Tuesday, July 13, 2021

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Separated by about 14 degrees (28 Full Moons) in planet Earth's sky, spiral galaxies M31 at left, and M33 are both large members of the Local Group, along with our own Milky Way galaxy. This narrow- and wide-angle, multi-camera composite finds details of spiral structure in both, while the massive neighboring galaxies seem to be balanced in starry fields either side of bright Mirach, beta star in the constellation Andromeda. Mirach is just 200 light-years from the Sun. But M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, is really 2.5 million light-years distant and M33, the Triangulum Galaxy, is also about 3 million light years away.
Although they look far apart, M31 and M33 are engaged in a gravitational struggle. In fact, radio astronomers have found indications of a bridge of neutral hydrogen gas that could connect the two, evidence of a closer encounter in the past. Based on measurements, gravitational simulations currently predict that the Milky Way, M31, and M33 will all undergo mutual close encounters and potentially mergers, billions of years in the future.”
"Everything passes away- suffering, pain, blood, hunger, pestilence. The sword will pass away too, but the stars will still remain when the shadows of our presence and our deeds have vanished from the earth. There is no man who does not know that. Why, then, will we not turn our eyes towards the stars? Why?"
- Mikhail Bulgakov, "The White Guard"

"The Great Thing About The Internet..."

"The great thing about the internet is that you get to meet people you
would otherwise only meet if you were committed to the same asylum."
- Robert Brault

Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal": "Give Up Your Freedumb to be Free"

Gerald Celente, "The Trends Journal":
"Give Up Your Freedumb to be Free"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over hype and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in the increasingly turbulent times ahead."

"A Power Grab"

"A Power Grab"
By Bill Bonner

DUBLIN, IRELAND – "Oh my… oh my… England is courting disaster. From last weekend’s Financial Times: "The country is set to become the first to lift all COVID-19 restrictions, even as cases are rising. Critics have condemned the plan as “dangerous and premature.” How big a gamble is [Prime Minister] Boris Johnson taking? The decision “defies logic and it’s criminal frankly,” says Ravi Gupta, a professor of clinical microbiology at Cambridge University. The dreaded Delta variant is on the march. New cases are reportedly running 15 times higher than they did at the beginning of May."

Have the English gone mad? Or suddenly gone sane?

Irresistible Temptation: We have been exploring the role of the elite in a society. It is the elite who decide its pandemic policies, for example. And what to do about its government budget deficits. And how much money to print. And when it makes sense to subsidize industries or give out money to households. Ordinary people – often wearing jeans and flannel shirts – fix the plumbing, build the cars, and flip the burgers. But it is the men in suits… and the women in their smart business attire… who really make a mess of things.

The “little people” suffer their own little disasters. The “big heads” cause the big ones. For better or for worse, the private person gets – generally – what he has coming. If he fails to fill the tank or fix the roof, he pays the price. But the public person – with his wars and fantasies – puts the cost on others. As we’ve seen, like other groups, the elite always wants more money and more power. But the elite control the government, and the temptation to use it to get both is almost irresistible. Then, the interests of the elite no longer align with those of the rest of the population.

Overreach: We’ve spent a lot of time connecting the dots, showing how the elite use the fake-money system to transfer trillions of dollars to themselves. Even more galling, to many people, is the way the elite flexes its muscles in other ways. “We have been informed,” said our minister on Sunday, “that we will no longer be permitted to do baptisms.” That is, we presume, meant to protect us from the COVID-19 virus. But to me, it seems like overreaching by the government.

Health is usually a private matter. Whether a woman flosses her teeth or eats enough green vegetables is typically not for the public-minded elite to decide. It’s nobody’s business but her own, she may think. But over the last 15 months, her health has been a matter of government concern. She was no longer allowed to make her own choices and take what came her way; she was expected to obey. She may have been forced to close her business (if the authorities considered it “non-essential”). She may have been forced to “shelter in place,” or even to wear a face mask outside.

Futile Resistance: Looking at the statistics, state by state, country by country, there is no obvious connection between the policies decreed by the medical elite and the consequent COVID-19-related death rates. And whether they implemented the lockdowns or not… they got about the same results.

France, for example, with a very competent public health service, which was determined to stop the virus from spreading, suffered 166 deaths per 100,000 people. Nicaragua, very unlike France in every way, suffered only 3. Most likely, the difference comes from the way people live. In Nicaragua, houses are open to the outside air… and people spend much of their time outside. Studies show that almost all viral infections happen indoors. Whatever the explanation, the elite’s war against the COVID-19 virus looks like another failure. Sweden, initially a conscientious objector, had fewer deaths than France.

