Friday, August 12, 2022

“Get Up Off Your Knees!”

“Get Up Off Your Knees!”
On your knees you may live to see another day,
but you’ll never live to see better days.
by Robert Gore 

“Zoos are among the saddest places on earth: magnificent but confined creatures on display for gawking crowds, prevented from living out their biological destinies, fed their daily rations, and domesticated beyond where they could ever return to the wild. You have to feel pity and sorrow for these innocent prisoners; they’d flee in a heartbeat if they could.

Humans have made themselves inmates – whether of a zoo, prison, or asylum is hard to say, likely a combination of all three. Animals earn our admiration because they resist losing their freedom. Humans occasionally do too, but usually surrender theirs for promises and trifles. The promises are broken and the trifles grow more trifling as humanity for the most part gives up. Keep people amused and make sure the rations don’t stop and no outrage rousts them to try to reclaim their birthright. When they visit the zoo, the animals stare back at them with contempt.

In this country, we sing, “Sweet land of liberty,” and, “The land of the free, and the home of the brave.” We incant “freedom” and “liberty” during election seasons, but anything beyond that is considered embarrassing, bad form. A legislator denouncing a proposed law as an infringement of freedom would be regarded as a lunatic. Millions of pages of federal, state, and local laws and regulations already infringe freedom. The denouncer might be irrefutably right, but his denunciation would be irrelevant.

While wildlife should be free in the wild, coping with the risks to the best of their capabilities, humans are supposedly unsuited for freedom. Free humans might develop their own talents and capabilities, produce, exchange, exercise their rights, and engage in voluntary association and social intercourse, all unsupervised. You can argue that such activities are generally beneficial. However, there is a special class who are permitted to supervise and coerce the rest of us, to curtail our freedom. This special class ensures fairness or equality or some such thing. Who knows what might happen without them. Think of the dangers!

Just consider the concept of people deciding what’s in their own best interest. A hyphenated word lurks: self-interest. The special people are motivated by everything but self-interest, or so they say. Indeed, nobility of motive justifies their power and the destruction of your liberty. The desire to better your life is selfish, unlike the impulses supposedly animating those holding the guns to your head. After widespread surrender, few champion their right to their own lives, which is selfish after all, or challenge the special people’s moral superiority, which confers their right to hold the guns.

It might mitigate moral condemnation for liberty’s surrender if it had produced some benefit for those waving the white flag. An old bromide has it that liberty is irrelevant when people are starving. Nothing is further from the truth; it’s freedom that feeds people, creates wealth, and advances humanity. The historical record offers ample proof. It’s the absence of liberty that produces starvation, poverty, decay, destruction, genocide, and war. Here too the historical record is clear, one need go no farther back than the last century. During this ascendancy of the special people, humanity fought its two deadliest wars and over a hundred million were murdered, victims of special plans for a better world.

But somehow it’s liberty that’s dangerous. Fortunately the special people still rule, to make sure it doesn’t break out somewhere. Their reign assures that this century will challenge the last for the title: Century of Slaughter. They see their subjects are domesticated draft animals, just smart enough to keep economies running, not smart enough to challenge domestication. However, it’s been free minds and free markets, not draft animals, that have produced the wonders that make modern life modern. Welfare states are halfway houses to totalitarianism. As they grow, liberty shrinks and progress slows, stops, and reverses, the deterioration culminating in either anarchy or tyranny.

Judging from the prevalence of terms like “secular stagnation” and the “end of growth,” we are in the stop phase and reversal is nigh. People have seen their freedom shrink and have borne the consequences, although most don’t make the connection between the two. Incomes have stagnated, opportunities have diminished, life grows ever coarser, and fear of a looming apocalypse pervades the popular consciousness. Many are preparing for a future in which modernity is no longer modern, where access to necessities and conveniences cannot be taken for granted. Guns and gold are at the top of checklists, for a day when the inevitable failure of the special people leads to the inevitable tyranny or anarchy.

The discontent sweeping the planet is recognition that things are wrong on multiple fronts, although recognition of the root cause is rare. The idea that changing the hands on the levers offers solutions is magical thinking. The problems stem from granting the special people the levers in the first place. They may be replaced, but once the replacements have their hands on the levers, they’ll feel special, too. Power assuredly corrupts.

We’re closer to the real solution in the lament: “Why can’t they just leave us alone?” They – the special people – must leave us alone, it’s our moral right. Those who think the collapse will never come, or that freedom can be reclaimed without a fight, delude themselves. The craven adage: It’s better to live on one’s knees than die on one’s feet, offers a false choice. On your knees you may live to see another day, but you’ll never live to see better days. You may die on your feet, but liberty offers the only hope for better days. It’s worth fighting for. It’s worth dying for.”

The Poet: Charles Bukowski, "The Laughing Heart"

"Did Lockdowns Turn Americans Into Lazy Bums?"

"Did Lockdowns Turn Americans Into Lazy Bums?"
by Jeffrey Tucker

Editor’s note: "Lockdowns changed the way many of us work, as we were no longer required to report to the office. All we needed was an internet connection. But was it for the better? Today, Jeffrey Tucker wonders if it made us a nation of “goof-offs.”

"It looks as if we can add another line to the long list of lockdown harms: sloth. This explains so much actually. For months, we’ve been watching working/population ratios and labor participation rates and have been stunned by how they both continue to plummet. We search for explanations. Early retirement. Women driven out due to child care shortages. Unemployment payments. All these factors contribute but there is still more to explain. In the midst of the astonishing hullabaloo over the raid of Donald Trump’s home - and the confiscation of a pro-freedom Republican congressman’s smartphone - the Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped a remarkable report on labor productivity. Here we see something we’ve never seen before.

