Jim Kunstler, "Brandon, Rotting in the (White) House"

              

"Brandon, Rotting in the (White) House"

“We are going to have the most diverse 

and inclusive civilizational collapse in history” 

- Oilfield Rando on “X”

by Jim Kunstler

"Hark! We are informed this President’s Day by The New York Times that a poll out of the University of Houston, led by one prof of poly-sci named (get this name) Brandon Rottinghaus, ranks “Joe Biden” at No. 14, way above average among the forty-six demi-gods elected to run the US government since 1789. It’s a helluva good bit of news for a nation in need of reassurance in these dark days, don’t you agree? They’ve got him sandwiched between John Quincy Adams and Woodrow Wilson, beating out the likes of Andrew Jackson, Grover Cleveland, James Monroe, and Ronald Reagan. Mr. Trump is ranked dead last, of course.

“Biden’s most important achievements may be that he rescued the presidency from Trump, resumed a more traditional style of presidential leadership and is gearing up to keep the office out of his predecessor’s hands this fall,” the report states.

Gearing up? I’m sure. If gearing up means calling a lid on your life an hour after breakfast. And what do you suppose they mean by “a more traditional form of leadership.” Arranging serial overseas military humiliations? Selling favors to all comers from foreign lands? Inviting transsexuals to cavort on the White House lawn? Abolishing control of US borders? Running a $2-trillion annual deficit? Mandating unsafe and ineffective so-called “vaccine” shots on millions? Cancelling the First Amendment? Stealing elections? Conspiring to jail his political adversaries?

We’re also informed in recent days by the Department of Justice that “Joe Biden” is not mentally competent to answer for anything in a court of law, should someone inquire into the signal irregularities emerging from the fugitive annals of his long career. Of course, “Joe Biden” running for reelection is one of the greatest gags ever put over on the American public. But more astounding yet is that half the country persists in pretending to believe it. They are egged on in every possible way by persons in high places of government fearful of going to prison if the Democratic Party loses its grip on the levers of power.

Since “Joe Biden” is not actually calling the shots, one naturally wonders who is responsible for all the dubious achievements of the past three years. I guess we’ll find out when Mr. Trump wins that election in November, an outcome increasingly guaranteed unless “Joe Biden” (or, let’s face it, our Intel Community) takes the final decisive step of bumping off the Golden Golem of Greatness. What have they got left? AI-contrived photos of Mr. Trump having sex with a manatee in the intercoastal waterway off Mar-a-Lago?

In New York City, the Woke lunatics did a victory dance after Judge Arthur Engoron, beaming his Joker smile, laid a $350-million fine on Mr. Trump for conducting a set of normal real estate transactions with a bank that profited from doing business with him. Many are still trying to figure out how that amounts to a crime of any sort. Don’t suppose that the check is in the mail, though. There is an appeals process that leads, you may be sure, to a dismissal of that inane judgment and the puerile hypotheticals that the case derived from. And, by and by, you also might expect a countersuit for malicious prosecution when all that smoke clears. New York Attorney General Letitia James, lacking impulse control, is for the moment enjoying the fulfillment of her campaign promise to “get Trump.” Waiting to see how much she enjoys losing her law license in the days to come.

Every reaction provokes an equal and opposite reaction, Newton’s Third Law states. It manifested shortly after Judge Engoron’s end zone dance when a call went out over the Internet for America’s truckers to refuse loads inbound to New York City. We’ll have to stand by to see how that develops. No more bok choy, Texas beef, or Meyer Lemons for you, “progressive” denizens of the Five Boroughs! Embrace the suck! The genius part is that, unlike the 2022 Canadian truckers’ action in Ottawa, the American truckers will not be cluttering up New York’s streets with their rigs, license plates on view, leaving them vulnerable to such pranks as the shutdown of their bank accounts. All they’ll do is sit innocently at home back in Kentucky and Missouri, enjoying a break from the rigors of the highway. Is that a crime? Arguably no more than doing a normal real estate deal in good faith with willing lender was a crime.

The truckers have promised to include Washington DC next in their delivery boycott. The K-Street lobbying gang won’t be buying any influence for a while over platters of grilled branzino and Mariscos Molcajete. Maybe there will a few Cliff Bars left in the Farragut Square 7-Eleven and they can do business in their cars. As for “Joe Biden,” his minders have probably laid in enough Ensure for a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory to get by for a few weeks - until the magic moment when, alas, he must needs be thrown under the bus of expediency to keep their game going."

- https://kunstler.com/

Oh, the full name of Jim's website is SO true...

Loza Alexander, "Let's Go Brandon"

"Get Out, You Animals, Get Out: We Are Humans, Starved"

"Get Out, You Animals, Get Out: 

We Are Humans, Starved"

by Abby Zimet

"The grotesque madness of history's first live-streamed genocide persists as Israel daily commits acts once unimaginable. They are bombing hospitals, shooting doctors, forcing Palestinian prisoners to issue evacuation orders before murdering them, starving women and children before targeting them as they scavenge for grass, leaves, animal feed, terrorizing civilians desperately fleeing first south, then north when in truth "there is no sanctuary." And still - what the ever-loving-fuck - America keeps sending arms!

The numbers stun. The total of Palestinians killed nears 30,000, including at least 13,000 children; almost 70,000 wounded; at least 8,000 more unaccounted for and presumed dead, now decomposing, under rubble. Hundreds more have been shot in random violence in the West Bank. Every day sees "an undetermined number" of more dead or wounded. And a heedless Netanyahu repeats his savage, hollow, phantasmagoric edict, "We will continue to fight until total victory" even in the face of furious global condemnation, a Hague ruling confirming genocidal acts, and more reports from both Israeli and U.S intelligence that Israel is "not close to eliminating" Hamas, which regardless will survive as "a terror group and a guerrilla group.” At this weekend's Munich Security Conference in Germany, Israeli's coordinator for the so-called effort to return captives declared Israel and Hamas remain far apart on ceasefire negotiations because "Hamas' demands are disconnected from reality - delusional." Mournful pot/kettle.

