"A Terrifying New Bill In Congress Would Eliminate The Possibility Of Turning America Around In 2024, 2028 Or Ever Again"

"A Terrifying New Bill In Congress Would Eliminate 

The Possibility Of Turning America Around In 2024, 2028 Or Ever Again"

by Michael Snyder

"Have you heard about H.R. 1? If not, I would urge you to read the text of the bill immediately. It is called the “For The People Act”, and you can find it right here. The text of this bill specifically states that Congress has the “ultimate supervisory power over federal elections”, but of course anyone that is familiar with what the U.S. Constitution actually says knows that this is not true. The states are supposed to have final authority over their own election laws, and H.R. 1 is a blatant attempt to usurp that authority. Unfortunately, in the aftermath of the riot at the U.S. Capitol there are very few politicians in Washington that still have a willingness to stand up for election integrity. H.R. 1 is almost certainly going to get through the House of Representatives, and it has a really good chance of getting through the Senate as well.

If this legislation is approved, it will fundamentally change the nature of our federal elections forever. And not in a good way. I do not think that Tucker Carlson was exaggerating by very much at all when he warned that “Democrats will control the federal government for decades” if H.R. 1 becomes law: Democrats will control the federal government for decades or more if a sweeping new proposal touted as comprehensive government reform becomes law, Tucker Carlson said on Monday. Carlson warned of the many dangers of “H.R. 1.,” the “For The People Act,” a nearly 800-page bill sponsored by Maryland Democrat John Sarbanes of Baltimore. In essence, this bill would make elections all over the country just like elections in California."

If that statement sounds terrifying to you, that is because it is terrifying. Democrats introduced the same bill last year, but it died in the Republican-controlled Senate. But now Democrats control the Senate, and they just need a handful of Senate Republicans to go along with them so that they can overcome any potential filibuster. The following comes from Zero Hedge:

"In the House, Democrats have revived sweeping election reform legislation that died in the Senate during the previous session, perhaps hoping they can browbeat enough Republicans into going along with them. If that happens, the “Grand Old Party” of Abraham Lincoln might as well disband, because Republicans would never have any hope of regaining a congressional majority or controlling the White House under the rules that HR 1 would put in place.

Although the Constitution explicitly places state legislatures in charge of managing federal elections, HR 1 seeks to use the power of the purse to bludgeon the states into conforming to a centralized system pioneered in California and other deep-blue states. Congress can’t technically compel the states to change their voting laws, but seasoned politicians know that the states have become dependent on federal money to run their elections, and can’t afford to pick up the tab themselves.

Inevitably, there would probably be a few red states that would attempt to defy this new law, but the threat of reduced federal funding would force most red states to submit to the new mandates. So exactly why are many Republicans so deeply alarmed by this bill? Well, the good people over at Pundit Press have put together a list of some of the things that this new law would do:

1) Internet-only registration with electronic signature submission.

2) Banning the requirement to provide a full SSN for voter registration.

3) Nationwide ‘Motor Voter’ registration.

4) 16 year olds required to be registered to vote.

5) Nationwide same-day registration.

6) Grants ($25M) for using minors in election activities.

7) More children voters.

8) Prohibiting attempts to clean voter rolls of non-residents.

9) Murderers and rapists can vote.

10) Mandatory early voting.

11) THE BIG ONE – NATIONWIDE VOTE BY MAIL, BAN ON BALLOT PROTECTION MEASURES, LEGALIZED LIMITLESS BALLOT HARVESTING.

If you are a Republican and you live in a state that already allows “ballot harvesting”, than you probably already know how devastatingly effective it is. When ballot harvesting is legalized without any limitations, it becomes exceedingly difficult for Republicans to win except for in the most conservative areas. During one of his recent shows, Tucker Carlson explained why: “Under H.R. 1, [people] could freely go house to house and apartment to apartment collecting unknown thousands of ballots and then dump them all in a ballot dropbox. No one would have any idea if those ballots had been tampered with at any point along the way or would there be any way to prove it if they had been tampered with,” he continued."