Crashing Labor Productivity: It’s low and falling. Lower than it has been in the entire postwar period. It breaks all records. This chart is from 1948 to the present. It adjusts for all factors including participation, population, retirement and so on. It only looks at hours over output. Here is what we see:
What does this mean? The immediate response might be that Americans have gotten lazy. They got used to their Zoom lifestyles and pretending to work. They want to hang around on apps, tweet, chat it up with their friends on Facebook or Slack and otherwise fake out the boss who can’t fire them anyway for fear of lawsuits. They aren’t doing much anymore, at least not those in high-end employment in professional office suits.

I resisted that conclusion and looked more deeply into how this number is calculated. It looks at total economic output compared with the number of labor hours from wage and salary employees involved in making that output. The result is a figure that estimates productivity per hour. And yes, it is probably widely inaccurate, as these sorts of macroeconomic magnitudes tend to be. We use them anyway because they are consistently inaccurate: The same method used to calculate in one quarter is used to calculate in all. It thereby becomes useful.

A Nation of Goof-offs: And what it reveals is probably what we might expect. American workers have dealt with lockdowns and shutdowns, plus vaccine mandate demoralization, plus inflation eating away at real wages, plus an existing or impending recession and you have the result. A nation of goof-offs.

It might be more than that. Lockdowns kicked off a national substance abuse crisis: liquor, drugs, weed, you name it. And depression too. Even today, one cannot help but notice the smell of weed in large cities. This is not the smell of ambition and productivity. We can combine this with the sheer number of people who have left the workforce completely and you paint a grim picture.

Economist and Brownstone Senior Fellow David Stockman has an interesting take on this. Rather than just fire people outright, companies are keeping unproductive employees on the payroll just in case. He writes: "[The latest] Q2 productivity report… came in at -4.7%, on top of the -7.7% decline posted in Q1. Together they amount to the worst back-to-back productivity declines ever reported. Our point is that this development puts a whole new angle on the so-called “strong” labor market. To wit, owing to the labor market turmoil and disruptions of the COVID lockdowns and massive stimmy injections since 2020, employers are apparently hiring on a just-in-case basis like rarely before. This is otherwise known as top-of-the-cycle labor hoarding…

Since Q4 2021, economic output, which is a close derivative of real GDP, has shrunk by -1.2%. By contrast, the U.S. nonfarm payroll has increased by 2.77 million jobs, or nearly +2.0%. Needless to say, with far more labor spread over contracting output, labor productivity took it on the chin. That is to say, bad Washington policies including $6 trillion of stimmies, massive money-pumping and the brutal lockdowns of the Virus Patrol have apparently left employers dazed and confused.

At length, however, employers will wake up to the fact that bloated payrolls against declining sales will result in a severe profit margin squeeze. Then the labor-shedding and layoffs will commence big-time, even as the Keynesians in the Eccles Building are reduced to babbling about the “strong” labor market, which suddenly vanished."

What he is getting at is what I’ve called (after Keynes) the coming euthanasia of the overclass. It won’t be the people actually doing real stuff who will face layoffs but the Zoom workers who stayed home because government said they could and their employers could not object. Employees gradually discovered that they could be anywhere - at the pool, in bed, on the road, climbing mountains - and so long as they had a Slack app running, no one could tell.

Lockdowns acculturated an entire generation to believe that work is fake, productivity is a ruse, money comes for nothing, the boss is an idiot and many workers are privileged to be wealthy forever due to papers handed out for $200,000 by colleges and universities. Who needs productivity, much less ambition?

Good News for Some, Bad News for Others: In the old days, in an ethos formed from bourgeois experience over hundreds of years, the idea of working and doing one’s part was ingrained as a moral habit, part of the liturgy of life itself. When the government told everyone to stop in the name of virus control, something went haywire in people’s brains.

If governments say that the work ethic amounts to nothing but pathogenic spread, and we can all contribute more by staying home and doing less, it’s hard to go back. It wrecked a generation. We are paying the price now.

The good news for the productive few is that this means higher wages and job opportunities galore, especially if you have actual skill and a desire to work. The bad news for everyone else is that many companies will soon discover that you are useless. That’s when the unemployment numbers will start ticking up, making this recession look more like ones in the past except for the relentless decline in real wages. To answer the question about whether Americans have become lazy bums, the answer is many but not all. It’s sector specific. And individual specific.

Strange times. Sad times."

"A Horrifying Drought Is Causing Widespread Crop Failures Throughout The United States And Europe"

"A Horrifying Drought Is Causing Widespread 
Crop Failures Throughout The United States And Europe"
by Michael Snyder

"We really are reaching a major crisis point. Thanks to soaring fertilizer prices, insane weather patterns and the war in Ukraine, global food supplies have been getting tighter and tighter. So we really needed a banner year for agricultural production in both the United States and Europe in 2022, and that is not going to happen. In fact, unprecedented drought is absolutely devastating crops all over the northern hemisphere. A lot of people are complaining about how high food prices are right now, but just wait. If some sort of a miracle doesn’t happen, agricultural production is going to be way below expectations in both the United States and Europe, and that is going to have very serious implications for 2023.

Let me start by talking about the nightmare that is starting to unfold in Europe. According to CNN, it is now being projected that farmers in Italy have lost “up to 80% of their harvest” because the drought has become so severe…"In Italy, farmers in some parts of the country have lost up to 80% of their harvest this year due to severe weather anomalies, the Coldretti farming association said Thursday." How are those farmers going to survive?