Policy Failure: But now, it appears that the battle was not only futile… but counterproductive. Here’s The George Gilder Report: "A new study (one of as many as 50 or so that I’ve seen) from the National Bureau of Economic Research and the Rand Corp. took a close look at all US states and 43 countries. The authors were seeking a correlation of some sort between shelter-in-place (SIP) orders and lives saved. Incredibly, they found the opposite:

We find that following the implementation of SIP policies, excess mortality increases. The increase in excess mortality is statistically significant in the immediate weeks following SIP implementation for the international comparison only and occurs despite the fact that there was a decline in the number of excess deaths prior to the implementation of the policy. At the U.S. state-level, excess mortality increases in the immediate weeks following SIP introduction and then trends below zero following 20 weeks of SIP implementation. We failed to find that countries or U.S. states that implemented SIP policies earlier, and in which SIP policies had longer to operate, had lower excess deaths than countries/U.S. states that were slower to implement SIP policies. We also failed to observe differences in excess death trends before and after the implementation of SIP policies based on pre-SIP COVID-19 death rates."

Two Misunderstandings: What transformed a private health matter into a Great Public Crusade (and another public policy failure) were essentially two misunderstandings…

• First, that “nobody’s safe until everybody’s safe."
• And second, that the elite knows how to make us all safe.

As to the first, it was never true. Fat, diabetic, old, and frail people – especially those in nursing homes – were much more at risk of dying from the coronavirus than young, healthy cowboys out on the Great Plains. The differences were personal and individual, not public. And it never made sense to treat each individual as though he had the same risk of dying as everyone else. In that sense, maybe it was never really a “pandemic” at all. A pandemic is “incident to a whole people,” in which everyone is at risk. Most people were never really at risk of dying from COVID-19.

Instead, the way the disease chose its victims was little different from the basic pattern of life itself. People are enfeebled by age and ailments. Then, they die. The coronavirus merely helps them complete the final stages of their lives.

As to the second – that the elite could protect us from the virus – at least you could make a plausible case for it. On islands, especially, where the feds could control the comings and goings of the population, a lockdown might be effective. New Zealand, for example, which has restricted access, has had just 26 COVID-19-related deaths. But in most places, including the U.S., as time goes on, the lockdowns look more and more like more overreaching."

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/13/21: "Must Watch! BIS Admits 'We Are Planning For Absolute Control'"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/13/21:
"Must Watch! BIS Admits 'We Are Planning For Absolute Control'"

The Daily "Near You?"

San Antonio, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Cutting Through the Matrix of Lies and Deceptions about Covid"

"Cutting Through the Matrix of Lies 
and Deceptions about Covid"
by Chris Black

"Motto: I want to remind you that the coronavirus is a hoax, and there is no new virus. It is just a rebranding of the flu.

We’re over one year into “two weeks to slow the spread”, and the majority of people still believe the Big Pharma owned legacy media’s lies and deceptions about the “covid pandemic” and “safe mRNA vaccines”. Proven liars like Fauci are still invited on TV shows to push fear porn propaganda to Americans. Fauci said recently that he wants more “vaccine mandates” at the local level, basically calling for forced inoculations.

So what if that’s against the law? It’s the Virus Regime and you have no rights. In France, that gerontophile manlet of a president of theirs is implementing digital covid passports. As in, if you’re not fully vaccinated, you cannot function in society, as you’re denied access to shopping malls, public transportation etc. “The unvaccinated will bear the brunt of the restrictions rather than everyone…from the beginning of august, the vax pass will be needed for coffee shops, restaurants, supermarkets, hospitals, trains, buses etc…”

- Nat (@Arwenstar) July 13, 2021

Welcome to the gulag!

Australia is still under lockdown, as well as Canada and other places in the Western world. According to a recent poll (I take that with a grain of salt though, because I don’t trust The Economist to tell me the time of day), 40 percent of UK’s population want mask mandates to remain in place forever, while almost half think unvaccinated people should be permanently banned from foreign travel.

In the US, the government is threatening to send the Vaxx Police to people’s homes, in order to push them into getting vaccinated with experimental and unauthorized DNA altering substances.

And speaking of mRNA vaccines, I strongly advise you to watch this medic explaining how the spike proteins in mRNA so-called vaccines destroy your body irreversibly.

And all this hysteria and fear porn is about a disease with a 99,98 percent survivability rate in people under 50.

Meanwhile, the Vaers report continues to monitor deaths from side effects of the vaccine, which are at time of writing approaching 10,000 in the U.S. alone, with in excess of 438,000 adverse reactions also reported. It must be noted that as per a 2011 report by Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Inc. for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), less than one percent of all vaccine adverse events are reported to the government. If every vaccine death was reported like a covid death, people would hang the likes of Fauci to lamp posts.

