"America’s ‘Greatest Ally’ Cost US Taxpayers $310 Billion"

"America’s ‘Greatest Ally’ Cost US Taxpayers $310 Billion"

by Joziah Thayer

"The Qualitative Military Edge agreement between the United States and Israel has cost U.S. taxpayers $310 billion since Israel was founded. Many people in the United States and around the world are upset with how the United States continues to support Israel as they besiege and bombard Gaza, resulting in what some estimates say are 200,000 deaths. What people may not be aware of is that it is U.S. law to defend and sustain Israel’s hegemony. The QME agreement between the United States and Israel has its roots in the 1960s during the peak of Cold War tensions. The U.S. saw Israel as an invaluable geopolitical ally to combat the expansion of Soviet influence into the Middle East. Lydon B. Johnson was the first president to speak publicly about arms deals with Israel.

The Six-Day War in 1967 proved Israel’s military capabilities, and the U.S. felt that Israel could be a valuable partner in combating Soviet influence in the Middle East. Following the Six-Day War, there was a spike in military and financial transfers to Israel using the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961. The QME was further solidified during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 when a U.S. airlift of military supplies to Israel was critical in turning the tide of the conflict.

In 2008, in the last months of the Bush administration, the QME agreement between the U.S. and Israel became an official U.S. law by amending the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to become the Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2008. This law made it a legal requirement for the U.S. to ensure that any arms sales to Middle Eastern countries do not compromise Israel’s military superiority.

Legacy media will tell us that this legislation enjoyed bipartisan support, driven by a recognition of Israel’s strategic role in the region when, in truth, it was driven by AIPAC and Senator Joe Liberman, while one of the biggest opponents of the bill was Senator Rand Paul who railed against the budget of this bill especially as domestic debt soared and argued he for a more balanced approach that would not alienate Arab allies, in a time when the U.S. sought to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan.

In response to what the U.S. government called a failed state in Syria and a rise in ISIS and Al-Qaeda, the U.S. gave Israel F-35 fighter jets America’s most advanced stealth fighters, making Israel the only country at the time outside of the U.S. to operate the F-35. These jets made Israel a regional superpower because no other nation in the region had this capability. The decision to equip Israel with F-35s is not a secret; we were told this move was to counter Iran’s regional influence, while the real reason at the time was to put Israel on an even playing field with Russia in Syria.

The Naval Transfer Act of 2008 legally required the United States to ensure that Israel maintains a qualitative military edge over its adversaries. Specifically, it mandates that any sale of arms to Middle Eastern countries must undergo a rigorous review to confirm that it does not compromise Israel’s QME. The law defines QME as the capability to “counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat” with minimal damage to Israel’s forces and resources. The QME is a legal commitment from the U.S. to ensure that Israel is not only victorious in battle but will be able to win decisively. This law is reaffirmed by congressional vote year after year, with Congress passing various recent provisions that mandate the Department of Defense to report on Israel’s QME status periodically.

Israel is often called America’s greatest ally when, in truth, Israel is really America’s greatest overseas asset. Since 1958, the United States has been funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to Israel. American tax dollars built the democratic state of Israel, and while this issue is often seen as a policy decision, since 2008, it has been official U.S. law. Before 2008, it was just an unwritten rule that republican and democratic administrations signed off on for decades. Politicians and talking heads can repeatedly claim that Israel is an ally, which they are, but at what cost?

Security in the Middle East or Peace in the Middle East are just catchphrases used to perpetuate this false notion that only through Israel can we attain peace in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, and Yemen were all conflicts that Israel vehemently pushed the international community to pursue. Netanyahu lied to Congress about WMDs in Iraq, moved mountains to destabilize Syria, and then cried to the UN about the Houthis in 2014.

The original basis of the Israeli QME was to use Israel to combat Soviet expansion into the Middle East, and this policy has not changed over the last 70-plus years. The Iranian Revolution in 1979 shifted the focus of the QME a bit to containing a new threat from Iran. Operation Cyclone in Afghanistan was in part to maintain Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region, and we know how that ended. The United States cannot allow Russia or China to build relationships with Middle Eastern countries because the U.S. will not be able to guarantee Israel’s qualitative military edge if they allow Russia and China to advance the militaries and economies of nations in the Middle East.

The current status quo policy on Russian or Chinese influence in the Middle East is not to prevent Russia or China from threatening America’s interests in the region; It’s about protecting Israel’s security under the guise of perpetuating Western ideology and control. Allowing this law to remain on the books codifies into public law that U.S. lawmakers in both Democratic and Republican administrations are beholden to Israel, no matter what. The international stage is far too dynamic to have policy decisions adhere to such a static law.

The price of war is always paid by the people of those nations, not the governments that orchestrate conflicts. American taxpayers have shouldered the burden of the war machine for far too long without reaping any rewards from so-called assets overseas the military-industrial complex claims to protect. We have built infrastructure in other nations as ours crumbles and assure the security of foreign lands as ours dwindles, but it seems as soon as someone mentions Russia or Muslim extremists, people forget all of this, standing in line with a war drum strapped to their chest, pounding away robotically."

- https://original.antiwar.com/

And here it is, whether you like it or not...