Many farmers in France are facing similar losses because they have only been receiving a fraction of the rainfall that they normally get…"In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7 millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said. That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, making it the driest month since March 1961, the agency added."

Crop failures in France would be a really, really big deal, because France is normally “the fourth-largest exporter of wheat” in the entire world…"France is the fourth-largest exporter of wheat and among the top five exporters of maize globally. Poor harvests due to drought may heap further pressure on grain supplies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine caused global shockwaves."

The situation in Germany is also extremely dire. It is being reported that things are already so bad that some sections of the Rhine River have dropped to dangerously low levels…"Germany’s most-important river is running dry as Europe suffers through a drought that is on course to become its worst in 500 years, with terrifying wildfires burning once again in France. Water levels in the Rhine – which carries 80 per cent of all goods transported by water in Germany, from its industrial heartlands to Dutch ports – are now so low that it could become impassable to barges later this week, threatening vital supplies of oil and coal that the country is relying upon as Russia turns off the gas tap."

Of course the U.S. is dealing with severe drought too. According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, about half of the nation is experiencing some level of drought at this moment, and we are being told that the ongoing megadrought in the Southwest is the worst in 1,200 years.

Things are particularly bad in Texas. If you can believe it, Dallas just had a stretch in which they had no measurable rain at all for two straight months…"The daily highs in Dallas have been 95 degrees or higher for three straight weeks, much hotter than normal for this time of year. The Dallas-Fort Worth area has even more problems amid an extreme drought going as far back as May 17. One hundred percent of Dallas County is in an extreme drought, while 21 percent of the whole state is experiencing exceptional drought - the most intense category of drought - according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. A 67-day stretch with no measurable rain came to an end in Dallas on Wednesday when 0.41 of an inch of rain fell. That was the second-longest dry streak at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport. The standing record was 85 consecutive days that spanned much of the summer of 2000."

The lack of moisture has been crippling for the state’s absolutely massive agriculture industry. There are 247,000 farms and ranches in Texas, and nearly all of them are deeply suffering right now…"The drought pressing Texas’ agriculture industry - which is responsible for 10 percent of the state’s gross domestic product - is pushing farmers and ranchers to the brink. The state’s 247,000 farms and ranches covering 127 million acres haven’t had a whole year of rain since 2017. Almost 24 million of Texas’ population lives in drought-facing areas.

As of the first of August, less than 1 percent of the state was not facing some level of drought or abnormal dryness. At this point, conditions are so dry in Texas that many ranchers have been forced to “panic sell” their herds. For much more on this, please see my previous article entitled “Ranchers Are Selling Off Their Cattle In Unprecedented Numbers Due To The Drought, And That Has Enormous Implications For 2023”.

Other states in the Southwest are also being hit extremely hard by this drought. Over in Utah, the size of the Great Salt Lake just continues to get smaller and smaller due to the relentlessly dry conditions…"The warm arid desert in the West certainly had its fair share of the summer heat. Salt Lake City International Airport recorded a high of 100 degrees on July 28, marking the 16th day that month of triple-digit temperatures and breaking the previous record of 15 in July 1960. Last month, the city tied its record for the hottest recorded temperature of 107 degrees for the fourth time, according to NOAA weather data. The other occasions on which the mercury rose to 107 in Salt Lake City were in June 2021, July 2002 and July 1960. Record-keeping began there in 1874."

That intense heat hasn’t just made the residents of Utah sweat though - it has also magnified the ongoing megadrought, which has contributed to the dire state of the Great Salt Lake. Between July 2021 and 2022, the average daily water level of the lake dropped by about one foot, a historic low, and is expected to fall even farther.

There have always been times of drought all throughout history, but in modern times we have never seen the United States and Europe simultaneously experience such a severe drought for such an extended period. For years I have been warning that we are moving toward a time when global famines will become quite common, and widespread crop failures throughout the western world this year would greatly accelerate that process.

We are being told that a child dies every 11 seconds from malnutrition. But as food supplies get tighter and tighter, global hunger is going to get far, far worse than it is now. In 2023, there simply is not going to be enough food for everyone. I hope that you are getting prepared for that, because next year is just around the corner."
Related:

"And Yet, Sometimes..."

So, you look around in horrified astonishment at how totally insane it all really is, how the never ending bad news is everywhere you look, how truly hopeless it really is, and know there's nothing at all you can do about it, can't save anyone, can't even save yourself. So you remember what they said and how you need to be, and carry on...
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, 
but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
- Marcus Aurelius, "Meditations"

“That millions of people share the same forms of 
mental pathology does not make these people sane.”
- Erich Fromm, "The Sane Society"

“Laugh whenever you can. Keeps you from killing
 yourself when things are bad. That and vodka.”
- Jim Butcher, "Changes"

And yet, sometimes, at the end of another long day, 
your defenses are just worn out and you lose control and feel like this... 
Full screen recommended.
The Trashmen, "Surfin Bird - Bird is the Word," 1963

Until tomorrow, when you do it all over again...
And so it is, lol...

The Daily "Near You?"

Liberty, South Carolina, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"You Will Lose Your Job - Plan For Emergency Now; Fake Markets Have Created Hell On Earth For You"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 8/12/22:
"You Will Lose Your Job - Plan For Emergency Now; 
Fake Markets Have Created Hell On Earth For You"
Comments here:

"We Are Living Through An Epic Collapse"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, iAllegedly 8/12/22:
"We Are Living Through An Epic Collapse"
"One day we're told there’s zero percent inflation and the next we find out that food inflation has risen to 13 1/2%. We can’t have it both ways. Business is suffering like never before."
Comments here:

Bill Bonner, "What if They're Wrong?"