This week, after days of shelling, Israeli ground forces attacked Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest of Gaza's few hospitals still functioning, where conditions were already "catastrophic." Word that hundreds of exhausted staff, critically wounded patients and about 10,000 Palestinians sheltering there would be forced to flee posed what Doctors Without Borders called "an impossible choice" - stay and become potential targets or leave "into an apocalyptic landscape" of bombings, snipers and dead bodies. The IDF promised a "precise and limited mission" and "secure passage." But surviving staff described panicked, pushing, screaming people who, once they left, were often shot at within the gates; many of those who reached checkpoints beyond were arrested, and the hospital was quickly stormed by soldiers shooting and police dogs. Video inside shows a chaotic hellscape of smoke and noise, with staff frantically trying to roll bedridden patients to safety and shouting, "Gunfire, gunfire! Heads down, everyone!"

Palestinian officials reported the deaths of at least six patients in intensive care and three in the children's nursery; most died of lack of oxygen after an Israeli-imposed power shortage. Video shows staff scrambling to treat a bloodied doctor shot in the chest by a sniper through a window of the operating room, and two women were said to have given birth in "abhorrent conditions, without electricity, water, food, or heat." Amidst the sound of gunfire, staff reported bodies lying outside in the courtyard where over a dozen people have been shot, or left in the street after trying to get to shelter. "We can see from the hospital a lot of dead bodies...and cats and dogs around these bodies." The Israeli military, who refused WHO entry, said they captured "dozens of terror suspects" in the assault, claims Hamas refuted as "lies to justify war crimes." Before they entered, video from Palestinian journalist Mohammed El Helou shows, IDF soldiers manning bulldozers outside yelled through loudspeakers, "Get out, you animals! Get out!"

One of just two remaining journalists at Nasser, El Helou reported having seen Jamal Abu Al-Ola, a young wide-eyed Palestinian, arrive at the entrance dressed n white PPE, his hands bound in front of him. Abu Al-Ola had evidently tried to leave the hospital earlier when Israeli soldiers seized him, beat him, and sent him back in to tell those remaining they had to leave the hospital "because they are going to blow it up." After he relayed the evacuation order, El Helou said, Abu Al-Ola'a mother, also sheltering there, begged him not to go back out, but he said soldiers had told him he must or the civilians would be in danger. Video by Mohammad Salama, the other journalist there, shows Abu Al-Ola walking out with several people who then trail away; when he is still inside the gates, he is shot three times in the chest by an Israeli soldier. (An IDF spokesman later said "the incident in question (is) being reviewed.") El Helou ended his video quietly noting people were leaving "in search of safety that does not exist in Gaza."

Shortly after, two Israelis were killed and four wounded at a bus stop when a Palestinian attacker arrived in a car and opened fire; he was shot and killed by an IDF soldier. An almost gleeful Netanyahu used the incident to again reject the nation of a ceasefire - "Now is not the time to be speaking about gifts for the Palestinian people" - and argue, "The entire country is a front and the murderers, who come not only from Gaza, want to kill us all." His rabid rhetoric was echoed by former Mossad official Rami Igra, who both repeated and wildly inflated the genocidal claim of President Herzog that there are “no uninvolved (civilians) in Gaza." "Every house in Gaza is a Hamas HQ, weapons, Al Aqsa, everything, all the signs are there," Igra said in an interview. "In Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter." When the not-quite-yet-Nazi interviewer clarified that perhaps kids under four could be deemed innocent, a big-hearted Igra agreed, albeit reluctantly.

Still, America is obscenely, reportedly preparing to send Israel more genocidal weaponry, including a thousand each of MK-82 500-pound bombs and KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), without which Israel might have to curtail its slaughter in 19 weeks. The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill excoriates Biden for refusing to "use his leverage as Israel’s arms dealer," evidently because, "There is no Israeli war crime too extreme for (him) to consider pausing," never mind ending, the flow of weapons. Besides timid ceasefire requests to his "great, great friend" Netanyahu, Biden and his spin doctors merely issue "occasional public platitudes" about Gaza's suffering, and gently denounce Israeli attacks as not quite "surgical" enough. It didn't help that on Super Bowl night, as Israel launched its "next stage of genocide" with air strikes on Rafah, a "night full of horror" that killed over 70 - "there were a lot of body parts," said one hospital - Biden released one of his jokey Dark Brandon memes ripped as "tone-deaf to the cries of humanity."

Meanwhile, the mournful, bloody evidence of Israel's less-than-precise campaign of annihilation is everywhere in Gaza. Along with its murder of journalists, doctors, aid workers, grandmothers "older than Israel" and academics in a place with one of the world's highest literacy rates to "inflict maximum damage on the Palestinian community," there are, of course, the children. Perhaps 20,000 children, many wounded, who've been orphaned; up to ten a day losing limbs to massive injuries from air strikes; an entire young population of over a million, already emotionally battered by years of violence, facing more trauma "beyond their age and endurance," needing support scarce at best. And, now, children homeless, hungry, thirsty, sick, so famished they go scouring for food under skies full of Israeli planes. Hit by bombs, they lie at one hospital wounded, bandaged, spectrally skinny, faces blurred. "Our children are dying," says one father. "No one is helping us...But they are children just like any other child in the world."