"9/11 False Flag Terror OP: Overwhelming Hard Proof Of An Inside Job 

Pulled Off By US Intel Community and Armed Forces, MOSSAD & MI6"

"How 9/11 Was Done"

"How It Really Is"

 

"How It Really Was"

"Universal Truth, Facts & Life"

Past happenings, History, facts about life and long living.

By Shiv Tandon

"In the Middle Ages, there were no toothbrushes, perfumes, deodorants, and much less toilet paper. Human excrements were thrown out of palace windows. On a holiday, the palace kitchen was able to prepare a feast for 1500 people, without the minimum hygiene. The explanation is not in the heat, but in the foul odor emitted under the skirts. It was also not customary to shower due to the cold and the almost non-existence of running water. Only the nobles had lackeys to fan them, to dispel the bad odor that exhalated the body and mouth, as well as to scare away the insects.

Those who have been to Versailles have admired the huge and beautiful gardens that, at that time, were not only contemplated, but used as a toilet in the famous ballads promoted by the monarchy, because there were no bathrooms. 

In the Middle Ages, most weddings took place in June. The reason is simple: the first bath of the year was taken in May; so, in June, the smell of people was still tolerable. However, as some odors were already beginning to bother, the brides carried bouquets of flowers near their bodies to cover the odor. Hence the explanation of the origin of the bridal bouquet. The baths were taken in a single massive tub filled with hot water. The head of the family had the privilege of the first swim in clean water. Then, without changing the water, the others arrived in the house, in order of age, women, also by age and finally, children. The babies were the last ones to bathe.

During the 1600s and 1700s, the Palace of Versailles, like many other European royal residences, did not have modern bathrooms or sanitation facilities.

1. No bathrooms: The Palace of Versailles, built during the reign of Louis XIV (1638-1715), did not have dedicated bathrooms. Instead, chamber pots and commodes were used in private quarters.

2. Medieval hygiene: During the Middle Ages, personal hygiene was not a priority. Toothbrushes, perfumes, deodorants, and toilet paper were not widely used or available.

3. Waste disposal: Human waste was often disposed of by throwing it out of windows or into streets, a practice known as "chamber pot emptying." This was common in many European cities, including Paris.

4. Palace specifics: Versailles had some primitive sanitation facilities, like latrines and cesspits, but they were not connected to a modern sewage system. Waste was often collected in cesspits and emptied manually.

5. Royal exceptions: Royalty and nobility used decorative commodes and chamber pots, sometimes with aromatic herbs or perfumes to mask odors. However, these were not connected to drainage systems.

6. Modernization: It wasn't until the late 18th and early 19th centuries that modern plumbing and sanitation systems were gradually introduced in European royal palaces, including Versailles.

These practices were common during that time period and not unique to Versailles. The palace has since undergone significant modernization and now features modern bathrooms and sanitation facilities."

- https://tsk.quora.com/

"Man's Nature..."

"Man has one name, and many more than two natures. 

But the essential two are these:

that he shall strive to impose order on chaos, 

and that he shall strive to take advantage of chaos…

A third element of man's nature is this: 

that he shall not understand what he is doing."

- John Brunner

"The War-Whores Of The Military-Industrial Complex Are Lighting The World On Fire"

"The War-Whores Of The Military-Industrial Complex 

Are Lighting The World On Fire"

Syria is just the latest case of U.S. meddling and 

the timing could not be more suspicious...

by Leo Hohmann

"The Biden administration has triggered another proxy war for Donald Trump to deal with when he becomes president next month. The U.S. deep state is fighting a proxy war in Syria, which appears to be waged with the intention of further destabilizing the Middle East and stirring up another front in World War III.

Syria is collapsing under the weight of another U.S.-sponsored proxy Civil War, with the US, Israel and Sunni jihadists on one side and Russia, Iran, Assad, and Shiite jihadists on the other. Al Nusra (which is comprised of Al-Qaida and ISIS affiliates) is taking over the country with the help of Turkey, a U.S. ally and key member of the NATO military alliance. These rebels have seized the city of Aleppo and many smaller towns and villages.

M. Dowling at The Independent Sentinel notes that “Jake Sullivan has said Al-Qaida is on our side in Syria.” Jake Sullivan is Biden’s national security adviser and a key enabler, along with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, of the anti-Russia obsessed deep-state club that shares one thing in common. They all belong to the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations.

Dowling notes that Syria’s civil war started in 2011 after an uprising against President Bashar Assad’s rule. The U.S., Russia, Israel and Iran all have a military presence in Syria. Forces opposed to Assad, along with U.S.-backed rebels, control more than a third of the country and now Russia and Iran have launched a counter-offensive. Russia is very upset with Turkey for instigating the coup against Assad, likely with the direct assistance of the CIA.

The false narrative being proffered by the US mockingbird media is that a rag-tag coalition of so-called “noble rebels” has somehow organically emerged to save Syria from the dictator Assad. No, what we have here are Sunni jihadists backed by the U.S. and NATO fighting Shia jihadists backed by Russia.

As Dowling points out, “All jihadists are bad guys.” They are bad because as soon as they get in power one of the first things they do is start raping the Christian women and executing the Christian men. It happened in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was overthrown and it’s happening now in Syria.