"What if They're Wrong?"
On climate... on inflation... on the economy...
 on how best to run YOUR life?
by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "Yesterday, Massachusetts signed onto the Great Transition crusade. The Washington Post: "Described as a “landmark bill,” the Massachusetts climate legislation notably includes a provision - the first of its kind for the state - that would allow 10 municipalities to legally ban fossil fuel infrastructure in new and major construction projects. With this policy, certain cities and towns in Massachusetts could soon join others across the country that have taken similar steps to change local building codes to block the use of fossil fuels, such as natural gas - meaning many people who want gas stoves or furnaces are probably out of luck in these places." What if they’re wrong? What if trying to change the earth’s climate is a wild goose chase?

The Pentagon was in the news yesterday too. In what ‘CovertAction’ calls the “Most Bloated Military Budget in History,” Democrats and Republicans joined hands to deliver defense contractors an $850 billion payday – a $45 billion increase. Supporters say the US needs to spend such huge amounts of money to counter the many threats they’ve managed to stir up – Russia, China… terrorists… gender inequality!

A Lifetime Setback: But what if they’re wrong? What if all that spending actually weakens the US economy… frightens foreigners… and causes potential enemies to ‘gun up’ themselves? Terrorists… Chinese… Russians – aren’t we pushing them to find new forms of money… new weapons… new friends?

What does it matter if you’re wrong? Marry the ‘wrong’ person, for example, and you might dread every breakfast. Making the wrong career choice, too, could be a lifetime setback.

In matters of public policy, the consequences of wrongness are directly proportional to the ambition of the undertaking. Generally, the grander the project, the greater the damage. Many public policies are just reflections of a consensus – drive on the right… don’t throw trash out the window – and do little damage. Otherwise, they are threats to life and property. They impose the fads of the ruling class upon everyone else and divert time and resources from what ‘the people’ actually want.

Does that make sense? We hope so; if not, we’d have to revise our entire weltanschauung. And now… you are faced with a choice. You can believe the ‘inflation has peaked’ narrative… for example. If it is true, the Fed can now ease off of its ‘tightening’… and soon return to doing what it does best – inflating."
"What if They're Wrong?" This is how they really think. 
- Jacques Attali, "Verbatem"

Sound familiar? Look around...

"Is the Food Crisis Over or Just Getting Started?"

"Is the Food Crisis Over or Just Getting Started?"
by Chris MacIntosh

"Are you hungry? Good, according to the central planners. The folks over at the UN stopped destroying the world for a brief few minutes to publish a piece (snapshot below) justifying their behavior and explaining the "benefits" of the famine they’ve engineered.
Not making this up. The article remained on the UN website for a day or so before being deleted after it went viral on social media, with people horrified at the truly unbelievable evil. The good thing about this is that as they continue with their predictive programming and NLP (seriously, look into both and it promises to blow your mind), more and more people wake from their trance. Once woken, they realize the incredible danger they are all in. And that is a good thing because you can’t fight an enemy until you understand one exists.

The "great reset" requires a populace beholden to the government and nobody else. As the central planners pursue their agenda of getting there, this is bound to be fraught with an awakening and a lot of angst.

The Great Awakening of the Average Joe: While Joe Sixpack doesn’t understand most of these, he doesn’t actually need to. What Joe does care about is when he can’t afford groceries and when his electricity bill now suddenly wipes out his entire annual disposable income. And that is enough to provide both pushback and an increasing ability to awaken to the horrors of what comes for him if this communist agenda masquerading as a plan to "save us from climate change" is NOT stopped in its tracks. And with this realization will come politicians - many who themselves are parasites but doing what comes naturally to them: sensing a shift in the winds and rushing to get in front of it, champion it, and gain support.

Here, take a look. According to France24, Giuseppe Conte, the head of Five Star, said: "I have a strong fear that September will be a time when many families will face the terrible choice of paying their electricity bills or buying food. We are absolutely willing to dialogue, to make our constructive contribution to the government, to Draghi, (but) we are not willing to write a blank cheque." He’s not wrong, of course, but this is a thug who was a massive contributor to the problems our proverbial "Joe" now faces. Take a look at this.
And as we’ve been continuously saying: energy underpins EVERYTHING. Which is why Eurozone CPI looks like it just mainlined viagra. And this is saying something because as you know the way they measure CPI is, of course, complete hogwash and roughly half the real rate. Check out John Williams’ Shadowstats, where inflation in the US is calculated based on the methodology used back in the 80’s (pre-fraud). It just hit 17.3%. That’s a tad more than the 9.1% print they just tried to trick you with.

The other thing "Joe" cares about is when the government - under the guise of "saving the planet" - begins the process of stealing up to 50% of the farms in the Netherlands.

Reducing Nitrogen Emissions: Under a ridiculous narrative of "reducing nitrogen omissions" the Dutch government are proceeding with a blatant land grab of 30% of the Farmland. It is worth pointing out that air is 78% nitrogen. These morons have literally decided that air is dangerous. Anyway, the farmers are having none of it and have blockaded roads, airports, and distribution centers. The fishermen have joined in and blocked the ports.

