“An Act of Legislative Barbarism”

“An Act of Legislative Barbarism”

by Brian Meyer

"Have you the time to scour 4,155 pages - finely printed and single-spaced - within the span of three days? If so we would dispatch you at once to Washington. There you can announce the full contents of the $1.7 trillion omnibus bill, so-called, under present consideration by the United States Senate. Released Tuesday morning, it must face a vote by midnight Friday - else the federal government “shuts down.” What precisely do we know about this omnibus? That it is loaded to the gunwales and packed to suffocation with pig products - “pork.”

Spending “Priorities”: The bill authorizes for example:

$1.2 million for “LGBTQIA+ Pride Centers”...

$1.2 million for "services for DACA recipients” (aka helping illegal aliens with taxpayer funds) at San Diego Community College…

$477,000 for the Equity Institute in Rhode Island to indoctrinate teachers with “antiracism virtual labs”...

$1 million for Zora’s House in Ohio, a “coworking and community space” for “women and gender-expansive people of color”...

$3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City…

$3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail in Georgia…

$750,000 for “LGBT and gender non-conforming housing” in Albany, New York…

$2 million for the Great Blacks in Wax Museum in Baltimore…

$856,000 for the “LGBT center” in New York…

$750,000 for the TransLatin@ Coalition to provide “workforce development programs and supportive services for transgender and gender nonconforming and intersex immigrant women in Los Angeles.

This we learn from the conservative Heritage Foundation.

It’s Nothing Personal: We have no heat against the LGBTQIA+ among us — though we concede that we do not know which group each individual letter represents. Nor are we certain which group “+” represents. We merely harbor grave reservations that this museum here… or that center there… constitutes a worthwhile expenditure of federal tax monies. The money adds up, and plentily.

Politics is of course the art of the possible. To get, one must give. Horses must be traded, backs must be scratched, palms must be greased, arms must be twisted and skulls must be cracked. And so Senate Republicans emerged from the business with their own pretty little plums.

You Get Your Butter and We Get Our Guns: Notes Wisconsin’s Republican Sen. Ron Johnson: "It’s interesting to note on the Republican side, we actually have a conference resolution that we don’t support earmarks. Well, we’re supporting over $4 billion worth. Democrats are getting $5.4 billion worth of earmarks."

Republicans will get their $858 billion for “defense” — a nearly 10% increase over last year’s spending. They will likewise receive an additional $45 billion in Ukrainian assistance. About which, argues Republican Senate Minority Leader Addison Mitchell McConnell III: "Providing assistance for the Ukrainians to defeat the Russians, that’s the No. 1 priority for the United States right now, according to most Republicans."

Is it? We are in regular contact with several Republicans. Not one among them - to our knowledge at least - has labeled Ukrainian assistance their No. 1 priority. To a man they wish Ukraine the best in the world. Yet they rank other priorities higher.

Dissension in the Ranks: We are bitterly and ruthlessly bipartisan. That is, we denounce each party for its multiple atrocities. Yet in fairness, there are several dissenting Republican senators raising a royal rumpus over the bill. For example, Indiana Republican Sen. Michael Braun: "Huge spending bills like this one are how we got into trillion-dollar deficits, $31 trillion in debt and an inflation crisis hurting every American family."

Sen. Rand Paul of the majority leader’s same state of Kentucky has taken to the warpath: "When was the 4,155-page omnibus spending bill] produced? In the dead of the night. One-thirty in the morning when it was released. Well, whose job is it to produce this? The people in charge of spending. The people in charge of both of the parties. When did they know that this would be necessary? Well, it’s in the law. Sept. 30. You got nine months, almost 10 months to produce a plan, to have a spending plan. They weren’t ready on Sept. 30, so they voted themselves 90 more days. They weren’t ready last week either. So they voted themselves another week. And now we have it at 1:30 this morning…"

Republican leadership likes to say, ‘Oh, but it’s a win, it’s a big win. We’re getting $45 billion for the military.’ So which is more important? Which threatens the country more? Are we at risk for being invaded by a foreign power if we don’t put $45 billion into the military? Or are we more at risk by adding to a $31 trillion debt? Utah’s Republican Sen. Mike Lee has ventured so far as to label the bill “an act of legislative barbarism.”

“Every Nation Gets the Government It Deserves”: The entire business can wear the soul out of the stoutest fellow. He rages against it. Yet he is powerless to stop it - and well does he know it. Yet we must consider an unflattering possibility. As we are fond to note… “Every nation gets the government it deserves,” said 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre. If true - we suspect it is - the United States is a nation of scoundrels, cads, wastrels and spongers. For it is we who elect the politicians under discussion.

There are simply too many interests angling to get a bucket in the stream, to get a snout in the trough, to catch a penny… to pick a pocket or two. Is the glad-handing, vote-seeking politician solely to blame for the nation’s desperate finances? No, argues Paul Van de Water, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Look thyself in the mirror, citizen, says he: "Even voters who say they’re against deficits would also prefer lower taxes. That is, the average voter sniffs the free lunch… and orders up a plateful."

We must agree with this analysis.