In Rafah, a "25-square-mile death cage" where 1.5 million Palestinians have fled and are trapped, people are "desperate, hungry and terrified." Having been told by Israel to "evacuate" to the south, "Rafah is as far south as anyone can go - they have nowhere else to evacuate to." A reported Israeli ground assault looms; so does starvation. With Israel using hunger as a weapon and blocking most aid, rights groups say “every single person in the Territory is now experiencing extreme levels of hunger." Hungry children fight over stale bread, walk and scavenge for hours, cry dazed in the rain until, given a can, they retreat to their tent.People often block the rare aid truck - twice a week, UNRWA tries to bring each 2 water bottles, three biscuits, an occasional can of food - and devour what they find. Children suffer from diarrhea, turn yellow from malnutrition, wake up screaming for food; in the north, some go without food for days. One elderly man: "We live in complete hunger." One mother: "We are dying slowly." Another: "We are humans, starved."

People have resorted to grinding animal feed into flour, but supplies are dwindling. They are combing fields to eat grass, weeds, leaves. A daughter angrily notes, "We are eating leaves from the trees"; her mother mournfully adds there isn't even water to cook them. Some families have sought shelter if not food at empty farms outside Rafah, turning chicken cages into children's beds; from the cages - "they are very cold and dark at night" - kids can see the border where Egypt is ominously building an enclosed refugee camp. Others who've moved "from one place to another like chess pieces" are leaving Rafah - "We eat grass and drink polluted water" - to return north to bombed-out homes. Months ago, Abu Ahmed Jaber pulled his pregnant daughter and her one-year-old from the rubble; they fled south to a packed U.N. school with no food, water, toilets; now they're back in the ruins of the house "I built with my hands, stone by stone." At night, unable to sleep, he cries, asking, "What have I and my family done?" Nothing, just like the 66 Palestinians most recently killed by Israel in "a very bloody day." How many, we wonder, were children."

- https://www.commondreams.org/

"Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/19/24"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/19/24

"Alastair Crooke: Israel/US Fatal Mistakes"

"Throughout the conversation, Crooke provides astute analysis and candid perspectives, challenging conventional narratives and shedding light on overlooked complexities. From the consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict to the ramifications of US interventions in the region, this episode offers a comprehensive examination of the interconnected challenges facing Israel and the US."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/19/24

"Larry Johnson: Will Israel Invade Lebanon?"

"Today with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson as we explore the pressing question: Will Israel invade Lebanon? In this captivating episode, Judge Nap engages in a thought-provoking conversation with Johnson, renowned for his insightful analysis and deep understanding of global affairs. From assessing regional tensions to examining historical precedents, Johnson provides invaluable insights into the factors driving Israel's strategic calculations and the potential consequences of military action in Lebanon."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/19/24

"Ray McGovern: Was Navalny an MI6 Agent?"

"In our engaging conversation with Ray McGovern, we not only delved into the question of Navalny's alleged MI6 ties but also explored the looming specter of Julian Assange's upcoming High Court hearing. McGovern's expertise sheds light on the broader implications of Assange's legal battle, touching on issues of press freedom, government accountability, and the challenges faced by whistleblowers in today's world. Join us as we navigate the complex terrain of international justice and examine the critical importance of defending individuals like Assange who dare to expose the truth."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "US Power Grids At High Risk, Prepare For Blackout; Factories Closing; Middle America Dying Hard"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/18/24

"US Power Grids At High Risk, Prepare For Blackout; 

Factories Closing; Middle America Dying Hard"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Heaven and Earth"

Full screen recommended.

2002, "Heaven and Earth"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Planetary nebula Abell 78 stands out in this colorful telescopic skyscape. In fact the colors of the spiky Milky Way stars depend on their surface temperatures, both cooler (yellowish) and hotter (bluish) than the Sun. But Abell 78 shines by the characteristic emission of ionized atoms in the tenuous shroud of material shrugged off from an intensely hot central star. The atoms are ionized, their electrons stripped away, by the central star's energetic but otherwise invisible ultraviolet light.

The visible blue-green glow of loops and filaments in the nebula's central region corresponds to emission from doubly ionized oxygen atoms, surrounded by strong red emission from electrons recombining with hydrogen atoms. Some 5,000 light-years distant toward the constellation Cygnus, Abell 78 is about three light-years across. A planetary nebula like Abell 78 represents a very brief final phase in stellar evolution that our own Sun will experience... in about 5 billion years.”

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

"A Long March Through The Night..."

"The life of Man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long. One by one, as they march, our comrades vanish from our sight, seized by the silent orders of omnipotent Death. Very brief is the time in which we can help them, in which their happiness or misery is decided. Be it ours to shed sunshine on their path, to lighten their sorrows by the balm of sympathy, to give them the pure joy of a never-tiring affection, to strengthen failing courage, to instill faith in times of despair."

- Bertrand Russell

"The US Debt Crisis Is Signaling A Total Meltdown In 2024"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 2/18/24

"The US Debt Crisis Is Signaling

 A Total Meltdown In 2024"

"The US debt crisis is an imminent threat that could trigger a total meltdown of the global economy in 2024. "The US national debt, which is the total amount the federal government owes to its creditors, has reached a staggering $34 trillion, exceeding the size of the US economy and surpassing record levels. The debt-to-GDP ratio, which measures the debt relative to the economic output, is about 120%, indicating that the US is spending more than it is earning. This situation is unsustainable and poses serious risks to the financial stability, economic growth, and national security of the US and the world. Today, we will examine this debt crisis, its causes, and how it might affect you."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Demonocracy Info, 

"US Debt of $30 Trillion Visualized 

in Stacks of Physical Cash"

This video depicts "only" $30 trillion. 