Domestically the Dutch farmers have massive support. Gratefully, people seem to intuitively understand that without them there will be no food. The propaganda is no longer having the desired effect on the populace. What a shame! Every day a few more people wake to reality, and once you wake, you can’t unsee what you’ve seen. The existing political parties’ credibility is severely damaged. I’ve thought for some years now that if there is to be a shift, it will likely come from third parties. This is true across the Western world, and not uniquely a Dutch thing. The Farmer–Citizen Movement in the Netherlands is now gaining momentum and size faster than any other.
Over in France, the Marxist agenda gathers momentum. France plans full nationalization of power utility EDF: "France will fully nationalize EDF (EDF.PA), Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne said on Wednesday, in a move that would give the government more control over a restructuring of the debt-laden group while contending with a European energy crisis."

It is at this point that we should review a little history. The last head of a European government to be killed and eaten by a mob was Dutch Johan de Witt in 1672, who was mutilated, hung, and had his liver roasted and digested by Orangists in the Hague.
Davos man deserves at least as much. In the meantime, Europeans are going to be cold and hungry. Winter is just a few short months away now. The stampede will begin in earnest for food and all those banned products like fertilizer."
Related:

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

“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

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
- Mark Twain

Jim Kunstler, "Gestapo the Steal"

"Gestapo the Steal"
by Jim Kunstler

"To America’s political Left, serving its masters in the runaway deep state, reality itself must be portrayed as “baseless,” as in nothing to see here, folks. Is it any wonder, then, that half the country has gone mental. The reality they don’t want you to see is that the intel-and-surveillance agencies of our Republic have taken on a rogue life of their own as a dominant “fourth branch of government,” and that some time ago they embarked on a crime spree against anyone threatening their operations.

That would include especially target number one: Donald Trump. For a masterful explication of how this amazing clusterf**k developed, I commend you to The Conservative Treehouse website where the writer who styles himself as “Sundance” put together a four-part report on how the original sin of RussiaGate metastasized into the stage-four cancer of institutional necrosis that culminated in this week’s raid on Mar-a-Lago.

The gist is: it turns out that the president does not have sole authority, in practice, to declassify and release government documents. With the rise of the security state, many new procedures have been erected within that massive labyrinth to prevent it or slow-walk it. The most effective has been to make the president himself a target of, or a material witness in, drawn-out investigations. That was the exact purpose of the Mueller exercise. Any exculpatory documents released by Mr. Trump - for instance, the complete unredacted text exchanges of FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page - could have been used to hang an obstruction of justice charge on the president.

Mr. Trump adroitly avoided that trap, and many other legal pitfalls the deep state laid for him, and might have won reelection but for the well-organized ballot fraud of 2020. But the epic blunders of “Joe Biden” are giving Mr. Trump, and the movement behind him, a pretty good shot at routing the incumbent regime. Doing so, first in the 2022 midterms and then in the 2024 presidential election, portends a now quite visible effort coming to dismantle that reckless, unelected “fourth branch” of government. So, the intel-and-surveillance agencies are fighting for their lives - and the actual humans in charge must be keenly aware of their criminal liabilities.

Despite all attempts to disable him in office, Mr. Trump, as president, got to see an awful lot of classified material, including all the evidence of Hillary Clinton’s Russia Collusion hoax, abetted by the FBI, the DOJ, CIA, and DOD, plus all the lawless shenanigans that took place in the FISA court. A lot of it was assembled when, late in the game, Mr. Trump was finally able to appoint Directors of National Intelligence he could trust - Ric Grenell and then John Ratcliffe - who wrested many documents out of the foot-dragging agencies. Further maneuvers by artful Attorney General William Barr - the appointment of John Durham as Special Counsel and his drawn-out investigations - kept Mr. Trump from releasing any declassified RussiaGate material ever since. The catch was: he still had bales of that evidence in his possession among the personal papers he took with him from the White House.

Now, it also happens that in March of this year Mr. Trump filed a lawsuit in Florida against Hillary Clinton and many entities and persons who abetted the construction of RussiaGate. The person assigned to preside over the case was magistrate judge Bruce Rhinehart, a one-time DOJ attorney who had been involved in the 2007 Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking prosecution, and who then mysteriously switched sides in mid-litigation and signed on as a lawyer for Epstein. Epstein was soon let off of serious charges with a wrist-slap, amid suspicions that he was an intel agency operative who required protection. And, of course, now Mr. Epstein is dead, offed under highly mysterious circumstances while in federal custody.

Bruce Rhinehart was involved in the 2013 government defense of IRS officer Lois Lerner, who never answered for targeting conservative organizations for tax punishment and “losing” thousands of emails pertaining to the cases. Bruce Rhinehart also left a long record of social media posts denouncing Mr. Trump for one thing or another. He remained as presiding judge over the Trump lawsuit against Hillary, et al., in Florida since March and then suddenly recused himself on June 22 of this year. Naturally, many of the aforesaid unclassified documents in Mr. Trump’s possession would be introduced as evidence in an effort to prove that Hillary Clinton sought to defame and defraud him over the confected Russia Collusion story.

And so it happened that Bruce Rhinehart was just the right person for the FBI to seek a warrant from, though the choice looks ludicrous now. And hence, the desperate raid on Mar-a-Lago to get that trove of evidence, especially with an election looming that could transform congress and lead next year to a raft of investigations into the corrupt intel-and-surveillance deep state. Of course, it’s laughable to imagine there aren’t copies of all that material in other places, so it’s not as though the FBI can make the evidence just disappear. But the apparent object of the move is to hastily convict Mr. Trump in a DC federal district court on any Mickey Mouse charge involving his dispute with the National Archives that would, theoretically, prevent him from running again in 2024.