Congress funded jihadist rebels in Syria for years. The chief war whores of the military-industrial complex, Senators Lindsey Graham and John McCain, led the way. Graham is now turning on Trump’s pick for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, because he’s afraid the Fox News host might not be fully on board with the U.S. forever wars.

Dowling quotes Joe Kent, a former chief warrant officer in the U.S. Army special forces, saying that the U.S. is “in an endless cycle of violence” and a “regime-change war” in Syria that the US has pushed. The world is aflame and the regime in Washington appears to be dowsing it with gasoline in anticipation of handing the chaos over to Donald Trump to deal with as the 47th president. Dowling ends her article with this truth bomb: “We need to be out of Syria. We’re helping no one, certainly not Americans. This is another spear in World War III.”

The U.S. is also stirring the pot in the Eastern European country of Georgia, where protesters continue to be out in the streets. The U.S. is complicit in the deaths of more than half a million Ukrainians.

I would say we need to be out of every country in the world where there is no direct compelling national interest for America’s national security. Rein in the CIA and limit its actions strictly to intelligence gathering (no more fomenting of revolutions and coups) bring our boys home and return the concept of “defense” to our U.S. Department of Defense."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

"Larry C. Johnson & Scott Ritter, Syria In Turmoil - Shocking Escalation You Won’t Believe!"

Dialogue Works, 12/7/24

"Larry C. Johnson & Scott Ritter, 

Syria In Turmoil - Shocking Escalation You Won’t Believe!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "I Was the Only Person At The RV Sale, Buyers Are Gone"

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, 12/6/24

"I Was the Only Person At The RV Sale, 

Buyers Are Gone"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Costco Insider Exposes Products Disappearing From Shelves!"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 12/6/24

"Costco Insider Exposes 

Products Disappearing From Shelves!"

"Costco customers are familiar with the frustration of wanting to stock up on their favorite Costco products only to find out that they have been discontinued or are out-of-stock. Unfortunately, this happens pretty regularly at the chain's warehouses, and in the coming weeks shelves will look even emptier, according to a new announcement made by the company last week.

Typically, when the warehouse retailer faces shortages it may be because there were disruptions in manufacturing, delivery delays, or prices have risen way too high to keep in line with the company’s low-cost brand. When products are discontinued it is often because they were limited edition or weren't selling well. Then again, it could just be that the retailer wants to create a sense of urgency and encourage shoppers to embark on its infamous Costco grocery treasure hunts.

Down the supply chain, manufacturers and food processors are coping with declining agricultural and livestock production as well as labor shortages and rampant operational costs. As we were warned by experts and economists several times in the past, grocery inflation and shortages will be stickier than government officials have predicted. Sadly, this means Americans will have to get used to spending more on food and seeing their favorite essentials vanishing from sight."

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- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Grocery Prices Are Going Up, More Shrinkflation"

Adventures With Danno, PM 12/6/24

"Grocery Prices Are Going Up, More Shrinkflation"

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- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, “Cycle Of Time”

Full screen mode recommended.

2002, “Cycle Of Time”

"A Look to the Heavens"

"These three bright nebulae are often featured in telescopic tours of the constellation Sagittarius and the crowded starfields of the central Milky Way. In fact, 18th century cosmic tourist Charles Messier cataloged two of them; M8, the large nebula left of center, and colorful M20 on the right. The third, NGC 6559, is above M8, separated from the larger nebula by a dark dust lane. All three are stellar nurseries about five thousand light-years or so distant.

The expansive M8, over a hundred light-years across, is also known as the Lagoon Nebula. M20's popular moniker is the Trifid. Glowing hydrogen gas creates the dominant red color of the emission nebulae, with contrasting blue hues, most striking in the Trifid, due to dust reflected starlight. The colorful skyscape recorded with telescope and digital camera also includes one of Messier's open star clusters, M21, just above the Trifid."

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

Chet Raymo, "Seeing"

"Seeing"

by Chet Raymo

"There was a moment yesterday evening when the elements conspired to evoke these few lines, spoken by Macbeth:

"Light thickens,

And the crow makes wing to the rooky woods,

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse.

The fading light. The crows gliding down the fields to the trees in Ballybeg:

Light thickens,

And the crow makes wing to the rooky woods,

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse."

It's all there, in those few lines - the mysterious power of poetry to infuse the world with meaning, to anoint the world with a transforming grace. One could spend an hour picking those lines apart, syntax and sound, sense and alliteration. The t's of light thickening, tongue against the teeth. The alar w's making wing. The owl eyes of the double o's. The d's nodding into slumber - day, droop, drowse.

The poet Howard Nemerov says of poetry that it "works on the very surface of the eye, that thin, unyielding wall of liquid between mind and world, where somehow, mysteriously, the patterns formed by electrical storms assaulting the retina become things and the thought of things and the names of things and the relations supposed between thing." It works too in the mouth, in the physical act of speech - tongue, teeth, those d's gliding deeper into the darkness of the throat.

I stand in the gloaming garden and the black birds glide, down, down to Ballybeg, and I marvel that with so few syllables Shakespeare can - across the centuries - teach me how to see."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"As Far As We Can Discern..."