For a true current debt amount go here:

- https://www.usdebtclock.org/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"15 Fast Food Chains Are Closing Down Restaurants Immediately"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 2/18/23

"15 Fast Food Chains Are Closing

 Down Restaurants Immediately"

"In recent years, the fast-food industry has been undergoing a period of unprecedented change and upheaval. From the seismic impacts of the economic shifts, to evolving consumer preferences and retail challenges, fast-food chains across the globe have found themselves facing formidable obstacles."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Kuala Lumpur, Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: James Baldwin, "Amen"

"Amen"

 "No, I don't feel death coming.

I feel death going:

having thrown up his hands,

for the moment.

I feel like I know him

better than I did.

Those arms held me,

for a while,

and, when we meet again,

there will be that secret knowledge

between us."

- James Baldwin

"It Simply Means..."

“Never be ashamed of a scar. 

It simply means you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you.” 

- Unknown

"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"

"All Of The Elements Are In Place For An Economic Crisis Of Staggering Proportions"

"All Of The Elements Are In Place For 

An Economic Crisis Of Staggering Proportions"

by Michael Snyder

"They were able to delay the U.S. economy’s day of reckoning, but they were not able to put it off indefinitely. During the pandemic, the Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the financial system and our politicians borrowed and spent trillions of dollars that we did not have. All of that money caused quite a bit of inflation, but it also created a “sugar rush” for the economy. In other words, economic conditions were substantially better than they would have been otherwise. Unfortunately, there will be a great price to be paid for such short-term thinking. From the federal government on down, our entire society is absolutely drowning in debt, and now it appears that our economic problems are about to go to the next level.

In early 2024, there are all sorts of signs that economic activity in the U.S. is really starting to slow down. For example, we just learned that consumer spending “fell sharply” during the month of January…"Consumer spending fell sharply in January, presenting a potential early danger sign for the economy, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.

Advance retail sales declined 0.8% for the month following a downwardly revised 0.4% gain in December, according to the Census Bureau. A decrease had been expected: Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were looking for a drop of 0.3%, in part to make up for seasonal distortions that probably boosted December’s number."

However, the pullback was considerably more than anticipated. Even excluding autos, sales dropped 0.6%, well below the estimate for a 0.2% gain. Sadly, the truth is that U.S. consumers just don’t have as much money to spend these days. They are up to their eyeballs in debt, and delinquency rates have been spiking.

Many consumers are tightening up on their finances, and so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Disney+ lost more than a million subscribers during the fourth quarter of last year…"Disney+ Core subscribers (which include U.S. and Canada customers, as well as international users, excluding the India-based Disney+ Hotstar) dropped to 111.3 million from the 112.6 million reported in the previous quarter, according to Disney’s quarterly earnings results released Wednesday."

In early 2024, we have also seen large employers ruthlessly slash payrolls all over the nation. The following summary of some of the most shocking layoffs that we have seen recently comes from Zero Hedge…

1. Twitch: 35% of workforce

2. Roomba: 31% of workforce

3. Hasbro: 20% of workforce

4. LA Times: 20% of workforce

5. Spotify: 17% of workforce

6. Levi’s: 15% of workforce

7. Xerox: 15% of workforce

8. Qualtrics: 14% of workforce

9. Wayfair: 13% of workforce

10. Duolingo: 10% of workforce

11. Washington Post: 10% of workforce

12: Snap: 10% of workforce

13. eBay: 9% of workforce

14. Business Insider: 8% of workforce

15. Paypal: 7% of workforce

16. Okta: 7% of workforce

17. Charles Schwab: 6% of workforce

18. Docusign: 6% of workforce

19: CISCO: 5% of workforce

20. UPS: 2% of workforce

21. Blackrock: 3% of workforce

22. Paramount: 3% of workforce

23. Citigroup: 20,000 employees

24. Pixar: 1,300 employees

During the pandemic we witnessed a lot of temporary layoffs, but the last time we saw large corporations conducting permanent mass layoffs on such a widespread basis was in 2008 and 2009. And we all remember what happened back then.

Meanwhile, the cost of living continues to rise faster than paychecks. For example, it is being reported that the cost of auto insurance has been increasing at “the fastest annual rate on record”…"The cost of auto insurance jumped 1.4% in January, bringing the total annual gain to 20.6% – the fastest annual rate on record. When compared with early 2019, motor vehicle insurance is nearly 40% more expensive. Experts say the problem could soon get worse before it begins to improve."

Needless to say, most Americans have not seen their paychecks increase by 20.6 percent over the past year. Of course just about everything else has been rapidly getting more expensive too, and that isn’t going to change any time soon.

On top of everything else, we are also facing an unprecedented commercial real estate crisis. Our financial institutions are sitting on mountains of bad commercial real estate loans, and Kevin O’Leary is warning that “thousands more” will fail within the next three to five years…"Regional banks are doomed. That’s not necessarily a bad thing… if you’re prepared for it. It’s been almost a year since Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) collapsed in March – the victim of idiotic management. But the sobering reality is the small banking crisis is far from over. In the next three to five years, thousands more regional institutions will fail. That’s why I don’t have a dime saved or invested in a single one.

Is Kevin O’Leary right about this? I don’t know. We will just have to wait and see what happens. But without a doubt, things certainly do not look good at this moment.