Everyone Wants a Free Lunch: The cost-free lunch has eternal appeal. It is a painless gain… and what a gain it can be. Once it goes upon the menu it never comes off. But ultimately the waiter lays the check upon the table… as warned Mr. Benjamin Franklin: "When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic."

Do we condemn the voter for biting the bait? No, we do not pass judgment - we have yet to decline an expenseless meal. We merely observe… and reflect… as a man may reflect upon his own shortcomings and failures.

Professional Wrestling: What is the only surprise about this pending budget deal? Here is the answer: That anyone could be surprised by this pending budget deal. Republican and Democrat leadership might stage a splendid combat for the crowd. They may batten upon each other with seemingly savage and vicious blows. Yet watch closer…

The combatants rarely strike at the vitals. And the blood is fake. When it comes to borrowing and spending… most Republicans and Democrats are twins. If you threatened to cut them off the artificial warfare would halt immediately… and the hands of peace come extending from both sides. This we are presently witnessing.

Sold Down a River, Bipartisan Style: And so today we drop another mournful tear on the ashes of fiscal responsibility. As we have noted before, Republicans once defended the approaches to the United States Treasury. But they have since sold the pass. And as we have further noted before: Both parties have sold us all down a river…"

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

"Insider-Outsiders"

"Insider-Outsiders"

A major change in the primary trends, 

from politics to finance to society at large...

by Bonner and Joel Bowma

Youghal, Ireland - "Today is the first day of winter. The sun, now barely clearing the roof of our garage, at midday, can begin to rise again. One season gives way to another. Darkness (it gets dark here at 4 in the afternoon) gives way to light. Things change.

In Japan, the deciders have finally decided to let savers earn a little interest. Bloomberg: "Global Era of Negative Yields Is Ending as Japan Note Tops Zero." "Japan’s two-year yield rose above zero for the first time since 2015, bringing the global era of negative yields closer to an end.

The rate added as much as two basis points to 0.01% on Wednesday, according to Japan Bond Trading Co. data, as the country’s debt extended declines after the central bank doubled its cap on 10-year yields on Tuesday. All other benchmark tenors have yields above zero and Bloomberg’s gauge of global negative-yielding debt only contains short-term Japanese bonds."

And in the US, higher interest rates are beginning to sting. Bloomberg again: "US Housing Starts, Permits Fall on Slide in Single-Family Homes." "New US home construction continued to decline in November and permits plunged as high borrowing costs paired with widespread inflation eroded housing affordability and demand."

Outside Insiders: Central banks are not letting interest rates rise because they want to, but because they have to. Otherwise, inflation will get out of control and bad things will happen. But wait. Inflation is bad for the economy. It is bad for almost everyone in the economy. So, the feds, who represent almost everyone in the economy will stop it, right?

Don’t count on it. Over the last few days, we’ve been ruminating on why what is best for the deciders is not necessarily best for everybody else. The ‘government’ is not the same as ‘The People.’ And the people who run the government do not have the same interests as the citizens they rule over. Unlike in 1776, when the elite who started the revolution were outsiders who valued the right to free speech and a free economy and needed The People with them in their fight with George III, today, the deciders are insiders. Free speech threatens their narratives, their ideas and their programs. A free economy threatens their status and their wealth.

For the moment, the deciders have decided to let interest rates rise. But push comes to shove…what will they decide next? Here’s the situation now. Two big milestones were passed in the last 2+ years. First, a 38-year run of lower and lower interest rates ended in July 2020. The 10-year US note hit a record low yield below 0.6%...and bounced. Now, the 10-year yield is over 3.5%. The other milestone came 18 months later, when the stock market hit an all-time high over 36,000 on the Dow. It too reversed. Now the Dow is below 33,000.

Passing these two milestones tells us that the primary trend has changed. What was going up is now going down. What was going down is now going up. Light gives way to darkness. And if we’re right, that this is not just ‘noise’ or ‘random motion,’ but a real change of the primary trend, both stocks and bonds will continue going down for many years. First, they will regress to the mean (go back to normal). Then they will overshoot…with price levels we haven’t seen in the last 30 years.

More to the Story: If that were all there were to the story, it wouldn’t be much of a story. But there is a lot more going on. One of those things is the effort by the elite (who run the government) to control the economy and its markets. This is a major departure from the ‘free market’ philosophy embedded in the US Constitution. The Constitution is the highest law of the land. There is no mention of stimmie checks in it.

“You’re going to take from some citizens to give to others,” James Madison might have asked? “You’re going to tax future generations – with inflation – in order to pay off the present generation,” Thomas Jefferson might have wondered? “You’re going to manipulate interest rates,” Ben Franklin might have raised the query; “I don’t see where the federal government is given that power.”

Nor does the Constitution make any provision for the Fed, the SEC, FTC, Fannie Mae, FDA, BAFT, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Appalachian Regional Commission or any of the 2,000 agencies and offices that ‘regulate’ our lives. Nor is there any provision for trade sanctions, proxy wars, overseas military bases, destroying gas lines that belong to others, assassinating foreign military officials or any other foreign misadventures. The founding fathers specifically advised against them.