"As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human

existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being."

- Carl Jung

"Oliver Sacks on Gratitude, the Measure of Living, and the Dignity of Dying"

"Oliver Sacks on Gratitude, 

the Measure of Living, and the Dignity of Dying"

by Maria Popova

“Living has yet to be generally recognized as one of the arts,” proclaimed a 1924 guide to the art of living. That one of the greatest scientists of our time should be one of our greatest teacher in that art is nothing short of a blessing for which we can only be grateful - and that’s precisely what Oliver Sacks (July 9, 1933–August 30, 2015), a Copernicus of the mind and a Dante of medicine who turned the case study into a poetic form, became over the course of his long and fully lived life.

In his final months, Dr. Sacks reflected on his unusual existential adventure and his courageous dance with death in a series of lyrical New York Times essays, posthumously published in the slim yet enormously enchanting book Gratitude (public library), edited by his friend and assistant of thirty years, Kate Edgar, and his partner, the writer and photographer Bill Hayes.

In the first essay, titled “Mercury,” he follows in the footsteps of Henry Miller, who considered the measure of a life well lived upon turning eighty three decades earlier. Dr. Sacks writes: "Last night I dreamed about mercury - huge, shining globules of quicksilver rising and falling. Mercury is element number 80, and my dream is a reminder that on Tuesday, I will be 80 myself. Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers. At 11, I could say “I am sodium” (Element 11), and now at 79, I am gold. Eighty! I can hardly believe it. I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over."

Having almost died at forty-one while being chased by a white bull in a Norwegian fjord, Dr. Sacks considers the peculiar grace of having lived to old age: "At nearly 80, with a scattering of medical and surgical problems, none disabling, I feel glad to be alive - “I’m glad I’m not dead!” sometimes bursts out of me when the weather is perfect… I am grateful that I have experienced many things - some wonderful, some horrible - and that I have been able to write a dozen books, to receive innumerable letters from friends, colleagues and readers, and to enjoy what Nathaniel Hawthorne called “an intercourse with the world.”

I am sorry I have wasted (and still waste) so much time; I am sorry to be as agonizingly shy at 80 as I was at 20; I am sorry that I speak no languages but my mother tongue and that I have not traveled or experienced other cultures as widely as I should have done."

But pushing up from beneath the wistful self-awareness is Dr. Sacks’s fundamental buoyancy of spirit. Echoing George Eliot on the life-cycle of happiness and Thoreau on the greatest gift of growing older, he writes: "My father, who lived to 94, often said that the 80s had been one of the most enjoyable decades of his life. He felt, as I begin to feel, not a shrinking but an enlargement of mental life and perspective. One has had a long experience of life, not only one’s own life, but others’, too. One has seen triumphs and tragedies, booms and busts, revolutions and wars, great achievements and deep ambiguities, too. One has seen grand theories rise, only to be toppled by stubborn facts. One is more conscious of transience and, perhaps, of beauty. At 80, one can take a long view and have a vivid, lived sense of history not possible at an earlier age. I can imagine, feel in my bones, what a century is like, which I could not do when I was 40 or 60. I do not think of old age as an ever grimmer time that one must somehow endure and make the best of, but as a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together."

In another essay, titled “My Own Life” and penned shortly after learning of his terminal cancer diagnosis at the age of eighty-one, Dr. Sacks reckons with the potentiality of living that inhabits the space between him and his death: "It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can. In this I am encouraged by the words of one of my favorite philosophers, David Hume, who, upon learning that he was mortally ill at age 65, wrote a short autobiography in a single day in April of 1776. He titled it “My Own Life.”

“I now reckon upon a speedy dissolution,” he wrote. “I have suffered very little pain from my disorder; and what is more strange, have, notwithstanding the great decline of my person, never suffered a moment’s abatement of my spirits. I possess the same ardour as ever in study, and the same gaiety in company.”

Gliding his mind’s eye over one of Hume’s most poignant lines - “It is difficult to be more detached from life than I am at present.” - Dr. Sacks considers the paradoxical way in which detachment becomes an instrument of presence: "Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts. This does not mean I am finished with life.

On the contrary, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight."

"Gratitude" is a bittersweet and absolutely beautiful read in its entirety. Complement it with Dr. Sacks on the life-saving power of music, the strange psychology of writing, and his story of love, lunacy, and a life fully lived, then revisit my remembrance of Dr. Sacks’s singular spirit.

Canadian Prepper, "WTF Alert! WW3 Has Hit Home; Total Gun Ban; Martial Law"

Canadian Prepper, 12/6/24

"WTF Alert! WW3 Has Hit Home; 

Total Gun Ban; Martial Law"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Clarkston, Michigan, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Wars And Rumors Of War: The Middle East"

Dialogue Works, 12/6/24

"Larry C. Johnson: Hama Falls, Syria in Chaos,

 Turkey Backing HTS against Iran & Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 12/6/24

"Scott Ritter: 

Hezbollah-Syria-Iranian Axis Backed By Russia"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Danny Haiphong, 12/6/24

"Pepe Escobar: Russia Braces for War as Turkey's 

Secret Meeting Shocks Putin, Exposes Israel in Syria"