Needless to say, it isn’t just the U.S. that is experiencing economic turbulence these days. This week, we learned that the Japanese economy has officially entered a recession…"Japan has lost its spot as the world’s third-largest economy to Germany, as the Asian giant unexpectedly slipped into recession. Once the second-largest economy in the world, Japan reported two consecutive quarters of contraction on Thursday - falling 0.4% on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter after a revised 3.3% contraction in the third quarter. Fourth-quarter GDP sharply missed forecasts for 1.4% growth in a Reuters poll of economists."

The Germans are facing big problems too. In fact, Germany is being called the “sick man of Europe” right now.

Interestingly, it is at this time that Jeff Bezos has decided to sell off billions of dollars worth of Amazon stock…"Amazon’s billionaire founder Jeff Bezos has sold another $2bn worth of the company’s stock, bringing the total value of shares he has offloaded in the past week to $4bn, according to regulatory filings. An Amazon filing on Tuesday showed that Bezos, who stepped down as the Seattle-based company’s chief executive in 2021 but remains executive chair, sold 12mn shares for about $2bn between Friday and Monday."

He certainly doesn’t need the cash. So why is he doing this? Does he know something that the rest of us do not? I don’t think so. Instead, I think that he can see what the rest of us can see. Stock prices have risen to record highs even as the overall economy is clearly heading into a major downturn. That makes this the perfect time to sell. Jeff Bezos didn’t get to where he is by being stupid. He can see what is coming and he is getting out while the getting is still good."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Can You Still Afford Your Home?"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 2/18/24

"Can You Still Afford Your Home?"

"New York city is busy at all hours of the day. We found out that there are more companies raising prices on insurance. We found out that there will be more layoffs. We found out that wholesale prices went up more than expected and we are supposed to be shocked by all of this."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

Oh, how I wish we could, many times, but...

"Middle America Is Dying, And D.C. Doesn't Care"

"Middle America Is Dying, And D.C. Doesn't Care"

by Salena Zito

WEIRTON, West Virginia - "Most people in this town will tell you they’d rather have taken a physical punch to the gut than get the news they received yesterday when Cleveland-Cliffs Steel announced it was idling its tinplate production plant, a move that directly cost 900 people their jobs.

It isn’t just those workers who face catastrophic uncertainty; this closure also jeopardizes the jobs of thousands more people whose businesses supported the plant: the barber shops, gas stations, mom-and-pop grocery stores, the machine shops that make the widgets for the steel industry. And there’s also the demise of the tax base, which affects the school district and the quality of the roads.

Thirty years ago, more than 10,000 people worked here at Weirton Steel. Now, the last 900 workers left have just lost their jobs. “It’s just another scar to add on what people in power have done to our lives and our community over the past 40 years,” said one employee who declined to give his name, adding, “Honestly, how many times does this story have to be told before someone in power cares about our lives.” He points to different buildings downtown, and all of them for him were “used to be this” and “used to be that.”

Ryan Weld of Wellsburg, 43, grew up in downtown Weirton right behind the local funeral home. “When I was growing up in the ’80s, the mill was still going at full tilt with Weirton Steel employing 10,000 people, including my grandfathers,” he said. The Republican state senator said things started to slow down here in the mid to late ’90s after the North American Free Trade Agreement was enacted: “That dramatically changed the landscape of downtown, went from a bustling the last age group that remembers the shops and stores and restaurants of downtown.”

He believes NAFTA, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, essentially made it hard for companies like Weirton Steel, which had to follow strict and expensive Environmental Protection Agency guidelines compete with places like Mexico. The towns all up and down the Steel Valley died hard. “The legacy of the federal government and its refusal to properly enforce trade laws is nothing but empty mills and unemployed workers,” Weld said. “That was true in the ’80s and ’90s, and that is true today.”

Forty years ago, the Democratic Party started to slowly shed its working-class base, but not quickly: Democratic officials would still show up for decades at union rallies, putting their arms around workers’ shoulders and telling them they have their back while at the same time enacting regulations and trade agreements that stripped them of their livelihoods and dignity and made ghettos of their once beloved communities.

By the 2012 Obama reelection, they traded their New Deal Democrat legacy voters for ascendant groups: minorities, young people, college-educated elites, and single women, all done without so much as a Dear John letter. The Republicans inherited them, but most of their strategists running messaging and campaigns had no idea what to do with them, at least on the national level.

And then there is the press covering the voter who will decide the next president: Few if any of them come from places like Weirton or Youngstown, Ohio, so they have little understanding of their worldview. Things that give people from here purpose, such as living close to extended family, are not as valuable to someone who has been transient for most of a career.

In short, we are heading once again into an election where very few people in Washington truly understand how remarkably devastating this mill closure is. Instead, it is a wire story at best, soon forgotten if measured at all. They truly do not understand how much the loss of the dignity of work has changed American politics.

That this tone-deafness is still happening 14 years after Barack Obama was given notice in the 2010 midterm elections and eight years after Donald Trump won the presidency is pretty staggering. The Democrats once attracted these voters, but they’ve moved on to the social justice crowd and don’t appear to want to anymore. I’m not sure if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) does, the press does not, and the new “very online right” is certainly not the reflection of a center-right voter in middle America. The online right just seems hell-bent on making them seem like Taylor Swift conspiracy theorists. (P.S. They’re not.)

Jeff Brauer, a political science professor at Keystone College, said Washington elites on both sides of the aisle, media elites, and now online conspiracy elites just don’t get Middle America even after this recent economically and politically difficult decade.

“Few things bond people/citizens together like trying to make a living in the real world, the dignity of work, and raising a family,” he explained, adding these bonds that cut across all divides - geographic, racial/ethnic, religious, gender, ideological/party, and even at times socioeconomic. If there is one thing we have learned over the past decade, it is that this bond over the difficulties of making an honest living can and does create unlikely coalitions of voters,” he said. “Even disparate voters from the likes of Bernie Sanders supporters to Trump supporters can agree on this.”