But these boondoggles and fantasies expanded…almost from the founding of the Republic right up to today. And they are our suspect Number 1 for why US economic growth rates and wealth levels have declined. At home, output is stifled. Regulations, edicts, rules – multiplying like rabbits on viagra – cut off innovation and output. As Joel showed on the weekend, if regulations had remained at the level they were when we were born – 1948 – we would all have more than 3 times as much wealth as we have today.

Abroad, trillions of dollars are squandered on senseless wars, with the current ‘empire budget’ – the Pentagon, foreign aid, diplomatic missions etc – approximately equal to the entire nation’s savings.

“Show Us the Money!” Thanks to these public policies, the wealth of the nation has slumped. But the relative wealth of the elite – who get most of the money – has soared. Over the past 20 years, in nominal terms, the average wealth of Americans has risen about 2.4% per year. But the income of the top 1% has gone up at a 3.4% rate. Also, the Fed tilted the playing field in favor of the rich by funneling trillions of dollars to Wall Street, thus lifting the values of assets owned by the elite…while leaving wages untouched.

The health of the nation has declined, too. According to the latest survey numbers, US life expectancy has fallen to 46th place in the world – below Cuba and French Guiana.

In terms of GDP/capita (a rough measure of wealth), the US has now dropped to 7th place…way behind Ireland. Here in Ireland, the GDP/capita is over $100,000. In the US, it is barely over $75,000. What a difference a couple hundred years makes. Ireland was the poorest country in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. By mid-century, it lost a million people to starvation and another million to emigration. Where did they go? To America, where a relatively free economy allowed them to support themselves…and then to prosper. By the 1960s, Irish Catholics in the US were the second richest group, after Jews.

The world turns. Ireland is no longer dreadfully poor (it is the second richest country in the world) and the US is no longer undeniably rich. And the descendants of the free speech, free market outsiders of 1776 became the Deep State insiders of 2022…eager to suppress free speech and control every aspect of the economy.

And so we wonder…when push comes to shove…what will they do? That is, when recession/stagflation settles over the country like a thick blanket of snow. Electric lines bend and break under the weight and the power goes out. And poor people, cold…and hungry, demand succor.

Rich people will be looking for relief too. Their stocks, now trading at a P/E of around 20, will fall 20% more to get to a more average P/E. Then, they will ‘overshoot’ by another 20%, putting the Dow below 20,000. The inflation rate by then could have dropped to 5% or 4%. It hardly matters. Because that is when, rich and poor alike, all cry and howl…scream and whimper…“Forget inflation. Forget the Constitution. We want the damned money!” What will the deciders do then?"

Joel’s Note: A quick correction to yesterday’s missive. Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was not published in 1776, as many of you wrote to observe, but rather in 1859. Thanks for calling us out! (Bill penned the words… but it’s up to a good editor – who was, ahem… apparently out to lunch – to catch any oversights. Mea culpa!)

Some dear readers kindly offered up a few examples of other works from 1776 that could stand in to make the point, such as Thomas Paine’s "Common Sense" or Edward Gibbons' "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (Volume 1), both instructive in their own ways.

One wonders, when reviewing these great thinkers of the past, what Messrs. Paine or Gibbons or the authors of that other pivotal political document of the year, the Declaration of Independence (ratified by the Continental Congress on the 5th of July… we jest, we jest!) would think about the current state of the nation, almost two and a half centuries on?

Take, for instance, the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill free-for-all extravaganza that hit the Senate floor (predictably with a grand thud!) yesterday. Actually, as Senator Rand Paul pointed out, the 4,155 page bill actually landed at 1:30am, in the dead of the night, when visions of greasy earmarks were still dancing in politicians’ sleeping heads.

The bill, equal to about 3.5 times the length of Leo Tolstoy’s "War & Peace" (1869), is to be voted on by the end of the week… or else! As the hyperventilating Washington Post couldn’t wait to remind us: "Senate begins debate on $1.7 trillion deal to fund government, avert shutdown." "Lawmakers must act swiftly to approve the measure, known as an omnibus, before a temporary spending agreement lapses at the end of this week According to the story, “Democrats and Republicans raced to avert a shutdown in the final days of the year.”

And yet, lawmakers had until September 30 (almost ten months) to draft their spending plan for the new year… a deadline that lapsed without much hoopla and which the responsible parties voted to extend anyway. That second deadline lapsed last week and, similarly, dawdling politicos were unready…

But now… now, in the fading twilight of the year, all of a sudden the urgency is upon our great leaders. They must race to “get the job done”… to loot the coffers… to spend, spend, spend until the barman rings the bell for last call! $858 billion in “defense” spending, including an additional $44.9 billion for the Ukraine (apparently now a semi-permanent line item in any federal budget)…?

Sure! How about $772.5 billion in non-defense discretionary spending? Why the heck not? What’s another $1.7 trillion in total spending, anyway? Senator Paul convened a news conference to voice his dismay at both the process itself and the impact the bulging bill will have on working Americans, already struggling under persistently high inflation.