"In this video, renowned geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar provides a deep dive into Russia’s next moves in Syria as Turkey and Israel escalate their proxy war in Aleppo and beyond. We examine the secret meetings held by Turkey in preparation for this operation, shedding light on the broader implications for the region. From the shifting dynamics between Ankara, Tel Aviv, and Moscow to the potential fallout of this covert strategy, Pepe Escobar unpacks the latest developments and what they mean for Syria’s future."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Insurance Companies' Deadly Secret - What They Don't Tell You"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 12/6/24

"Insurance Companies' Deadly Secret - 

What They Don't Tell You"

"Breaking down the shocking murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the chilling message left on shell casings: "defend, deny, depose." As someone with extensive experience dealing with insurance companies, I share my personal insights into the healthcare system and why this tragic event has sparked widespread discussion about insurance practices.

I break down the disturbing details of this high-profile case, including the mysterious shell casing message that appears to reference the book "Delay, Deny, Defend." Drawing from my firsthand experience helping a loved one battle cancer while navigating insurance claims, I explain why healthcare coverage challenges have become such a heated issue in America.

This video explores United Healthcare's history of claim denials, the ongoing DOJ investigation that was underway before Thompson's death, and what this means for policyholders. I also share crucial advice about choosing the right insurance coverage and protecting yourself in today's complex healthcare system. Join me for this in-depth look at a story that has sent shockwaves through the insurance industry and raised serious questions about our healthcare system. Filmed on location in St. Kitts, I provide unique perspective on this developing story that impacts all Americans."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Bill Bonner, "Saving Grace"

"The Death of Marat," in pen and ink.

"Saving Grace"

It is a costly extravagance for most Americans, roughly equal to the 

entire US debt added in this century. But it pays huge dividends

 for powerful participants; suppliers, lobbyists, and politicians.

by Bill Bonner

Baltimore, Maryland - "There is something so sweetly innocent... so endearingly naïve... about a revolution - even a fake one. Trying to Make America Great Again, for example. The thrill of a new start... a new direction... another chance to build a better world. The exhilaration of calling each other ‘citoyen’... or comrade... of holding mass rallies, giving the prescribed salute or waving copies of Mao’s Little Red Book. It’s like losing your virginity or discovering online sports betting; it opens up a world of pleasant possibilities.

We recall the Grace Commission, in which Ronald Reagan asked businessman Peter Grace to “drain the swamp... be bold. We want your team to work like tireless bloodhounds. Don’t leave any stone unturned in your search to root out inefficiency.”

The results of the study came out in 47 volumes, in 1984, concluding: "With two thirds of everyone's personal income taxes wasted or not collected, 100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the federal debt and by federal government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services that taxpayers expect from their government."

But hope springs up from time to time... and now, even our friend David Stockman is staying up late... working out the details. Well after midnight... his candle flickering... he labors over the obese body of US spending. He’s already found $400 billion in ‘fat’ that could be readily lipo-sucked from the US budget. Now, he’s got his scalpel into the muscle of the Empire - the military, industrial, surveillance, full spectrum dominance complex.

There, he finds another $500 billion - a half-trillion per year that could be Ozempic-ed by simply returning to an America First strategy. There are no enemies on earth that could possibly mount a conventional attack on the US. Their war fleets (which they don’t have)... built and sustained by their large economies (that they don’t have)... sent out by conquest-lusting megalomaniacs (which they don’t have)... from huge military-grade ports in Siberia or on the Black Sea (which don’t exist)... equipped with the millions of troops, supplies and sophisticated weapons needed to overcome US resistance (which they don’t have) would be spotted from the air by tourists... and obliterated by US bombers, missiles and submarines... long before they got anywhere near California or New Jersey.

The only real vulnerability of the US is nuclear. And the answer to that is America’s nuclear Triad... submarines, bombers, and missiles - all carrying things that go ‘boom’ in a major way. The cost of this protection, however, is less than one-tenth of the present all-in Empire budget.

But power is the ultimate aphrodisiac, as Mr. Kissinger pointed out. And once you can get away with it, throwing your weight around becomes irresistible. You become the ‘indispensable nation’ (Madeleine Albright), without whom ‘nothing good happens.’ So, instead of spending, say, $100 billion per year on a reasonable ‘defense’ strategy, the US spends $1 trillion-plus... and gets to meddle in places most Americans have never heard of.

This is a costly extravagance for most Americans... roughly equal to the entire US debt added in this century. But it pays huge dividends for a few powerful participants, suppliers, cheerleaders, lobbyists, and politicians.

The budget cutters - including, notably, Musk and Ramaswamy - may have charm and logic on their side. Mr. Stockman has the numbers. And who wants to waste $500 billion every year? But on the other side are those who get the $500 billion... and have a keen incentive to keep it.

They use the money to buy complex, probably useless, weapons systems... with enough ‘fat’ in the contracts to support politicians, lobbyists and think-tanks who will argue for more of them. They will explain how it is vital to US security to bomb even the poorest people on earth... people who could not possibly do the US any significant harm. They will see the benefit in even larger outlays... to counter even less likely threats... in even more implausible ways.