Indeed, economic dignity and survival make strange bedfellows. Brad Todd, founding partner of OnMessage and co-author with me of "The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics", said one thing is for certain about 2024: “We are about to read a million new stories that quote zero people who are actually going to decide the election.”

Brauer said the dignity of work is at the very core of the American experience, “Yet the elites of this country still just don’t understand, while average Americans just keep getting financially squeezed more and more.”

Weld said it is incumbent on local elected officials such as himself to be the advocates of Middle America. “I do what I do because of that. The empty buildings were already there when I was in college and high school, and it pisses me off,” he said. “I don’t think anyone fought hard enough for that from happening. We shouldn’t keep having to read again, again, another story about a town dying hard and a vacancy of no one caring.”

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

o

Bruce Springsteen, "My Hometown"

Adventures With Danno, "Food Shortage Updates, Grocery Price Increases & What Our Plans Are"

Adventures With Danno, 2/18/24

"Food Shortage Updates, 

Grocery Price Increases & What Our Plans Are"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Greg Hunter, "2024: The Year from Political Hell"

"2024: The Year from Political Hell"

by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

"Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong is predicting political turmoil, civilian unrest, war and a big economic downturn in 2024 in a new report called “The Year from Political Hell.” It’s not just a US election year, but it is an election year for more than half of the world. This is a global phenomenon which no one can be sure of the outcome. Armstrong explains, “This is not just the United States election. This is what you hear on the news locally. However, step outside this country, and, for example, Indonesia just voted in a leftist government. You have the EU going for elections. You have on May 2nd all the local elections in Britian. You have Russian elections on May 7th. 60% of the world is going to the polls in 2024 to vote for a new government. You might as well throw them into a tumbler, shake well and see what comes out. I mean it’s all over the place.”

On the war front, get ready for more mass killing, and don’t be surprised if it goes nuclear. Armstrong predicts, “There will be nuclear weapons. The neocons keep telling people on Capitol Hill that Russia would never use a nuke because they know we would use them back. That is nonsense! If you are about ready to conquer somebody, and this is all they’ve got left, they are pushing the button. These people, all they want is war. They don’t care. They really do not care. They don’t care about the economy. They don’t care about anything.”

Armstrong says the coming war will make the economy “crash in 2024” as people get scared, spend a lot less and save a lot more. Armstrong says, “What we are looking at is a contraction in spending because of uncertainty. This is what these neocons are creating, and they don’t want to listen to anybody, and it is just their agenda, and they don’t care what happens to the country. We are looking for a contraction of 12% to 18%. GDP is not going to be rising, but you are going to find inflation still rising.”

Armstrong also says to look for “a rebellion in government debt” as people lose faith in governments around the world. This rebellion in government issued debt will include US Treasuries, according to Armstrong. This means interest rates will continue to trend upward and not downward.

On volatility in the markets, Armstrong predicts, “Look for volatility to start around July, and there may be some false flags too.”

Armstrong continues to say Trump is still looking like he can “win in a landslide in 2024,” but expect the Deep State to pull every dirty trick in the book to keep him out of office. Armstrong points out, “If Trump gets back in power, they are all fired. They know they are losing power. Instead of reforming and doing the right thing, they clamp down and they think they can retain power by pressing us even more. Sorry, but that’s what creates revolution.”

In closing, Armstrong says, “Pretty much everything is going wrong for the Deep State, confidence in government has collapsed everywhere.” This is what makes the Deep State Dems, RINOs and Neocons very dangerous." There is much more in the 1-hour and 4-minute interview.

- https://usawatchdog.com/

Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with Martin Armstrong, who gives a preview of his new report called “The 2024 Outlook: The Year from Political Hell?”

- https://rumble.com/

"Every Normal Man..."

"Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands,

hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."

 - H. L. Mencken

Read the article below this one.

If you are not absolutely horrified and enraged beyond words at the massacre in Gaza, and don't feel disgraced and ashamed about America supporting and allowing this horror to happen, and don't want to slit throats about this Gaza genocide to stop it, you're not even a normal human being, just one of the inhuman, psychopathically degenerate, genocidal sub-species like the monsters doing it, who so richly deserve what's coming... - CP

And paraphrasing Hunter S. Thompson, who was so right about who and what America has become... “We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world - a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we’ll kill you.

 

Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid little rich kids like George Bush? They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us - they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. F*ck them.” - Hunter S. Thompson

Shame, shame and eternal disgrace on us...

"Get Out, You Animals, Get Out: We Are Humans, Starved"

"Get Out, You Animals, Get Out: We Are Humans, Starved"

by Abby Zimet

"The grotesque madness of history's first live-streamed genocide persists as Israel daily commits acts once unimaginable. They are bombing hospitals, shooting doctors, forcing Palestinian prisoners to issue evacuation orders before murdering them, starving women and children before targeting them as they scavenge for grass, leaves, animal feed, terrorizing civilians desperately fleeing first south, then north when in truth "there is no sanctuary." And still - what the ever-loving-fuck - America keeps sending arms!