“The American people don’t want this,” said Paul. “They are sick and tired of it. They are paying for it through the nose with inflation. We’re standing up, and we’re going to say no.” Alas, the senator from Kentucky seems not to have received the message. To paraphrase George Orwell’s "1984" (published in 1949):

"War is Peace

Freedom is Slavery

Ignorance is Strength…"

and Spending is Saving.

Oh yeah, and nobody likes a grinch."

- https://bonnerprivateresearch.substack.com/p/

The Poet: Czeslaw Milosz, “A Song On The End Of The World”

“A Song On The End Of The World”

“On the day the world ends

A bee circles a clover,

A fisherman mends a glimmering net.

Happy porpoises jump in the sea,

By the rainspout young sparrows are playing

And the snake is gold-skinned as it should always be.

On the day the world ends

Women walk through the fields under their umbrellas,

A drunkard grows sleepy at the edge of a lawn,

Vegetable peddlers shout in the street

And a yellow-sailed boat comes nearer the island,

The voice of a violin lasts in the air

And leads into a starry night.

And those who expected lightning and thunder

Are disappointed.

And those who expected signs and archangels’ trumps

Do not believe it is happening now.

As long as the sun and the moon are above,

As long as the bumblebee visits a rose,

As long as rosy infants are born

No one believes it is happening now.

Only a white-haired old man, who would be a prophet

Yet is not a prophet, for he’s much too busy,

Repeats while he binds his tomatoes:

There will be no other end of the world,

There will be no other end of the world.”

~  Czeslaw Milosz

The Daily "Near You?"

Hawkins, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

Douglas Macgregor, "A Massive Offensive In Ukraine"

Douglas Macgregor - The Bottom Line 12/21/22:

"A Massive Offensive In Ukraine"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLgVel1wYr

o

Related:

Full screen recommended.

Scott Ritter, 12/21/22:

"Putin Meets Lukashenko in Minsk; US to Supply 

Patriot Systems to Ukraine; Will Belarus Join SMO?"

"We are joined by Vadim Gigin, a Belarusian historian, political scientist and publicist. Candidate of Historical Sciences, editor-in-chief of the popular socio-political magazine "Belarusskaya Dumka". He was Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences of the Belarusian State University between 2016 and 2021."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Acceptance..."

"Acceptance is a crucial step forward for those who prefer the idea of living this life over simply existing within it. Accept all that you've said and what you've done, because you cannot change your past. Accept the idea of the unknown, because the future is the unknown waiting patiently to reveal itself. Accept the person you have become thus far in your journey, because you are the only person who will be there with you when you finish it. Do all of this so that you may never find yourself having to accept regret that haunts you at two a.m., leaving you sweaty and broken hearted. All you have is this minute; not this hour, or this day, or this year. Live in this minute so that you won't get stuck simply existing with your guilty past, or with nothing but anxiety for the future."

- Margaret E. Rise

"We Are Watching It COLLAPSE Right Before Our Eyes, No One Is Stopping It"

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, 12/21/22:

"We Are Watching It COLLAPSE Right Before Our Eyes, 

No One Is Stopping It"

"Zelensky flies to America to pick up his new $47 billion dollar Christmas gift from Congress. The new $1.7 trillion spending bill comes as the U.S. is facing a massive recession, layoffs, and soaring inflation. Germany announces a huge spike in excess deaths. And the Pentagon thanks one of its biggest propagandists."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"We're so freakin' doomed!"

- The Mogambo Guru

"Banks Are Going Bankrupt"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly 12/21/22:

"Banks Are Going Bankrupt"

"We are seeing something that we never thought we would see in the economy. Banks and mortgage companies are going out of business and filing bankruptcy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, "Expanding War! A Freefall Economy, Hyper-Inflating Global Debt"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/21/22:

"Expanding War! A Freefall Economy, 

Hyper-Inflating Global Debt"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, 12/21/22:

"Strange Prices At Walmart! This Is Ridiculous! What's Next?"

"In today's vlog we are at Walmart, 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:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Heaven And Hell..."

“Many people don’t fear a hell after this life and that’s because hell is on this earth, in this life. In this life there are many forms of hell that people walk through, sometimes for a day, sometimes for years, sometimes it doesn’t end. The kind of hell that doesn’t burn your skin; but burns your soul. The kind of hell that people can’t see; but the flames lap at your spirit. Heaven is a place on earth, too! It’s where you feel freedom, where you’re not afraid. No more chains. And you hear your soul laughing.”

- C. JoyBell C.

o

John Milton, 

"Paradise Lost: Book 1" (1674 version)

o

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

- William Shakespeare, "The Tempest"

Greg Hunter, US Government in Full Scale Implosion Because of Corruption"

"US Government in Full Scale 

Implosion Because of Corruption"

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Catherine Austin Fitts (CAF), Publisher of The Solari Report and former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush 41 Admin.), says the U.S. government is so fraudulent that it will self-destruct much sooner than later. CAF predicts, “If you look at FTX, my question is how much of the money sent to Ukraine got laundered right back for the (2022 midterm) election? So, to me, Ukraine is not a destination point, it is a through put point. At this point, and I hate to say it, but we are in full scale implosion. The corruption is that bad. 