One must wonder if Mr. Trump did not catch the FBI (and DOJ) in a “rope-a-dope” operation of his own. He’d just come off a successful primary season in which over 90 percent of his endorsees won their races. The midterm elections look increasingly dire for the Democrats, the Party of Chaos, as led by the transcendentally incompetent “Joe Biden.” In June, Mr. Trump had met at Mar-a-Lago with FBI agents and produced many documents requested under a subpoena. Were the FBI and DOJ alarmed by what Mr. Trump handed over then, and did it suggest there was plenty of other material, possibly more damaging, in the former president’s collection headed into court? The momentous lawsuit against Hillary - which gets no coverage in the Left agit-prop news media - is not over.

In any case, the FBI and DOJ ended up embarrassing themselves with the August 8 Mar-a-Lago raid, an act as ham-fisted and tone-deaf as any in the nauseating annals of “Joe Biden’s” sinister regime. They outed themselves as an American Gestapo, dedicated chiefly to persecuting the ruling regime’s political enemies, and they probably succeeded in galvanizing even sturdier opposition to be expressed at the polling places this November, at great peril to the agencies’ officers, and perhaps even the agencies’ continued existence."

"We Like To Think..."

“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”
- “Grey’s Anatomy”

"Crazy Prices At Family Dollar! This Is Getting Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures with Danno, 8/12/22:
"Crazy Prices At Family Dollar! This Is Getting Ridiculous!"
"In today's vlog we are at Family Dollar, 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!"
Comments here:

CanadianPrepper, "The Situation Is Out Of Control"

CanadianPrepper, 8/11/22”
"The Situation Is Out Of Control"
Comments here:

How It Really Is"

"For the land of the free, 
And the home of the brave."
Yeah...

Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up, 8/12/22"

"Weekly News Wrap-Up, 8/12/22"
Biden True Approval 12%, Trump Raid Backfires,
Inflation Down Not Out
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"If you really want to understand the crazy and desperate actions of the Biden/Obama Administration, you have to know the real numbers. Not the numbers of the latest poll that shows President Biden with a 40% approval rating. The real numbers that the public never gets to see, because it’s secret behind the scenes research, is Bidens true approval rating. Biden’s true approval numbers are somewhere between 11% and 12%, according to my confidential source and Martin Armstrong’s “Socrates” data mining computer. If Biden’s real approval rating is not more than 12%, you can see why the Democrat party is panicked and in deep trouble. They must do something to look stronger than they really are because they cannot even begin to cheat their way to victory in the midterms and beyond. 12% approval means most of the Democrats will not even vote for Biden or any other Democrats, and the economy is not going to give them or anyone else a reason to do so anytime soon.

The raid on the Florida home of President Donald Trump is backfiring big time on the Biden/Obama administration. His poll numbers have shot up even higher, and he’s breaking records for campaign donations when he’s not even announced he’s running - yet. This is just another fake made up case like the so-called “Russian Collusion” brought to you by fake FISA warrants, spying by the FBI and a fake dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton. The public see’s this tor the political attack it is and not a legit law enforcement action by a corrupt Deep State that includes RINO Republicans and commie Democrats.

Inflation backed off a bit this month and went down to 8.5% year over year. President Biden was so desperate for good economic news he spun this to mean 0% inflation month over month. Of course, this is preposterous and not the way inflation is counted even with the gimmicks to make it look better than it is. John Williams of Shadowstats.com says the real inflation as it was counted before all the gimmicks is around 17%. Gasoline prices have come down a bit, but they are going back up as the supply of gasoline is down to lows not seen since the early 1990’s. Enjoy the lower gas prices while they last. So, inflation is down a bit for now, but not out. There is much more in the 53-minute newscast."

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he talks about these 
stories and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 8/12/22.

Thursday, August 11, 2022

Gerald Celente, "Facts: The Game is Rigged, Prepare for Global Meltdown"

Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 8/11/22:
"Facts: The Game is Rigged, Prepare for Global Meltdown"
Comments here:

"This Is Getting Real Scary, Middle Class In Big Trouble; Food Prices Going Up; Housing Market Reset"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/11/22:
"This Is Getting Real Scary, Middle Class In Big Trouble;
 Food Prices Going Up; Housing Market Reset"
Comments here:

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Divenire", Live at Royal Albert Hall, London

Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Divenire", 
Live at Royal Albert Hall, London

Magnificent!

"A Look to the Heavens"

"To some, it looks like a giant chicken running across the sky. To others, it looks like a gaseous nebula where star formation takes place. Cataloged as IC 2944, the Running Chicken Nebula spans about 100 light years and lies about 6,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Centaur (Centaurus).
The featured image, shown in scientifically assigned colors, was captured recently in a 12-hour exposure. The star cluster Collinder 249 is visible embedded in the nebula's glowing gas. Although difficult to discern here, several dark molecular clouds with distinct shapes can be found inside the nebula."

"Life..."

"Life is the hyphen between matter and spirit."
- A.W. and J.C. Hare,

Freely Download: Viktor Frankl, "Man's Search for Meaning"

"Man's Search for Meaning"
by Viktor Frankl

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

"Some details of a particular man's inner greatness may have come to one's mind, like the story of a young woman whose death I witnessed in a concentration camp. It is a simple story. There is little to tell and it may sound as if I had invented it; but to me it seems like a poem.