The numbers stun. The total of Palestinians killed nears 30,000, including at least 13,000 children; almost 70,000 wounded; at least 8,000 more unaccounted for and presumed dead, now decomposing, under rubble. Hundreds more have been shot in random violence in the West Bank. Every day sees "an undetermined number" of more dead or wounded. And a heedless Netanyahu repeats his savage, hollow, phantasmagoric edict, "We will continue to fight until total victory" even in the face of furious global condemnation, a Hague ruling confirming genocidal acts, and more reports from both Israeli and U.S intelligence that Israel is "not close to eliminating" Hamas, which regardless will survive as "a terror group and a guerrilla group.” At this weekend's Munich Security Conference in Germany, Israeli's coordinator for the so-called effort to return captives declared Israel and Hamas remain far apart on ceasefire negotiations because "Hamas' demands are disconnected from reality - delusional." Mournful pot/kettle.

This week, after days of shelling, Israeli ground forces attacked Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest of Gaza's few hospitals still functioning, where conditions were already "catastrophic." Word that hundreds of exhausted staff, critically wounded patients and about 10,000 Palestinians sheltering there would be forced to flee posed what Doctors Without Borders called "an impossible choice" - stay and become potential targets or leave "into an apocalyptic landscape" of bombings, snipers and dead bodies. The IDF promised a "precise and limited mission" and "secure passage." But surviving staff described panicked, pushing, screaming people who, once they left, were often shot at within the gates; many of those who reached checkpoints beyond were arrested, and the hospital was quickly stormed by soldiers shooting and police dogs. Video inside shows a chaotic hellscape of smoke and noise, with staff frantically trying to roll bedridden patients to safety and shouting, "Gunfire, gunfire! Heads down, everyone!"

Palestinian officials reported the deaths of at least six patients in intensive care and three in the children's nursery; most died of lack of oxygen after an Israeli-imposed power shortage. Video shows staff scrambling to treat a bloodied doctor shot in the chest by a sniper through a window of the operating room, and two women were said to have given birth in "abhorrent conditions, without electricity, water, food, or heat." Amidst the sound of gunfire, staff reported bodies lying outside in the courtyard where over a dozen people have been shot, or left in the street after trying to get to shelter. "We can see from the hospital a lot of dead bodies...and cats and dogs around these bodies." The Israeli military, who refused WHO entry, said they captured "dozens of terror suspects" in the assault, claims Hamas refuted as "lies to justify war crimes." Before they entered, video from Palestinian journalist Mohammed El Helou shows, IDF soldiers manning bulldozers outside yelled through loudspeakers, "Get out, you animals! Get out!"

One of just two remaining journalists at Nasser, El Helou reported having seen Jamal Abu Al-Ola, a young wide-eyed Palestinian, arrive at the entrance dressed n white PPE, his hands bound in front of him. Abu Al-Ola had evidently tried to leave the hospital earlier when Israeli soldiers seized him, beat him, and sent him back in to tell those remaining they had to leave the hospital "because they are going to blow it up." After he relayed the evacuation order, El Helou said, Abu Al-Ola'a mother, also sheltering there, begged him not to go back out, but he said soldiers had told him he must or the civilians would be in danger. Video by Mohammad Salama, the other journalist there, shows Abu Al-Ola walking out with several people who then trail away; when he is still inside the gates, he is shot three times in the chest by an Israeli soldier. (An IDF spokesman later said "the incident in question (is) being reviewed.") El Helou ended his video quietly noting people were leaving "in search of safety that does not exist in Gaza."

Shortly after, two Israelis were killed and four wounded at a bus stop when a Palestinian attacker arrived in a car and opened fire; he was shot and killed by an IDF soldier. An almost gleeful Netanyahu used the incident to again reject the nation of a ceasefire - "Now is not the time to be speaking about gifts for the Palestinian people" - and argue, "The entire country is a front and the murderers, who come not only from Gaza, want to kill us all." His rabid rhetoric was echoed by former Mossad official Rami Igra, who both repeated and wildly inflated the genocidal claim of President Herzog that there are “no uninvolved (civilians) in Gaza." "Every house in Gaza is a Hamas HQ, weapons, Al Aqsa, everything, all the signs are there," Igra said in an interview. "In Gaza, everyone is involved. Everyone voted Hamas. Anyone over the age of four is a Hamas supporter." When the not-quite-yet-Nazi interviewer clarified that perhaps kids under four could be deemed innocent, a big-hearted Igra agreed, albeit reluctantly.

Still, America is obscenely, reportedly preparing to send Israel more genocidal weaponry, including a thousand each of MK-82 500-pound bombs and KMU-572 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAMs), without which Israel might have to curtail its slaughter in 19 weeks. The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill excoriates Biden for refusing to "use his leverage as Israel’s arms dealer," evidently because, "There is no Israeli war crime too extreme for (him) to consider pausing," never mind ending, the flow of weapons. Besides timid ceasefire requests to his "great, great friend" Netanyahu, Biden and his spin doctors merely issue "occasional public platitudes" about Gaza's suffering, and gently denounce Israeli attacks as not quite "surgical" enough. It didn't help that on Super Bowl night, as Israel launched its "next stage of genocide" with air strikes on Rafah, a "night full of horror" that killed over 70 - "there were a lot of body parts," said one hospital - Biden released one of his jokey Dark Brandon memes ripped as "tone-deaf to the cries of humanity."

Meanwhile, the mournful, bloody evidence of Israel's less-than-precise campaign of annihilation is everywhere in Gaza. Along with its murder of journalists, doctors, aid workers, grandmothers "older than Israel" and academics in a place with one of the world's highest literacy rates to "inflict maximum damage on the Palestinian community," there are, of course, the children. Perhaps 20,000 children, many wounded, who've been orphaned; up to ten a day losing limbs to massive injuries from air strikes; an entire young population of over a million, already emotionally battered by years of violence, facing more trauma "beyond their age and endurance," needing support scarce at best. And, now, children homeless, hungry, thirsty, sick, so famished they go scouring for food under skies full of Israeli planes. Hit by bombs, they lie at one hospital wounded, bandaged, spectrally skinny, faces blurred. "Our children are dying," says one father. "No one is helping us...But they are children just like any other child in the world."