 That’s why I am telling you what we need is sovereignty. The federal government is not going to deliver. The financial coup has reached a point where if you want sovereignty, the only person who can deliver that is your state governor and your legislature. If you’ve got a great state AG, if you have great legislature, if you have a great governor, you better start supporting them. They are the people that can protect your sovereignty. You need governmental sovereignty if you are going to have individual sovereignty, and you better do it now. You have no time to be entertained by Joe Biden, Trump and Hunter Biden.”

The federal government corruption was turbocharged in 2019. CAF says, “While everyone was focusing on the teenage sex life of the Supreme Court nominee Kavanaugh, the House, the Senate, the White House, Democrat and Republican, both sides of the aisle got together and approved Statement 56 of the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) which said they could keep secret books. That was everybody - together. So, there is no Right vs Left. There is no Trump vs Biden. There is a machine in control of a spending machine that is financed with our taxes, and debt borrowed in our name, that is being sold into our pension funds and retirement accounts. 

That machine, to keep balancing the books, is implementing a depopulation plan. That is the reality that has to be faced and changing the President won’t matter. If you want to make real progress against the machine, you’ve got to talk turkey about where your money is going, who are the local leaders and who are your state legislators who are going to support you when this machine fails you completely. If it doesn’t fail you in 2023, it will fail you in 2024. So, you better be ready.”

CAF says a big trend in 2023 that is already underway is people realizing the CV19 injections were not meant to save you but harm and kill you. CAF say the CV19 injections were a bioweapon meant for depopulation, and everybody in America will know this in 2023. CAF says, “The mainstream media has done a good job painting a different picture, but at some point, you cannot defy reality, and that is coming out. We have already seen it translate into market action. We see life insurance companies trading down 30% and the funeral home business trading up 20%. That is a 50% divergence.”

CAF talks about the importance of physical gold and silver in the not-so-distant future. CAF also talks about using cash, growing clean food, paying down debts, Central Bank Digital Currency, places to live to weather the coming storm, taxes and the strength of binding together for sovereignty against the machine.

In closing, CAF says, “Get out of fear and stay out of fear. You think a snowflake is weak and fragile until enough of them get together, and then they can shut down New York City. If we can face it, God can fix it. Don’t go to fear.” There is much more in the 1-hour and 5-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with 

the Publisher of The Solari Report, Catherine Austin Fitts.

- https://rumble.com/

"The Most Inaccurate (But Funniest) Predictions For 2023, Guaranteed"

"The Most Inaccurate (But Funniest)

 Predictions For 2023, Guaranteed"

by John Wilder

"Here is the annual Wilder Prediction Page, proven so far to be absolutely 0% right. A few years ago I started to put actual predictions about economic and political stuff out quarterly. Real ones. The rationale behind that is, if I put it in writing and then revisited it, I at least owned it. Those were absolutely the least popular posts I did. They were like posts that were drenched in mosquito-carried Ebola AIDS. I got the hint, “Shut up and play your piano, Wilder.” I can see the reason, frankly. That was a post about me and my thinking, and it wasn’t what I do best.

What do I do best online? Writing about life, philosophy, and nonsense. I also can prove that the Right can be funnier than the Left. This is becoming more difficult in 2022, because they keep letting Kamala and Joe say words into a microphone. So, welcome back to the nonsense! In chronological order, here are my predictions for 2023.

January: Russia appoints Charlie Sheen as the head of the Stavka. He immediately gives the entire army a ration of Tiger Blood, declares they are “Winning” and passes out in a pool of vomit. We have no idea whose vomit, exactly, since “you can’t really dust for vomit.” Sheen proves to be the most effective commander for the Russian army since Zhukov.

Six movies are released featuring Nic Cage, and seven people actually see three of them.

February: Kamala Harris is featured in a major policy speech, talking about the massive snowstorm that hit the East Coast in early February. The results were catastrophic, causing Chuck Schumer’s hair to freeze in place on Nancy Pelosi’s thighs. Harris notes that this is “evidence of global warming, where the globe, which is a round thing hanging in space, is warming, which makes things cold because space has COVID.”

The California Legislature votes to allow “consenting adults to have sex with animals in schoolyards as long as the animals have claws or fangs, since that is a sign of consent.” Governor Gavin Newsom signs the bill publicly, though the signing was difficult since both of his hands were wrapped in gauze.

March: Volodymyr Zelensky demands the West send him “seventy bazillion dollars to rebuild the Ukraine on and, like, ten gajillion tanks” and that the heads of state of the EU personally retile the bathrooms in his Florida mansion. “Be careful with the grout!”

Wilder, Wealthy and Wise© welcomes the 500,000,000,000,000th visitor, as it becomes the most popular website in the galaxy, as the hivemind of Melexcor III learns to appreciate dad jokes.

April: The new COVID variant mRNA booster shot for Super-Mega-Death-Cannibal-Famine® COVID is approved by the FDA because “Omigod, why won’t you damn people panic again!” Australia implements “Super Peaceful Completely Voluntary We Mean It Leisure Camps”.