Not only that, but H.R. 1 would also reportedly allow people “to print out their ballots at home”: "For example, HR 1 would allow ballot harvesting on steroids. Voters would - for the first time - have the ability to print out their ballots at home, creating a gaping security hole that could easily be exploited by either domestic or foreign interests. The legislation also allows third parties to collect ballots from an unlimited number of absentee voters and submit them through ballot drop boxes, dramatically increasing the risk that vulnerable Americans could be bullied, bribed, or blackmailed for their votes without the protection of election workers."

Can you imagine what would happen if we actually allowed tens of millions of people all over the country to print out their own ballots? It would be utter madness, and we would never have a legitimate election ever again.

Of course everything in this nearly 800 page bill is designed to help Democrats, and their plan all along has been to set the stage for one party rule for the foreseeable future. And that is what this “trial” in the Senate is all about too. They want to destroy Donald Trump and the movement that he started so that nobody like him can ever come along again. Sadly, it doesn’t even look like it will be a fair trial. The Democrat that will be presiding over the trial is also one of the jurors, and we already know how he is going to vote.

The key for the Democrats will be to find 17 Republicans in the Senate that also want to convict Trump so that they can get to the magic number of 67. I believe that if 67 votes can be confirmed, Mitch McConnell and other prominent Republicans will pull the trigger and will vote to keep Trump from ever running for office again. But if they can’t find 67 votes to convict, I believe that Mitch McConnell and his close allies will back off.

There will be high drama in D.C. in the coming days, and the outcome of this trial in the Senate has enormous implications for our future. Of course even if Trump is acquitted and he decides to run again in 2024, he definitely will not win if H.R. 1 becomes law. This bill has the potential to change everything, and so I would encourage all of you to get information about this insidious legislation out to everyone that you know."

- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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An alarming absolute Must View!

Tucker Carlson warns about HR 1.

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"Democrats Have Released A Roadmap To One-Party Rule"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/26/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/26/21"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 Jan. 26, 2021 7:52 AM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 99,787,200 

people, according to official counts, including 25,333,201 Americans.

Globally at least 2,141,700 have died.

  Jan. 26, 2021 7:52 AM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

○

"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
○

- https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/

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Coronavirus World Map: Tracking The Spread Of The Outbreak

January 26, 2021 8:17 AM ET

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Where I Live:

- CP

Fourth Turning Detonation” (Excerpt)

“Fourth Turning Detonation” (Excerpt)

by Jim Quinn

“Americans today fear that linearism (alias the American Dream) has run its course. Many would welcome some enlightenment about history’s patterns and rhythms, but today’s intellectual elites offer little that’s useful. Caught between the entropy of the chaoticists and the hubris of the linearists, the American people have lost their moorings.” – Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

“The ancients believed that each cyclical extreme, mirroring the hopes and fears of the other, helps generate the other. The night longs for the day, the day for night. In war, people yearn for relief from strife, leading to peace. In peace, people yearn to champion what they love, leading to war.” – Strauss & Howe, "The Fourth Turning"

"When I started thinking about my annual beginning of the year article in early January, I tried to formulate a catchy title. Knowing we have entered the thirteenth year of this Fourth Turning, with the intensity of the crisis reaching an unparalleled level since November 4, I decided upon Fourth Turning Detonation. I immediately thought that might be too dire and figured I would change it later. After the first few weeks of the new year, I now think it might be grossly inadequate to describe what is coming in 2021.

It is easy to get distracted by the daily gyrations, ceaseless media propaganda, political theater, false narratives, and delusional beliefs of both the left and right, as this military empire built on debt and deceit spirals towards its fiery cataclysmic climax. Opposing forces have gathered themselves into position focusing on defeating their domestic enemies, with the left seeming to have strategic advantage but led by hubristic dullards, while numerous foreign adversaries circle like hungry vultures ready to pounce on the dying beast of an empire."

Please view this excellent, complete article here:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"Be Ready For A Terrible Societal And Economic Collapse!"

"Be Ready For A Terrible Societal And Economic Collapse!"

by Epic Economist

"It's been over a decade economists have been warning that the unconstrained monetary frenzy would end up triggering a societal collapse. But the mainstream media has disregarded those predictions and even mocked experts' alerts treating them as conspiracy theories. However, the reckoning day never fails to arrive, and now the same forecasts that used to be ignored are being shared by hedge fund billionaire Ray Dalio, who argued that the Federal Reserve's policies are dangerously widening the inequality gap, which could result in intense civil conflicts, aggressive disputes, and more divides in the American society, putting the entire republic and our economic and financial systems at risk of irreversibly falling apart. That's what we expose in this video.