This young woman knew that she would die in the next few days. But when I talked to her she was cheerful in spite of this knowledge. 'I am grateful that fate has hit me so hard,' she told me. 'In my former life I was spoiled and did not take spiritual accomplishments seriously.' Pointing through the window of the hut, she said, 'This tree here is the only friend I have in my loneliness.' Through that window she could see just one branch of a chestnut tree, and on the branch were two blossoms. 'I often talk to this tree,' she said to me. I was startled and didn't quite know how to take her words. Was she delirious? Did she have occasional hallucinations? Anxiously I asked her if the tree replied. 'Yes.' What did it say to her? She answered, 'It said to me, "I am here - I am here - I am life, eternal life."
Freely download "Man's Search for Meaning", by Viktor Frankl, here:

"Job Losses, Bankruptcies And Store Closings Are All Soaring As The US Economic Collapse Rolls On"

Full screen recommended.
"Job Losses, Bankruptcies And Store Closings 
Are All Soaring As The US Economic Collapse Rolls On"
by Epic Economist

"The U.S. economy is facing an unending nightmare. All over the country, economic activity is dramatically slowing down as another recession begins. Hundreds of thousands of businesses are feeling the compounding effects of two years of persistent supply chain disruptions, shutdowns, labor shortages, and soaring inflation. That’s why many of them are starting to announce massive waves of layoffs and store closings in a repeat of scenes last seen during the peak of the pandemic in 2020. At the same time, bankruptcy rates are spiking again, and industry CEOs are warning that this is just the beginning.

We were actually supposed to be witnessing some sort of improvement right now. But instead, companies are announcing mass lay-offs, store closures, and filing for bankruptcy as they face the cumulative effects of hot inflation, supply chain imbalances, and dropping sales. It’s quite hard to believe that the numbers have gotten sob ad in such a short span. According to the Washington Post, we’re still seeing businesses fail at a rate that is absolutely staggering. Over the past two years, approximately 175,000 businesses have permanently closed their doors all across the country. In 2020, after the health crisis broke out, nearly 280 companies declared bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg. In the first half of 2020, at least 110 major companies filed for bankruptcy in America. Now, two years later, the U.S. has seen 221 bankruptcy filings from January to July, S&P Global data shows. The pace at which things are running off the tracks is quite shocking, and more gloomy announcements just keep coming.

Several iconic retailers, even some of the most established ones such as Walmart are having to close locations around the U.S. as consumers’ budgets get squeezed by soaring prices. Grocery stores have not been spared by the challenges across the retail space. Last month, Whole Foods announced the closure of dozens of stores. Shortly after that, two dozens of Sprouts Farmers Market locations were permanently shut down. Starbucks, which closed eye-popping 424 US company-operated stores during its most recent fiscal year is prepared to close even more branches as economic conditions deteriorate. "We are beginning to close stores," CEO Howard Schultz said in a video posted to Twitter last week. "This is just the beginning. There are going to be many more," he stressed.

According to Toys ‘R’ Us CEO, the carnage is far from over. During a recent interview with FoxNews, the company’s chief executive officer Gerald Storch warned that in the fall "we’re going to see record bankruptcies in retail". He emphasized that thousands of mom-and-pop stores will experience a "decimation" of mom-and-pop stores on Main Street.

Recent reports continue to trickle out about the growing number of job cuts across the nation. So far this summer, many major U.S. companies have laid off thousands of employees as executives fear more volatility in financial markets and worsening economic fundamentals. Amongst them, Microsoft reportedly laid off 200 employees in July, less than a month after the California tech giant announced it would cut 2,000 workers, Business Insider reported, The pessimism is rapidly spreading across Silicon Valley. This month, website design company Wix.com made its second round of layoffs of the year, cutting hundreds of employees as company President and COO Nir Zohar noted that “the world is experiencing an economic crisis and we have seen U.S. GDP fall without growth.”

When taking all the sectors of the industry together, there have already been hundreds of thousands of layoffs this year and many more are coming in the months ahead. What we’ve seen so far is just a hint of what is going to happen to this country once we’re into a full-blown recession and dealing with skyrocketing consumer prices and a collapsing job market. In essence, this is exactly what an economic collapse looks like, and unfortunately, it is just getting started."

“Why Do You Rob Banks?”

“Why Do You Rob Banks?”
by Brian Maher

“Why do you rob banks?” authorities asked notorious bank thief Willie Sutton. His response was a miracle of clarity, clearer than crystal and sharper than Damascus steel: “Because that's where the money is.”

Why does the United States government mine the middle class for tax revenues? For the same reason the criminally enterprising Mr. Sutton robbed banks - because that is where the money is. Mr. Biden and other boosters for the Inflation Reduction Act - so-called - shout that only wealthy corporations will suffer a deeper tax wound under the bill’s provisions. Moreover, they insist no household earning $400,000 or less will take the bite.

“A family making less than $400,000 will not pay one penny in additional taxes under the Inflation Reduction Act,” bleats a Democratic spokeswoman with the Senate Finance Committee. They may be correct… technically. The bill officially exempts every man jack of the middling and lower classes. Yet as always the devil - or God - lies camouflaged within the details, hidden and buried. Alas, the middle and laboring classes will fail to detect the old boy within the details of the Inflation Reduction Act. Yet the tax man spots the hand of God…

The Middle Class Has More Resources Than the “Rich”: The middle class vastly outnumbers the “wealthy.” The United States houses under 800 billionaires. The number of millionaires is substantially greater - yet still limited. Meantime, the middle class constitutes up to two-thirds of the American populace, depending on the criteria selected. And that middle class, to cite Mr. Sutton yet again… is where the money is.

