitians are entering Texas.

Humanity has conquered the riddle of steel – we’ve made steel buildings that reach upwards into the sky to please Crom. We have conquered climate – people live at the South Pole in perfect comfort, as well as managing to live in Houston without melting into puddles of sweat.

We can see at night. We can talk, nearly instantly, with people a continent away. My phone buzzes every time there is motion outside my front door – it’s like having a superpower of sensing where and when there is activity at a distance. Another superpower is being able to access obscure facts anywhere on the planet that can reach a cell signal.

But time remains fixed. It flows only one way. And it is the most subjective of our senses. Even Pugsley notices it: “This summer was so short!” He’s in high school. That’s when the transition from the endless summers of childhood begin to transform into the fleeting, never-ending carousel of years that is adulthood. I’ve long felt that I understood why this was. Let me give it a shot.

For a newborn, the second day it’s outside and breathing is 50% of its entire life. For a six-year-old, half of their life is three years – much more. It’s not a big percentage, but it’s much smaller than 50%. For a sixteen-year-old, half their life is eight years. If you’re forty – half your life is twenty years. 1/8 versus 1/20? It’s amazingly different. We don’t perceive life as a line. We’re living inside of it – we compare our lives to the only thing we have . . . our lives. Each day you live is smaller than the last.

But that’s not everything. As we age, novelty decreases. When we’re young, experiences and knowledge are coming at us so quickly that we are presented with novel (new and unique) information daily. New words. New thoughts. New ideas. That’s why babies keep falling for that stupid “got your nose” thing. They don’t realize that I can reattach it. Over time, though, novelty decreases, as does the percentage of your life that each day represents. Ever drive a new route somewhere? When I do it, I have to focus my attention. It seems like it takes longer because I’m having to deal with novelty.

I’ve had my “new” laptop nearly seven years. I had my old laptop for longer than that, yet my “new” laptop still seems like it’s temporary.

There are only so many routes I can drive to work, so much novelty that I can find in a daily drive. Even a commute of an hour begins to fade into a brief moment in time if it’s the same commute, day after day.

Work is similar. Over time, we gain experience. Experience shows us how to fix problems (and sometimes how not to fix them). But that experience of taking a solution and modifying it to fix the next problem isn’t as hard as fixing the first problem.

The fact that each day is a smaller portion of my life, combined with the fact that as I get older, the possibility that I see something new dims. I’ve solved a bunch of problems in my life. Finding a new one is... difficult. Life goes faster, day by day for me. Every endless summer day of youth is in my rearview mirror.

And yet... Each day is still 24 hours. I can still use each day and live it with all of the gusto of a 10-year-old fishing for trout after building a tree fort, playing with his dog, and building a model of a Phantom F-4 to dogfight with the MiG 21-PF already hanging from the ceiling. Even though those 24 hours seem shorter now than at any time in my life, they are relentless in their exact sameness. I get to choose how I spend those moments in my life. I get to choose what I want to produce, and how hard I work to make it happen.

Humanity may never have the ability to crack time – it appears that even today, outside of sands falling from an hourglass, we can only describe time as a fundamental entity, something we measure against. Does the flow of time vary? Certainly. But only if we’re moving at large fractions of the speed of light or are caught in a huge gravity well, but let’s leave your mother out of this.

I have come to the conclusion that I will likely never understand what, exactly, time is, outside of this: Time is all we have – it is what makes up life. We measure our lives in it, because no man can buy an extra hour of life. We have the hours we have. The only difference is what we do with that time.

I mentioned in a previous post that (during the week) I often get by on scant hours of sleep. That’s because I have more things that I want to do in my life than I can fit in a day that’s less than 20 or 22 hours some days. I choose to try to do more, to try to make use of this time, because each moment is a gift.

Maybe I can settle for that definition of time: a gift. Each moment is a gift. Don’t beg for more, or live in fear of losing them. Just make each moment count. Perhaps that’s the secret and precious nature of time. It is the one thing we should never waste, and never wish away."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"Fools and Knaves..."

“In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of

fools and knaves; who, singly from their number, must to a certain

degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.”

- Philip Stanhope

“There are more fools than knaves in the world,

else the knaves would not have enough to live upon.”

- Samuel Butler

"There Are Many Things Today..."

“We have not overcome our condition, and yet we know it better. We know that we live in contradiction, but we also know that we must refuse this contradiction and do what is needed to reduce it. Our task as humans is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of free souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable again in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks we take a long time to accomplish, that’s all.

Let us know our aims then, holding fast to the mind, even if force puts on a thoughtful or a comfortable face in order to seduce us. The first thing is not to despair. Let us not listen too much to those who proclaim that the world is at an end. Civilizations do not die so easily, and even if our world were to collapse, it would not have been the first. It is indeed true that we live in tragic times. But too many people confuse tragedy with despair. “Tragedy,” D.H. Lawrence said, “ought to be a great kick at misery.” This is a healthy and immediately applicable thought. There are many things today deserving such a kick.”

- Albert Camus

The Daily "Near You?"

Birmingham, United Kingdom. Thanks for stopping by!

"Oh Great, Now We Could Lose The Petrodollar…"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report 4/2/22:

"Oh Great, Now We Could Lose The Petrodollar…"

"The economic sanctions that have been imposed upon Russia have caused immense damage, but a loss of the petrodollar would be absolutely devastating for the U.S. economy. Since making an agreement with the Nixon administration in 1974, the Saudis have traded oil exclusively for U.S. dollars. Today, approximately 80 percent of all oil produced in the entire world is traded for dollars, and the “petrodollar” has become one of the foundational pillars of the current global financial system. Most Americans don’t realize this, but far more dollars are actually used outside of the United States than inside the United States, and having the reserve currency of the world is a massive advantage for us. Up to this point, there has been an insatiable demand for U.S. dollars all over the planet, and that has allowed us to enjoy a standard of living that is way above what we actually deserve."

"Why The Cargo Ship Mess is Getting So Much Worse"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly PM 4/2/22:

"Why The Cargo Ship Mess is Getting So Much Worse"

"We have been told that our supply chain issues when it comes to the cargo ships have been resolved. I’m going to prove to you that this is much worse than it’s ever been. There is no resolution in sight. Global supply chains have been affected by everything that’s going on in the world. They’re only going to get worse in the coming months."