In his Twitter account, billionaire and Bridgewater founder Ray Dalio affirmed to believe that we are on the brink of a terrible civil conflict, where we are at an inflection point between entering a type of hell of fighting or pulling back to work together for peace and prosperity that addresses the big wealth, values, and opportunity gaps we’re now seeing.

In several interviews, the financial strategist has signaled we are headed to a much more chaotic reality if political, economic, and social divisions aren't promptly addressed. “I cannot overstate the importance of class struggles relative to individual struggles. We, especially those in the United States, which is a “melting pot,” tend to think more of individual struggles and not give adequate attention to class struggles. I didn’t fully realize its importance until I did my extensive study of history,” he said. Dalio revealed he studied the last 500 years of history and cycles, and in an interview for CNN's Poppy Harlow, he maintained that "large wealth gaps with large values gaps at the same time that there's a lot of debt and there's an economic downturn produces conflict and vulnerability."

He warned that in a situation where people don't have enough opportunities, governments are not only failing to tap all the potential that exists, which is uneconomic, but threatening the existence of the system. "I think that's coming to home very clearly with the downturn in the economy with this virus," he outlined. In an interview with Khan Academy founder Sal Khan last year, Dalio stated that the American dream "does not exist" right now, and that could lead to the collapse of capitalism. He stressed that income inequality is a "national emergency."

Dalio's gloomy assessment comes as a reflection of the enormous challenges the U.S. is facing now that we're several months in a virus-induced economic crisis, and the unprecedented response to it has largely expanded income inequality and government debt. Additionally, the billionaire is also worried about deep political divides, as we just witnessed the wildest election and several disputes between supporters of both parties.

Even though the billionaire considers unemployment and the lack of productivity as the main threats that could cause more civil disorder, he also called out political polarization as a driving force, saying that the recent migration of white-collar executives from major cities, including San Francisco and New York, was a form of social dispute.

Dalio likened this exodus to a civil strife of sorts. "We're seeing a form of civil [conflict]: people are leaving to go from one place to another, partially for taxes, but also partially for other reasons," he described. "The worst alternative is that one side or another says, 'This isn't my country anymore. This isn't my population'." Dalio added that "when the cause that people are behind is more important than the means of resolving their disagreements, that's a threatening situation". Moreover, in an essay published on LinkedIn, cautioning about the growing disorder in multiple countries, Dalio revealed that “people and politicians are now at each other’s throats to a degree greater than at any time in [his] 71 years,” and underscored that “how the U.S. handles its disorder will have profound implications for Americans, others around the world, and most economies and markets.”

Low employment and productivity, fewer opportunities, income divides, and under-investment in education all combined will cause irreversible damages to our country's future. But not only that. The growing dissatisfaction that has been expanding across the nation and taken into the streets will likely continue in a much more aggressive note. According to Dalio, if the policies that have been enabling this meltdown to happen aren't fixed soon enough, we'll be headed to a terrible societal collapse that could abruptly reshape the U.S. economic and financial systems, while chaos takes over and disrupts the lives of millions of Americans."

-  https://www.epiceconomist.com

"America in the Post-Freedom Era"

"America in the Post-Freedom Era"

by Jeff Thomas

"In June of 2015, Donald Trump announced his candidacy for president of the US. At that time, his candidacy was looked upon as a joke, and indeed, well into the campaign in 2016, both Democrat and Republican politicians treated a win by Mister Trump as a ridiculous impossibility. Yet, at that time, I predicted that he’d win, as I believed that he would become an ideal tool for the Ruling Elite in their pursuit of far greater objectives than a mere presidency.

It was clear at the time that Mister Trump was a textbook narcissist who would seek maximum attention for himself whilst in office and would want all events to center on himself on a daily basis. Conservatives would be encouraged by his bluster, whilst liberals would burst a blood vessel over his incessant posturing.