They do not want revolution; they want things to remain as they are. And by the way, these people are now very well armed... very well- funded... very well-schooled at bending America’s politics in their direction…and they’ll soon be looking for Mr. Ramaswamy’s home address! The Grace Commission handed in its report in 1986. A few of its recommendations were actually implemented, resulting in trivial savings. US deficits and debt continued to rise. We’ll see what happens this time."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"The Question On Everyone’s Mind: Is This the End or the Beginning?"

"The Question On Everyone’s Mind: 

Is This the End or the Beginning?"

by Philbutler

"The desperate Western hegemony has been halted in its tracks by a stark warning from the Russians. Further escalation, especially making Ukraine into a nuclear-armed threat, has forced Vladimir Putin to admonish the waning liberal order with assured nuclear destruction. The comedian dictator in Kyiv is now begging to work the best deal for Washington and the rest; only Zelensky has nothing to bargain with. Other signs assure us that the Ukraine debacle is drawing to a close and that a new and brighter world may be on the horizon.

Turning the page from this foregone conclusion, we see Mr. Putin is placing new puzzle pieces for the coming solidarity of nations seeking a multipolar world. Putin has announced that Russia is ready for new large-scale projects with Kazakhstan, the world’s ninth-largest nation. Russia’s southern neighbour has been under constant assault from Washington to swing Central Asia’s most prosperous nation into the liberal order’s orbit. Astana is now magnetized toward Moscow and the economic horizon the BRICS promise.

The “So Big” World: Looking past geography and Kazakhstan’s strategic position, Western hegemons will lose one country brimming with valuable natural resources when the Ukraine conflict is ended. In the bigger picture, Vladimir Putin’s strategies combined with the best interests of China, India, Iran, and a laundry list of nations have started the domino effect of Cold War lunatics once feared. It should be noted that Kazakhstan has the world’s second-largest uranium, chromium, lead, and zinc reserves. The landlocked nation in a critical strategic location bordering the Caspian Sea to the West and China to the East also possesses the third-largest manganese reserves; the fifth-largest copper reserves; and ranks in the top ten for coal, iron, and gold. I won’t bore the reader with a cumulative list of world resources this multipolar community possesses. The world is only so big, you know?

Even here in Greece, the newspapers (Greek language) are eager to report that Zelensky is ready to surrender if Ukraine becomes a NATO nation. As ludicrous as this proposal is, it signals the end of a senseless conflict that could have been avoided a decade ago. It’s also emblematic of the same way many in my circle are behaving. Everyone I talk to asks me, “What are the chances of a nuclear war?” Others ask an even more chilling question, they query me, “Would the Russians launch a first strike with their new weapons?” I ask myself, “Well, do they want my real opinion or a comforting pat on the back?”

To Get “It” Over With? If you were a nation that had been assaulted on every side by powers that seem to be led by a Satanic cult, would you take advantage of a new first-strike option that could not be stopped? Furthermore, as Mr. Putin readily admitted in a press conference, the much feared and talked about Oreshnik that was “tested” in Dnipo did not even have explosive warheads, conventional or nuclear. The Russian president pointed out that the kinetic and heat energy of the empty warheads was sufficient to eliminate targets. I’ll let the reader forecast a conventional weapon capable of the same destruction as a nuclear warhead.

Ballistic missiles carrying multiple nuclear warheads that can be independently targeted and plummet toward their targets anywhere on the globe at 11 times the speed of sound affords strategists interesting potentialities. That’s my honest answer. It’s a good thing the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, and the other nations that have been pushed about by Britain, the EU, and especially my own country don’t need to obliterate anybody. Only the people behind inept imbeciles like Joe Biden need an emergency measure. Ukraine is lost, the people cannot freeze for one more Winter, and there are no more young men and women to sacrifice on the altar of dominion.

I hope that the Londoners, the New Yorkers, Parisians, and the Berliners in charge are now at the drawing board unveiling PLAN B. One can only reason that these geniuses of power have a contingency in place other than killing us all off alongside them. The Western elites may have some pseudo-capitalist scheme to fit in rather than control the world completely. As a geographer, I cannot help but notice how small the Western empire is becoming now. Take a look at a map sometime soon. Let’s see if there is a “next” move by my country and her now shaky allies."

- https://www.zerohedge.com/news/

Adventures With Danno, "Saver Deals At Aldi You Should Be Buying Right Now!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 12/6/24

"Saver Deals At Aldi You Should Be Buying Right Now!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "It's Almost A Nightmare - We Are Being Set Up"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 12/6/24

"It's Almost A Nightmare - We Are Being Set Up"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Not a Joke"

"Not a Joke"

by Jim Kunstler

"Stare into the sun and begin to glimpse

 the size of what you're up against." 

- Mike Benz

"The Hunter Biden super-sized blanket pardon went over so well around the country that “Joe Biden” - or the shadowy league of not-quite-geniuses who run the twilight White House operation - floated the idea of issuing preemptive pardons for a few of the most spectacularly dishonest characters in US political life: Dr. Fauci, Senator-elect Adam Schiff, and Liz Cheney. Does “JB” plan on legally adopting them so he can claim he was moved to act out of a father’s love?