Any meaningful tax increase must hook - and rook - the great middle class. You may drill the corporations with higher taxation. Yet these corporations have resort to the most crackerjack tax attorneys and accountants in existence. They are expert at identifying loopholes, wormholes, foxholes and boltholes. Corporations can burrow deeper than the outstretched arm of the tax man can reach. What taxes they must endure they largely hand off to consumers - to the middle and lower classes.

Affirms Mr. Preston Brashers, senior tax policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation: 'Technically, legally, the corporations are the ones paying taxes, but ultimately that has to be paid by people, one way or the other. It’s not like Jeff Bezos - if you tax Amazon - that this is coming out of Jeff Bezos’ pocket." Yet that is not all. The evils multiply…

Unintended Consequences: These taxes may also chase corporations overseas in search of more hospitable business climates. They may take bunches of middle-class jobs with them. And will the Inflation Reduction Act meet its advertised objective?

The Senate’s Joint Committee on Taxation: "Analyses from nonpartisan experts show the legislation would raise taxes on low- and middle-income Americans during a period of declining GDP and high inflation; raise taxes on manufacturers, exacerbating supply-chain disruptions and costing U.S. jobs and investment; and do little to nothing to lower inflation. Citing data from the National Association of Manufacturers, the committee projects this legislation will yield a $68.45 billion slashing of real GDP…. 218,108 fewer workers… and a $17.11 billion falling-off in labor income."

In all, this Joint Commission on Taxation concludes that: "In 2023, taxes will increase by $16.7 billion on American taxpayers earning less than $200,000 - a nearly $17 billion tax targeted solidly at low- and middle-income earners next year, amidst stagflation…" At least half of all new tax revenue raised next year would come from those earning under $400,000. Throughout the 10-year window, the average tax rate for nearly every single income category would increase. By 2031… those earning below $400,000 are projected to bear as much as two-thirds of the burden of the additional tax revenue collected that year.

Promises, Promises: In fairness - in fairness - the bill’s drummers counter that this analysis neglects the benefits that would accrue to the middle class. They cite the bill’s household consumer tax credits, reduced drug prices and health care subsidies. These will place the middle class “distributionally ahead,” claims a certain Marc Goldwein of the preposterously titled Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. As well label a gang of drunkards the Committee for Responsible Drinking. And we are not half so convinced the bill’s proposed benefits will truly flow to the intended beneficiaries.

Each government intervention into markets drags behind it a train of consequences unintended. We hazard its efforts to reduce drug prices and offer health care subsidies will yield increased costs and reduced care elsewhere along the tracks. They may very likely negate the bill’s intended benefits.

87,000 New IRS Agents: Meantime, the Inflation Reduction Act provides the wherewithal to hire 87,000 freshly minted agents of the Internal Revenue Service. We are assured they will merely police the tax-dodging wealthy who refuse to haul the appropriate freight - who refuse to “pay their fair share.” We are heart and soul for paying a fair share. Yet we cannot define “fair share.” We do not know what it is. Is it 10% of a fellow’s income? 25%... 50%... perhaps 90%?

Roosevelt - Franklin Delano - once proposed a 100% top marginal tax rate. Was it fair? Regardless, let it go. Our concern here is the present, the Inflation Reduction Act in particular…

The Rich Are Different: The new IRS goons will harass the un-civic and tax-skirting rich, we are assured. Yet come sit down with the facts…The un-civic and tax-skirting rich enjoy access to white-shoed tax attorneys. These wiseacres are often more acquainted with the tax codes than the IRS itself. They can dispute IRS claims in courts of law. The IRS must expend legal costs and waste time battling away in court. In many instances they do not find their troubles worth the candle. They will often settle the dispute out of court… and on terms favorable to the un-civic and tax-skirting rich.

The middle and lower orders - meantime - lack all access to the wealthy’s premier tax attorneys. A TurboTax may offer you legal representation should the IRS tap you on the shoulder. Yet with the highest respect to TurboTax, it is not Baker McKenzie. The IRS hirees will therefore consecrate much of their efforts to hounding the middle and lower classes.

The Simple Truth: Research by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reveals this capital fact: "Households earning under $25,000 per year are five times more likely to suffer an IRS audit than all others. Apologists claim these audits are manifestations of benevolence. The tax man merely wishes to ensure these sad sacks are claiming the proper exemptions. But the facts are the facts and an audit is an audit."

Meantime, the bipartisan Committee on Taxation concludes that: "Fully 78–90% of tax revenues to fund the Inflation Reduction Act would come siphoning out from taxpayers earning under $200,000." Up to 90-%! How do you like it? And what percentage would the wealthiest “contribute” - those earning $500,000 or higher? A mere 4–9%.

The Devil in the Details: Concludes the JCT: "The brunt of any new revenue from hiring an army of IRS auditors will overwhelming[ly] hit low- and middle-income earners...”

Thus you have it - the devil within the details of the Inflation Reduction Act. As always, he is craftily hidden. It is said the devil’s greatest deception ever was to convince the world he did not exist. The Inflation Reduction Act’s trumpeters pray middle-class Americans remain convinced…"

Gregory Mannarino, "Alert! Be Ready For It! The Federal Reserve Is About To Do Something Big!"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 8/11/22:
"Alert! Be Ready For It! 
The Federal Reserve Is About To Do Something Big!"
Comments here:

The Daily "Near You?"

Rhododendron, Oregon, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Does Anyone Know..."

"All sins, of course, deserve to be treated with mercy: we all do what we can, and life is too hard and too cruel for us to condemn anyone for failing in this area. Does anyone know what he himself would do if faced with the worst and how much truth could he bear under such circumstances?"
- Andre Comte-Sponville