In Rafah, a "25-square-mile death cage" where 1.5 million Palestinians have fled and are trapped, people are "desperate, hungry and terrified." Having been told by Israel to "evacuate" to the south, "Rafah is as far south as anyone can go - they have nowhere else to evacuate to." A reported Israeli ground assault looms; so does starvation. With Israel using hunger as a weapon and blocking most aid, rights groups say “every single person in the Territory is now experiencing extreme levels of hunger." Hungry children fight over stale bread, walk and scavenge for hours, cry dazed in the rain until, given a can, they retreat to their tent.People often block the rare aid truck - twice a week, UNRWA tries to bring each 2 water bottles, three biscuits, an occasional can of food - and devour what they find. Children suffer from diarrhea, turn yellow from malnutrition, wake up screaming for food; in the north, some go without food for days. One elderly man: "We live in complete hunger." One mother: "We are dying slowly." Another: "We are humans, starved."

People have resorted to grinding animal feed into flour, but supplies are dwindling. They are combing fields to eat grass, weeds, leaves. A daughter angrily notes, "We are eating leaves from the trees"; her mother mournfully adds there isn't even water to cook them. Some families have sought shelter if not food at empty farms outside Rafah, turning chicken cages into children's beds; from the cages - "they are very cold and dark at night" - kids can see the border where Egypt is ominously building an enclosed refugee camp. Others who've moved "from one place to another like chess pieces" are leaving Rafah - "We eat grass and drink polluted water" - to return north to bombed-out homes. Months ago, Abu Ahmed Jaber pulled his pregnant daughter and her one-year-old from the rubble; they fled south to a packed U.N. school with no food, water, toilets; now they're back in the ruins of the house "I built with my hands, stone by stone." At night, unable to sleep, he cries, asking, "What have I and my family done?" Nothing, just like the 66 Palestinians most recently killed by Israel in "a very bloody day." How many, we wonder, were children."

- https://www.commondreams.org/

Jeremiah Babe, "Restaurants Are Closing Down Forever"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/17/24

"Restaurants Are Closing Down Forever,

 A Sad Reality; Zombies Shopping online"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: The Moody Blues, “Blue World”

Full screen recommended.

The Moody Blues, “Blue World”

"Perhaps..."

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in 

heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through

 and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

~ An Eskimo saying.

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Gorgeous spiral galaxy NGC 3521 is a mere 35 million light-years away, toward the constellation Leo. Relatively bright in planet Earth's sky, NGC 3521 is easily visible in small telescopes but often overlooked by amateur imagers in favor of other Leo spiral galaxies, like M66 and M65. It's hard to overlook in this colorful cosmic portrait, though.

Spanning some 50,000 light-years the galaxy sports characteristic patchy, irregular spiral arms laced with dust, pink star forming regions, and clusters of young, blue stars. Remarkably, this deep image also finds NGC 3521 embedded in gigantic bubble-like shells. The shells are likely tidal debris, streams of stars torn from satellite galaxies that have undergone mergers with NGC 3521 in the distant past."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210402.html

"The Worst Part..."

"Our world is not safe. It is a toxic swamp populated by predators and parasites. The odds are stacked against us from the moment of conception. We survive only because we fight the elements, hunger, disease, each other. And, although civilization promises us safe harbor, that promise is a fairy tale. Only the storm is real. It comes for each of us. And we cannot win. We can only choose how we will suffer our defeat. We can meekly take our beatings, and die like lemmings, finding solace in the belief that we shall one day inherit the earth. Or, we can plunge into the chaos with eyes wide open, taking comfort instead from the bruises, scars, and broken bones which prove that we fought to live and die as gods."

 - J.K. Franko, "Life for Life"

o

"The worst part is wondering how you'll find the strength tomorrow to go on doing what you did today and have been doing for much too long, where you'll find the strength for all that stupid running around, those projects that come to nothing, those attempts to escape from crushing necessity, which always founder and serve only to convince you one more time that destiny is implacable, that every night will find you down and out, crushed by the dread of more and more sordid and insecure tomorrows. And maybe it's treacherous old age coming on, threatening the worst. Not much music left inside us for life to dance to. Our youth has gone to the ends of the earth to die in the silence of the truth. And where, I ask you, can a man escape to, when he hasn't enough madness left inside him? The truth is an endless death agony. The truth is death. You have to choose: death or lies. I've never been able to kill myself."

- Louis-Ferdinand Celineo

o

"In the movie 'The Lion in Winter', when the sons, in the dungeon, think they hear Henry coming down the stairs to kill them:

Richard: "He's here! He'll get no satisfaction out of us! Don't let him see you beg! Take it like a man!"

Geoffrey: "You chivalric fool! As if the way one falls down matters!"

Richard:  "Well, when the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."

"15 Retailers Facing Imminent Bankruptcy In 2024"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 2/17/24

"15 Retailers Facing Imminent Bankruptcy In 2024"

"In 2024, many retailers are facing tough times, possibly even bankruptcy. Some big names like Ascena Retail, known for Ann Taylor and others, are struggling with high debt and stock prices dropping. Joann, the craft store, had ups and downs during the pandemic but now faces high bankruptcy risks. Even popular brands like Peloton and Beyond Meat are feeling the squeeze. With challenges like declining sales and layoffs, companies like Rent the Runway and Marley Spoon are also on shaky ground. Even well-known names like The Container Store and Fossil Watches are facing uncertain futures."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/