Disney® releases its new children’s film, "Honey, I Turned All Our Children Hyperactive, Bipolar, Transgender, Gay, And Multiracial."  The three families that have hyperactive, bipolar, transgender, gay, and multiracial children attend, and the film’s three-week box office in 2,000 theaters is $90. Disney© blames the audience for being, well, you get the idea. The film loses $350 million at the box office.

May: Elon Musk pulls off a rubber mask and indicates that, underneath, he was really Elon Musk. “I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you pesky kids.”

The Supreme Court rules in the case of Idiots v. Rationality, that, “Uh, really, that’s a dude. He may be wearing a dress, but, per the original understanding of the framers of the Constitution, that’s totally a dude.”

June: Joe Biden announces, for the thirteenth time, that he’s running for president. “I promise to make America great again after the problems of the housing bubble that George W. Bush created. America will once again be great, starting in 2009!”

Argentina declares war on Great Britain over the Falkland Islands. Again. They send their victorious World Cup® team in the initial invasion. Great Britain counter-attacks with what they call “food”. France surrenders.

July: I might go on vacation for a week. Maybe someplace where I don’t need air conditioning.

California governor Gavin Newsom declares “Citizenship Day” where everyone in the whole, wide world becomes a citizen of California. Oklahoma declares war. “No way are we gonna do that.”

August: California becomes part of “Greater Oklahoma.” “If only we had greater legal magazine capacities,” said Gavin Newsom before he was headed to a minimum-security prison with knitting classes in southern Oklahoma.

Biden announces that gasoline is now illegal. “People have been burning that stuff up! Not on my watch. Now the only people that can have gasoline are,” (checks teleprompter) “people who are in disadvantaged communities that are the victims of systematic race horses.”

September: The 2023 NFL® season starts, with a new team name in Cincinnati. The name, “Bengals” has been described as “transphobic” by NFL© Commissioner RuPaul, “They aren’t “Been gals, they’re totally gals!” Their new team name is the Cincinnati LGBT 2S+.

The Beatles reunion is complete as Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney engage in a steel cage death match over who like John Lennon the least. Neither ex-Beatle survive, since Ringo inexplicably chose hand grenades as a close-in melee weapon.

October: Dammit. More crap about the English royal family. Oh, wait, that’s every month. This month Meghan tells how King Charles made her pick cotton on the plantation in south Brighton for 20 hours a day because she didn’t curtsey properly. Markel is beheaded in Piccadilly Square, and Queen Elizabeth II rises from the grave and fights Mecha George Washington on Skull Island. Oh, wait, that was a dream I had. Nevermind.

On Halloween, children are warned not to get double-secret COVID.

November: An article appears in the New York Times™ titled, "The Final Crusade Has Started: Why That’s A Good Thing."  Deus Vult ensues.

I’m probably having some turkey and beer around Thanksgiving. This one isn’t much of a stretch.

December: "Avatar XXII: Why Slavery Is Bad" is released. James Cameron is executed at Times Square in New York City because that his comment, “I’m king of the world” was culturally insensitive and totally colonialist. At least 500 people see "Avatar XXII", with many reviewers noting that the blue fish people’s ethnic cleansing of the humans is “culturally insensitive”.

Wilder, Wealthy and Wise™ becomes the most popular website in history of the universe as time travelers from the year 28,764 discover that it is a humane alternative to their other form of capital punishment: sitting in a comfy chair."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"This Is Not Normal! The Nation Braces For A ‘Bomb Cylcone’ That Will Bring ‘The Coldest Air In Decades’"

"This Is Not Normal! The Nation Braces For A 

‘Bomb Cylcone’ That Will Bring ‘The Coldest Air In Decades’"

by Michael Snyder

"We are only at the very beginning of winter, and we are already being hit by a storm that will bring “the coldest air in decades” to many parts of the country. In fact, there will be some areas where wind chill temperatures drop so low that it will literally be “life-threatening” to be outside. Needless to say, we could really use some of that “global warming” they keep talking about right now, because conditions are going to be bitterly cold all over the U.S. this week. For years, I have been warning that global weather patterns are starting to go completely nuts, and this winter is certainly off to an extremely bizarre beginning. If you live in a place that will get hit really hard this week, please be safe.

According to the Weather Channel, the giant storm that has begun to sweep across the nation is known as “Winter Storm Elliott”, and it could “become a bomb cyclone over the Great Lakes later this week”…

A​ major storm – named Winter Storm Elliott by The Weather Channel – could become a bomb cyclone over the Great Lakes later this week and bring blizzard conditions to parts of the Midwest as well as high winds to the East Coast, snarling travel in the days leading up to the Christmas holiday weekend. T​his developing storm will also usher in bitterly cold air to much of the nation as far south as Texas, the Gulf Coast and Florida.

So exactly what is a “bomb cyclone”? Well, normally a storm is considered to have undergone bombogenesis “if its minimum surface pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less”…"A​s a rule of thumb, meteorologists refer to a strengthening low as “bombing out” or undergoing bombogenesis if its minimum surface pressure drops by at least 24 millibars in 24 hours or less, though that criteria also depends on a storm’s latitude. Meteorologists frequently discuss pressure in terms of millibars, rather than inches of mercury. The reason this all matters beyond just a weather geeky statistic is the lower the pressure in a storm, the more intense it is. And the greater difference in pressure over an area, the stronger the winds."