Like every official act ever associated with the name “Joe Biden” the preemptive pardon idea has that reality-optional feel. None of the three has been convicted of a crime to be pardoned for, or even been hauled-in for questioning by federal law enforcement agents on a probable cause writ. But a pardon would necessarily paint them as criminals, ipso facto. Would they accept a pardon, with what it implies, or run shrieking from it as from an apple polished with novichok?

The proffer of a pardon itself must amount to a declaration of probable cause, igniting the very legal process it seeks to dispose of. An inquiry would have to be launched to discover what laws these three desperadoes might have broken, followed perhaps by a grand jury to evaluate the evidence, and so on. “Joe Biden” himself might have to answer some basic questions, such as: at what time prior to issuing the pardon did he begin to suspect some laws had been broken? And, since the president’s chief duty is to enforce the law, was “JB” negligent and culpable himself for misprision of felonies?

You know, of course, that the Supreme Court decided last summer in Trump v. United States (Docket No: 23-939) that a president is immune from prosecution for official acts. But the misprision of felonies is neither a presidential duty nor anything describable as an official act. Rather it would be grounds for impeachment, being a “high crime.” Now, luckily for Joe Biden, his term-in-office is so close to its conclusion that impeachment must be considered off-the-table as a practical matter. He might be subject to prosecution, though, after the clock strikes noon on one-six-twenty-five.

I doubt he will be present at Mr. Trump’s inauguration, so the US marshals will have to root him out of Delaware (or wherever) and haul him into the federal lockup in DC at exactly the moment Mr. Trump pardons the J-6 prisoners. Will they get to see “Joe Biden” coming into the joint on their way out? There would be a certain poetic symmetry in that, and hard to not admire the workings of Providence after all its foot-dragging. You might well ask: how many days, or months, will “Joe Biden” have to endure in solitary detention before the paperwork is in order for a proper arraignment? Considering how the process was applied to those J-6 culprits, a year would seem sufficient.

Pardon me for saying: I fear that “Joe Biden” might have started something that isn’t going to end well for “Joe Biden” and many others. The little goldfish bowl of the White House is surrounded by the vast, pulsating DC blob and its million-footed ranks of officials deserving of pardons. You know the floated names Fauci, Schiff, and Cheney were only representative samples, denoting a certain managerial class of blobists that runs to the thousands of federal employees at least. What about Garland, Monaco, and Gupta at DOJ, and their paladin prosecutor Jack Smith, and his many deputies? Or Comey, Wray, Abate, Sallet, McCabe, Rosenstein, Strzok, Page, Pientka, Priestap, McCord, Horowitz out of the FBI? Or Mueller, Weissmann, Dreeben, Van Grack, Rhee, and Quarles from that spin-off Special Counsel venture? Or Boasberg, Chutkan, and Sullivan in the DC judiciary? Or, Collins, Wallensky, Cohen and their many deputies in Covid-land? Surely, they all deserve pardons now, and their crimes can be sorted out later.

There would appear to be no precedent for a chief executive pardoning the entire federal government, or we would have heard of it by now. At the conclusion of the Civil War, Abe Lincoln issued a conditional pardon to Southerners - they had to take an oath of allegiance to the Union - but it did not include military officers and high-ranking Confederate officials. The blob of our time is a different breed of porpoise.

Actually, it’s more like a systemic fungal infection of the body politic, requiring deep fumigation and exposure to sunlight. The proposed D.O.G.E advisory under Messrs Musk and Ramaswamy might answer as a “good enough” therapeutic approach, wholesale dismissal of entire agencies and departments, actually flushing away the malign parasites en masse, pardons not required.

What I await in the sunsetting “Joe Biden” presidency is whether he will go ahead and pardon the other members of the Biden family beyond just “first son” Hunter: brothers Jim and Frank and the wives and various offspring who received cash “gifts” from officials in foreign lands laundered into their personal bank accounts amounting to millions of dollars. None of them enjoy the much talked-about presidential immunity out of mere familial proximity to their illustrious relation, number “46” in the lengthening line of commanders-in-chief.

Perhaps that’s what is spurring the league of not-quite-geniuses behind the Big Guy to try to start World War Three this Christmas Season - to distract the public from the inevitable Biden family blanket pardon. At this point, I don’t care if they are ever prosecuted for all that grift. Let the Big Guy and his adjacent family fishes slip through the net. Let that certain someone who authored The Art of the Deal work his magic on the situation so that we don’t become an ashtray from sea to shining sea before the Christmas trees are swagged and lighted."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

Travelling With Russia, "How Old Moscow Is Now Becoming New Moscow"

Full screen recommended.

Travelling With Russia, 12/5/24

"How Old Moscow Is Now Becoming New Moscow"

"What does Moscow, Russia, look like in 2024? How has the city changed in the last few years? Join me as I visit 2 brand-new districts in Moscow to see how modern Russia is becoming. From visiting Moscow City to discovering a brand new district, get ready to be amazed."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Incredible what a sane, civilized society can achieve.

We of course wouldn't know...

Full screen recommended.

Moscow By Drone"

A Blues Musical Interlude: Foy Vance, Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

 "Make it Rain"

The original, Ed Sheeran's version is the cover.

○

Ed Sheeran, "Make it Rain"

Musical Interlude: Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"

Full screen recommended.