The reason for my belief was history. In 1928, Herbert Hoover, a millionaire businessman who had never previously held elected office was elected as the US president. He was set up by the ruling elite as a patsy – the guy who would take the fall for causing the crash that would occur in 1929.

It worked. Those who were responsible for creating the unmanageable debt prior to the 1929 crash could not only pass the blame to their sucker-president; they would also be left with an electorate that was so angry over the crash and resultant economic crisis that, in 1932, the elite were able to usher in an all-encompassing Democratic win.

The Democrats took both houses of Congress and the presidency in that election. Franklin Roosevelt, a banker and Wall Street insider, was presented as the friend of the little man. He promised to turn his back on his wealth, his business partners and family and institute a host of policies that would assist those in need... collectivist policies that would, in fact, help to enslave those whom he claimed to be assisting.

The electorate loved Mister Roosevelt, as they saw him as their personal savior. The Ruling Elite understood that Mister Roosevelt was creating a regime of increased government control through which they, the Elite, would more greatly dominate the populace. The anger over Mister Hoover and his capitalist principles was so great amongst the electorate that Mister Roosevelt effectively became president for life. And Democrats held both houses of government for twenty years. Only the post-war prosperity broke their hold in 1952.

In 2016, my belief was that we would see a repeat of this history. Mister Trump would be the buffoon who, by virtue of his own ego, would be in place when the crisis began in 2020. At that time, COVID was nowhere on the horizon, but it has since then served as a perfect cover for the economic crisis that is presently under way.

When I first wrote on this prediction, just after the 2016 election, there could be no way to know for certain to what degree the Great Depression playbook would be repeated, but we now know that opposition to the Trump presidency, whether justified or not, has succeeded in polarising Americans to a greater degree than any election since 1860.

America is now at war with itself and the stage has been set for a lurch into collectivism, courtesy of the latest version of a Roosevelt presidency. So, what does that mean?

Well, if the prognostication is correct – if those who rule the US from behind the scenes do intend to pick up where the Roosevelt presidency left off, and usher in collectivism – we shall soon get a look at how the ruling elite intend to roll out the plan. President Joe Biden has already made several references to his role as being temporary, stating that if he disagrees with his vice president, he actually plans to step aside and even that he may "develop some disease and have to resign."

It would not be surprising if the intent from the beginning was that Mister Biden was a shill who would pass the ball to a hard-hitting replacement – one who could not otherwise have been sold to the American people. Kamala Harris dropped out of the presidential race in December of 2019, as she was only able to attract 2.8% of the Democratic vote. And as Democrats represent about half the electorate, that translates into about 1.4% of support from the American people.

Yet, supported or not, we may very well soon see a Harris regency presidency. As her reputation has been that of an aggressive far-leftist, her leadership promises to take the US far more quickly in a collectivist direction than Mister Biden might have.

But isn’t there a flaw in this presumption? If the ruling elite, who run the show behind the scenes, are made up of bankers, Big Pharma, the military-industrial complex and Wall Street, aren’t they the country’s foremost capitalists? Wouldn’t they be opposed to a collectivist regime?

The answer is no. And to understand this, we can again look at history. In 1917, Wall Street funded Leon Trotsky in his move to defeat the Mensheviks in Russia and install Bolshevik rule. That funding made possible the Lenin/Trotsky regime. In the 1930s Wall Street funded another form of collectivism – fascism – in Germany. The near-penniless Nazis received all the capital they needed to create a military intended to take over all of Europe.

What we can take away from history is that for those who are at the top level of rule – above the more visual but ultimately disposable politicians – the central objective is control. Create a powerful government from which all things flow. Debase the populace so that they have neither the economic power nor the ambition to think for themselves and take control of their own lives. Subjugate the masses as completely as possible. Thereafter, the acquisition of wealth is a no-brainer. Those who possess totalitarian rule control the economy and all wealth that may be derived from it.

Regardless of whether collectivism is called socialism, communism, fascism or any other new "ism" that may in future be concocted, it’s the key to domination. Once a people depend entirely upon their government for all that they receive, they quickly learn to submit to whatever is demanded of them, no matter how extreme. And so, in 2021, the groundwork has been laid for a major transformation of the US and, indeed, quite a few other countries that have followed a similar path.