Of course we have seen “bomb cyclones” before, but this one is truly a monster. If you can believe it, this storm will cover nearly the entire country east of the Rocky Mountains later this week. The #BombCyclone blizzard circulation will take up the entire US east of the Rockies on Friday. Certainly an extraordinary weather event with potentially dangerous impacts, especially with extreme cold.

A reinforcing burst of Arctic air will send temperatures well below zero. Temperatures could dip as low as 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit below zero in some areas of Montana or North Dakota, which would come close to a stretch of extreme cold observed back in 1983 and 1989. Records from the cold outbreaks during those years still set the standard for cold air around Christmastime in much of the northern and eastern U.S.

That is cold! And we are being warned that temperatures in Minnesota could also reach 40 degrees below zero near the end of the week…"Meteorologists in the Twin Cities forecasted wind chills as cold as minus 40 F Thursday through Friday. Even locations as far south as Orlando, Florida, could potentially see below-freezing conditions this week, according to AccuWeather meteorologist Alex DaSilva."

Some of the forecasts that I have seen are more than a little bit frightening. For instance, Accuweather is telling us that temperatures in Montana and North Dakota “could dip as low as 30 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit below zero”…"These extraordinarily low temperatures will also be accompanied by high winds. This will create extreme blizzard conditions in some portions of the country, and in some cases we will see wind chill temperatures that look like they have been pulled out of a Hollywood disaster film. This week tens of millions of Americans are about to experience one of the coldest days of their life. Wind chills as cold as -70F in Wyoming and Montana, negative wind chills as far south Austin, Texas, and even single-digit wind chills in the Florida Panhandle.

In some areas, the snow has already begun. For instance, it was being projected that some parts of Washington state would receive “up to 24 inches of additional snow” on Tuesday.

By the time we get to the weekend, nearly the entire nation will have been hit by this colossal storm. I wish that I could tell you that this is just an anomaly. But it isn’t. Global weather patterns have been going haywire for quite a while, and it just keeps getting worse with each passing year. So if you think that things are bad now, just wait until you see what happens in 2023 and beyond…"

Video and comments here:

- https://twitter.com/

o

Comments here:

- https://twitter.com/RyanMaue/

"A Christmas Musical Interlude"

 

Placido Domingo, "La Virgen Lava Pañales"

○

Plácido Domingo, Wiener Sängerknaben, 

"Ave Maria" (Franz Schubert)

The Poet: William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

"The Second Coming"

"Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

- William Butler Yeats, January 1919

"Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world," indeed...

MUST VIEW: "Alert! Russia and NATO Will Be At War In Weeks, Zelensky Leaves Country"

Full screen recommended.

Canadian Prepper, 12/20/22"

"Alert! Russia and NATO Will Be At War In Weeks, 

Zelensky Leaves Country"

"A new article suggests that NATO and Russia are a few weeks (if not days) away from a direct altercation, all the pieces are now moving into place, when this happens all hell breaks loose. Zelensky is heading to Washington, for what purpose? Get ready because 2023 is going to be crazy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Related:

Full screen recommended.

Redacted, 12/20/22:

"Scott Ritter: Putin Warms Of Direct 

Clash With US, NATO Readies Forces"

"Moscow says US policies have the US and Russia on the brink of all out war. Zelensky and his regime are sitting down doing interviews in The Economist magazine and Russia is readying a massive winter offensive with big moves overnight in Donetsk region. Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter joins us to discuss what this means for those on and off the battlefield."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

God help us, folks...

"Insolvent Banks Being Kept Alive By The FED; Well Fargo Stole Your House; Home Building Collapse"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/20/22:

"Insolvent Banks Being Kept Alive By The FED; 

Well Fargo Stole Your House; Home Building Collapse"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Greg Hunter, "Nightmare Fall of United States"

"Nightmare Fall of United States"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com

"Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong said just before the 2022 midterm elections that voter fraud and cheating will set up a very troubling 2023. Armstrong is predicting “a major turning point in January of 2023.” Armstrong explains, “The computer (Socrates program) is showing that January is going to be the major turning point for the entire year of 2023. The currencies are rallying against the dollar, and that should go into early January and then after that, this thing looks like death warmed over. Perhaps it is the insanity of handing Patriot missiles over to Ukraine. I know Ukraine very well, and I am telling you they will use them offensively and not defensively. They will use them to attack Russia. Their whole objective is to expand the war.”

Armstrong says Biden Administration economy killing policies will, “only increase inflation, and this is an endless nightmare. In all honesty, I hope the Republicans move to impeach Biden. I am not even sure Biden is aware of all the things taking place. It is the people behind him that are doing this. They are the ones writing these agendas, and they are a bunch of climate zealots, and they have no idea what they are doing. This is getting to be insane, and I think you are going to see that January is going to be a very, very big turning point, with the Republicans in the House, they will probably start impeachment proceedings and a lot more investigations.”