Liquid Mind, "Moment of Grace Part 1"

"A Look to the Heavens..."

"Is our Milky Way Galaxy this thin? Magnificent spiral galaxy NGC 4565 is viewed edge-on from planet Earth. Also known as the Needle Galaxy for its narrow profile, bright NGC 4565 is a stop on many telescopic tours of the northern sky, in the faint but well-groomed constellation Coma Berenices. This sharp, colorful image reveals the spiral galaxy's boxy, bulging central core cut by obscuring dust lanes that lace NGC 4565's thin galactic plane.

An assortment of other background galaxies is included in the pretty field of view. Thought similar in shape to our own Milky Way Galaxy, NGC 4565 lies about 40 million light-years distant and spans some 100,000 light-years. Easily spotted with small telescopes, sky enthusiasts consider NGC 4565 to be a prominent celestial masterpiece Messier missed."

- https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210517.html

The Poet: Maya Angelou, "A Brave And Startling Truth"

"A Brave And Startling Truth"

by Maya Angelou

"We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space,

Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns,

To a destination where all signs tell us

It is possible and imperative that we learn

A brave and startling truth.

And when we come to it,

To the day of peacemaking,

When we release our fingers

From fists of hostility

And allow the pure air to cool our palms.

When we come to it,

When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate,

And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean.

When battlefields and coliseum

No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters

Up with the bruised and bloody grass,

To lie in identical plots in foreign soil.

When the rapacious storming of the churches,

The screaming racket in the temples have ceased.

When the pennants are waving gaily,

When the banners of the world tremble

Stoutly in the good, clean breeze.

When we come to it,

When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders,

And children dress their dolls in flags of truce.

When land mines of death have been removed,

And the aged can walk into evenings of peace.

When religious ritual is not perfumed

By the incense of burning flesh,

And childhood dreams are not kicked awake

By nightmares of abuse.

When we come to it,

Then we will confess that not the Pyramids

With their stones set in mysterious perfection

Nor the Gardens of Babylon

Hanging as eternal beauty

In our collective memory,

Not the Grand Canyon

Kindled into delicious color

By Western sunsets.

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe

Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji

Stretching to the Rising Sun.

Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,

Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores

These are not the only wonders of the world.

When we come to it,

We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe,

Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger

Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace.

We, this people on this mote of matter,

In whose mouths abide cankerous words

Which challenge our very existence,

Yet out of those same mouths

Come songs of such exquisite sweetness

That the heart falters in its labor,

And the body is quieted into awe.

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet,

Whose hands can strike with such abandon

That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living.

Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness

That the haughty neck is happy to bow,

And the proud back is glad to bend.

Out of such chaos, of such contradiction

We learn that we are neither devils nor divines.

When we come to it,

We, this people, on this wayward, floating body,

Created on this earth, of this earth,

Have the power to fashion for this earth

A climate where every man and every woman

Can live freely without sanctimonious piety,

Without crippling fear.

When we come to it,

We must confess that we are the possible,

We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world.

That is when, and only when,

We come to it."

"Time To Move On..."

“How do the geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us; there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it, that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown.”

- Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

Soon, soon...

"Point Of No Return..."

”There is a point of no return, unremarked at the time, in most lives.”

- Graham Greene

○

“When swimming into a dark tunnel, there arrives a point of no return when

 you no longer have enough breath to double back. Your only choice

 is to swim forward into the unknown… and pray for an exit.” 

- Dan Brown

○

“And it was pointless… to think how those years could have been put to better use, for he could hardly have put them to worse. There was no recovering them now. You could grieve endlessly for the loss of time and for the damage done therein. For the dead, and for your own lost self. But what the wisdom of the ages says is that we do well not to grieve on and on. And those old ones knew a thing or two and had some truth to tell… for you can grieve your heart out and in the end you are still where you were. All your grief hasn’t changed a thing. What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is to go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you.” - Charles Frazier

○

“Never be ashamed of a scar.

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

- Unknown

Gerald Celente, "Israeli Genocide: It's The American Way"

Strong language alert!

Gerald Celente, 12/5/24

"Israeli Genocide: It's The American Way"

"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."

- https://trendsjournal.com/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

'It's A Mess..."

Deputy Wendell: "It's a mess, ain't it Sheriff?"

Sheriff Ed Tom Bell: "Well, if it ain't, it'll do till the mess gets here."

- "No Country For Old Men"

Oh, the mess is here alright...and you ain't seen nothin' yet...

Brace for impact.

"Another Bank Outage Has Just Left Millions Of Americans Without Money"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 12/5/24

"Another Bank Outage Has Just

 Left Millions Of Americans Without Money"

"A catastrophic bank failure has wiped out the life savings of thousands of American families this month, after a fintech bank operator went belly-up and disappeared with the money of its customers. Court documents suggest that up to 10 million accounts were affected, but regulators say there is nothing they can do to solve the problem. The U.S. banking system is crumbling, and today, we are going to reveal another facet of the ongoing collapse."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "I Don't Trust The Hype - Consumers Trapped In Debt And FOMO"

Jeremiah Babe, 12/5/24

"I Don't Trust The Hype - 

Consumers Trapped In Debt And FOMO"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!