We shall see a number of measures passed under the new rule that provide the populace with such "benefits" as debt forgiveness, universal basic income, greater privileges for minorities, etc. However, these benefits will carry a price tag. There will be Immunity Passports, direct debit taxation, criminalized self-expression, a militarized police state and a host of other losses to freedom.

The greatest of these may well be heralded in through a constitutional review, which will be touted as seeking to answer the "inequities and shortcomings" of the 1787 Constitution but may end in a wholesale loss of "inalienable" rights. However this plays out, it’s likely that 2021 will later be looked back upon by historians as the beginning of the Post-Freedom Era."

- internationalman.com

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Musical Interlude: 2002, “Land of Forever”

2002, “Land of Forever”

"A Look to the Heavens"

“The constellation of Orion holds much more than three stars in a row. A deep exposure shows everything from dark nebula to star clusters, all embedded in an extended patch of gaseous wisps in the greater Orion Molecular Cloud Complex. The brightest three stars on the far left are indeed the famous three stars that make up the belt of Orion. Just below Alnitak, the lowest of the three belt stars, is the Flame Nebula, glowing with excited hydrogen gas and immersed in filaments of dark brown dust.

Below the frame center and just to the right of Alnitak lies the Horsehead Nebula, a dark indentation of dense dust that has perhaps the most recognized nebular shapes on the sky. On the upper right lies M42, the Orion Nebula, an energetic caldron of tumultuous gas, visible to the unaided eye, that is giving birth to a new open cluster of stars. Immediately to the left of M42 is a prominent bluish reflection nebula sometimes called the Running Man that houses many bright blue stars. The above image, a digitally stitched composite taken over several nights, covers an area with objects that are roughly 1,500 light years away and spans about 75 light years.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120212.html

"The Heart Has Its Reasons..."

"Passion doesn't count the cost. Pascal said that the heart has its reasons that reason takes no account of. If he meant what I think, he meant that when passion seizes the heart it invents reasons that seem not only plausible but conclusive to prove that the world is well lost for love. It convinces you that honor is well sacrificed and that shame is a cheap price to pay. Passion is destructive. It destroyed Antony and Cleopatra, Tristan and Isolde, Parnell and Kitty O'Shea. And if it doesn't destroy it dies. It may be then that one is faced with the desolation of knowing that one has wasted the years of one's life, that one's brought disgrace upon oneself, endured the frightful pang of jealousy, swallowed every bitter mortification, that one's expended all one's tenderness, poured out all the riches of one's soul on a poor drab, a fool, a peg on which one hung one's dreams, who wasn't worth a stick of chewing gum."

- W. Somerset Maugham

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; 

it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable." 

- Sydney J. Harris

The Poet: Theodore Roethke, "The Far Field"

"The Far Field"

I

"I dream of journeys repeatedly:

Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel

Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,

The road lined with snow-laden second growth,

A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,

Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,

And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,

The road changing from glazed tar face to a rubble of stone,

Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,

Where the car stalls,

Churning in a snowdrift

Until the headlights darken.

II

At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,

Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,

Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,

Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,

Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery,-

One learned of the eternal;

And in the shrunken face of a dead rat,

 eaten by rain and ground-beetles

(I found it lying among the rubble of an old coal bin)

And the tom-cat, caught near the pheasant-run,

Its entrails strewn over the half-grown flowers,

Blasted to death by the night watchman.

I suffered for young birds, for young rabbits caught in the mower,

My grief was not excessive.

For to come upon warblers in early May

Was to forget time and death:

How they filled the oriole's elm, 

a twittering restless cloud, all one morning,

And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes,- 

Cape May, Blackburnian, Cerulean,- 

Moving, elusive as fish, fearless, 

Hanging, bunched like young fruit, bending the end branches,

Still for a moment,

Then pitching away in half-flight,

Lighter than finches,

While the wrens bickered and sang in the half-green hedgerows,

And the flicker drummed from his dead tree in the chicken-yard.

Or to lie naked in sand,

In the silted shallows of a slow river,

Fingering a shell,

Thinking:

Once I was something like this, mindless,

Or perhaps with another mind, less peculiar;

Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire;

Or, with skinny knees, to sit astride a wet log,

Believing:

I'll return again,

As a snake or a raucous bird,

Or, with luck, as a lion.