Armstrong thinks, “The U.S. dollar will be going up. Gold and all other tangible assets will also go up in value” right along with “interest rates and inflation going up” too.

On the political front, Armstrong says keep your eyes on Arizona and the 2022 midterm election lawsuits going on now. Armstrong contends if widespread cheating is proven, “Basically, if it is exposed in one state, then people are going to assume election cheating is all over. It will be like a contagion or like the flu. If it’s in one place, everybody is going to get it. This is simply the way it is. There is no election that is never rigged. The question is if the rigging is good enough to actually change the outcome.”

With the possibility of a wider Ukraine war, world wide social unrest, extreme inflation and election fraud in 2022, how is America going to fare? Armstrong says, “Our computers say nobody will believe the elections. This is what our computers show. We are moving into total political chaos. This is the fall of the United States. Our Republican form of government does not work. It is too susceptible to bribery. I would like the tree to fall in the right direction and we have a real actual democracy. We don’t live in democracies. That’s all propaganda. A democracy would be if we decide to go to war in Russia and Ukraine and not somebody in Biden’s Administration. The people never go for war, it’s always the leaders that go for war.” There is much more in this in-depth 1-hour and 2-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong, cycle expert and author of the new book “The Plot to Seize Russia”:

- https://rumble.com/

"Calm Down Celente, What Are You So Upset About?"

Full screen recommended.

Very strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 12/20/22:

"Calm Down Celente, What Are You So Upset About?"

"The Biden administration is expected to provide Ukraine with Patriot missiles capable of hitting deep inside Russia. What would happen if Ukraine fired these missiles into Moscow?"

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"25 Retailers And Restaurant Chains That Filed For Bankruptcy As All Hell Is Breaking Loose"

Full screen recommended.

"25 Retailers And Restaurant Chains That 

Filed For Bankruptcy As All Hell Is Breaking Loose"

by Epic Economist

"Massive loads of debt, changing consumer habits, supply chain problems, and declining profits all combined to create a lethal cocktail of bankruptcies and store closures that affected many retailers and restaurants across the U.S. in recent years. When governments started to introduce pandemic shutdowns in 2020, hundreds of thousands of companies were already struggling with slower foot traffic, weak cash flow, and gigantic piles of real estate debt. The temporary closures only set off a crisis that was already in motion, and the uncertainty brought on by the new downturn sent many businesses over the edge.

While about 10,000 retail stores closed since November 2019, more than 110,000 restaurants have been lost over that same period. For instance, over 400 Wendy’s locations have been sold in a 2021 bankruptcy deal. Since last year, over 130 Wendy’s restaurants have been closed all over the nation as its parent company struggles to renegotiate its $1 billion debt load. The survival of many underperforming locations is still on the line. With Wendy’s reporting a 10% profit loss in the last quarter, and its shares plummeting 26% since the start of the year, we soon may have to say goodbye to this beloved chain.

Given that Pizza Hut is operated by the same parent company as Wendy’s, NPC International, the famous pizza chin may be doomed to a similar fate. Over the past twelve months, more than 300 Pizza Hut locations have been shuttered. Executives noted during the court filing that the restaurant “had already been losing money before the pandemic, but its advent accelerated the folding”.

As one industry rises another goes down. With the rapid growth of e-commerce and food delivery services, many retail stores and restaurant locations are becoming redundant. Keeping a store open not only requires a reliable customer base but also good financial health to afford rampant real estate costs and rising wages. That's why these days companies are preferring to shut down their brick-and-mortar operations altogether and focus on relaunching their brands on online platforms to reduce costs and optimize profits. That may even save some popular brands that have been with us for decades. But at the same time, this also means that our shopping malls and city streets are likely to get even emptier, and that some of our beloved local stores where we've created wonderful memories may cease to exist before we even notice it. Unfortunately, that's the path the retail and food industry seems to be headed.

In a matter of months, U.S. consumers saw many of their favorite stores close doors and never reopen. Businesses are still coping with one of the most turbulent economic environments since 2008, and the survival of many of them is still on the line. With a new economic recession on the horizon, we're likely to see many more storefronts go dark in 2023. But today, we compiled 25 retail companies and restaurant chains that already filed for bankruptcy over the past couple of years and are now either battling to keep their remaining locations open or finally saying their last goodbyes."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

Musical Interlude: "My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "My Orchid Spirit (Extragalactic)"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“From Sagittarius to Carina, the Milky Way Galaxy shines in this dark night sky above planet Earth’s lush island paradise of Mangaia. Familiar to denizens of the southern hemisphere, the gorgeous skyscape includes the bulging galactic center at the upper left and bright stars Alpha and Beta Centauri just right of center. About 10 kilometers wide, volcanic Mangaia is the southernmost of the Cook Islands. Geologists estimate that at 18 million years old it is the oldest island in the Pacific Ocean.

Of course, the Milky Way is somewhat older, with the galaxy’s oldest stars estimated to be over 13 billion years old. (Editor’s note: This image holds the distinction of being selected as winner in the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition in the Earth and Space category.)“

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110924.html