I learned not to fear infinity,

The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,

The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,

The wheel turning away from itself,

The sprawl of the wave,

The on-coming water.

III

The river turns on itself,

The tree retreats into its own shadow.

I feel a weightless change, a moving forward

As of water quickening before a narrowing channel

When banks converge, and the wide river whitens;

Or when two rivers combine, the blue glacial torrent

And the yellowish-green from the mountainy upland,- 

At first a swift rippling between rocks,

Then a long running over flat stones

Before descending to the alluvial plane,

To the clay banks, and the wild grapes hanging from the elm trees.

The slightly trembling water

Dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays;

And the crabs bask near the edge,

The weedy edge, alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers,- 

I have come to a still, but not a deep center,

A point outside the glittering current;

My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,

At the irregular stones, iridescent sand grains,

My mind moves in more than one place,

In a country half-land, half-water.

I am renewed by death, thought of my death,

The dry scent of a dying garden in September,

The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.

What I love is near at hand,

Always, in earth and air.

IV

The lost self changes,

Turning toward the sea,

A sea-shape turning around,- 

An old man with his feet before the fire,

In robes of green, in garments of adieu.

A man faced with his own immensity

Wakes all the waves, all their loose wandering fire.

The murmur of the absolute, the why

Of being born falls on his naked ears.

His spirit moves like monumental wind

That gentles on a sunny blue plateau.

He is the end of things, the final man.

All finite things reveal infinitude: 

The mountain with its singular bright shade

Like the blue shine on freshly frozen snow, 

The after-light upon ice-burdened pines;

Odor of basswood on a mountain-slope,

A scent beloved of bees;

Silence of water above a sunken tree: 

The pure serene of memory in one man,-

A ripple widening from a single stone

Winding around the waters of the world."

- Theodore Roethke

John O'Donohue, "Anam Cara"

“The world rests in the night. Trees, mountains, fields, and faces are released from the prison of shape and the burden of exposure. Each thing creeps back into its own nature within the shelter of the dark. Darkness is the ancient womb. Nighttime is womb-time. Our souls come out to play. The darkness absolves everything; the struggle for identity and impression falls away. We rest in the night.”

○

“On the day when

the weight deadens

on your shoulders

and you stumble,

may the clay dance

to balance you.

And when your eyes

freeze behind

the grey window

and the ghost of loss

gets in to you,

may a flock of colours,

indigo, red, green,

and azure blue

come to awaken in you

a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

in the currach of thought

and a stain of ocean

blackens beneath you,

may there come across the waters

a path of yellow moonlight

to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,

may the clarity of light be yours,

may the fluency of the ocean be yours,

may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow

wind work these words

of love around you,

an invisible cloak

to mind your life.”

- John O'Donohue,

"Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom"

○

John O'Donohue was an Irish author, poet, philosopher and former Catholic priest. He was born in County Clare on January 1, 1956. He died suddenly on January 4, 2008. He is best known for popularizing Celtic spirituality and is the author of a number of best-selling books on the subject.

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/25/21"

"Covid-19 Pandemic Updates 1/25/21"

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

JAN 25, AT 9:32 AM: "California Gov Lifts COVID Stay-At-Home Order; Dr. Fauci Worries Jabs Won't Stop Mutant Strains: Live Updates"

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 Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak 

 Jan. 25, 2021 3:24 PM ET: 

The coronavirus pandemic has sickened more than 99,528,200 

people, according to official counts, including 25,268,294 Americans.

Globally at least 2,134,500 have died.

  Jan. 25, 2021 3:24 PM ET: 

Coronavirus in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count

- www.nytimes.com

○

"The COVID Tracking Project"
Every day, our volunteers compile the latest numbers on tests, cases, 
hospitalizations, and patient outcomes from every US state and territory.
- https://covidtracking.com/
○

- https://www.cdc.gov/library/covid19/

"The Trick..."

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable,

or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

- Carlos Castaneda

The Daily "Near You?"

Wakefield, Kansas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

“Get Up Off Your Knees!”

“Get Up Off Your Knees!”

On your knees you may live to see another day, 

but you’ll never live to see better days.

by Robert Gore 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/