Here’s the deal: There have been a lot of hoaxes that people still believe. You don’t need everyone involved to know it is a hoax. The supposed sequenced genome of SARS-CoV-2 is a hoax. However, PCR tests were made to match a genetic primer that occurs in over 2000 other proteins and cells in the human body. If you run a PCR test higher than 25 cycles, the chances that background DNA from any of those other sources matches that primer is nearly 100%. A person is said to be Covid positive when they are not. The technician is just following protocol (from WHO) and the doctor is just repeating results. Unless they actually know the test is faulty, they are in on the scam without knowing they are.

Now, when something has less than a .02% chance of killing you, it isn’t a life or death situation. The “vaccine” has a known death and disability rate far higher than the supposed virus. Plus the chances of coming into contact with someone who has an “active” case of the virus is less than one half of one percent. Meaning most people will go through their day without ever being exposed. The chances of exposure to the supposed sickness have been vastly overblown.

Wearing a mask exposes you to a far greater percentage of contracting a serious respiratory disease other than Covid from the fungus and bacteria that exponentially multiply in the death muzzle.

Taking the jab has a 100% chance of exposing you to side effects; so, with a 99.98% chance of survival unless you have serious co-morbidities that would also kill you within weeks, and a greater than 99% chance of not being exposed each day: WHY WOULD YOU EVER TAKE AN EXPERIMENTAL GENE ALTERING VIAL OF DEATH?

If there ever was a virus, it ran its course and was done by the beginning of April 2020. Trump wanted the entire country opened up with all restrictions lifted by Easter. Remember that?Instead April brought harsher lockdowns and mandates. Then in May the mask mandates began and started sweeping across the country.

What made it all possible? A change in the CDC guidance for determining a case of Covid and what could be counted as a Covid death. From the beginning of February through the end of March, Ohio had less than 5000 cases and under 20 deaths. The week prior to the updated guidance, cases in Ohio fell 85% and there was only one death. Within one week of the updated “guidance”, Ohio added 10k cases and almost 500 deaths. None of them were real, but the hospitals were given $18k for every person they labelled with Covid and $45k if they put the person on a ventilator. The Covid scam was born and it still goes on today.

"The $50 Trillion Plundered from Workers by America’s Aristocracy Is Trickling Back"

"The $50 Trillion Plundered from Workers by 
America’s Aristocracy Is Trickling Back"
by Charles Hugh-Smith

"The depth of America’s indoctrination can be measured by the unquestioned assumption that Capital should earn 15% every year, rain or shine, while workers are fated to lose ground every year, rain or shine. And if wages should ever start ticking upward even slightly, then the Billionaires’ Apologists are unleashed to shout that higher wages means higher inflation, which will kill the economic “recovery.” Said another way: if wages stagnate so workers lose ground every year as inflation in essentials rises, that’s the way it should be. If wages rise so workers can keep up with inflation, then that will trigger an inflationary death spiral.

That this indoctrination is so widely accepted reveals the success of America’s Aristocracy in reshaping the narrative to make their plundering appear to be “inevitable.” But the siphoning of $50 trillion from workers to the Aristocracy, and the Nobility’s control of political power was anything but inevitable: it was engineered by policies that enriched billionaires, the top 0.01% Aristocracy, and the top 10% who own 90% of America’s productive capital.

This wholesale transfer of wealth and income from workers to Capital was documented by a RAND Corporation report, "Trends in Income From 1975 to 2018." Time magazine summarized the findings: "The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90% - And That’s Made the U.S. Less Secure."
There are some who blame the current plight of working Americans on structural changes in the underlying economy – on automation, and especially on globalization. According to this popular narrative, the lower wages of the past 40 years were the unfortunate but necessary price of keeping American businesses competitive in an increasingly cutthroat global market. But in fact, the $50 trillion transfer of wealth the RAND report documents has occurred entirely within the American economy, not between it and its trading partners. No, this upward redistribution of income, wealth, and power wasn’t inevitable; it was a choice – a direct result of the trickle-down policies we chose to implement since 1975.

The net result of this four-decade siphoning of wealth/income from workers was recently documented by a Foreign Affairs article: "Monopoly Versus Democracy:" "Ten percent of Americans now control 97 percent of all capital income in the country. Nearly half of the new income generated since the global financial crisis of 2008 has gone to the wealthiest one percent of U.S. citizens. The richest three Americans collectively have more wealth than the poorest 160 million Americans.

In other words, the bottom 90% have very little stake in the status quo: they receive essentially zero income from America’s stupendous $121 trillion hoard of private wealth and have essentially zero political influence, as documented in "Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens."

Now the worm has finally turned, and workers are refusing to accept the Neofeudal dominance of the Aristocracy, not by open revolts that the State can violently crush but by indirect means. Fed-up Boomers are retiring, fed-up Gen-Xers are cutting their hours, refusing to go back to the office, starting their own enterprises and Millennials are assembling multiple income streams, building micro-houses, and leveraging shortages of workers for higher wages.

The techno-fantasy that’s Corporate America’s fondest dream is automation of all labor: get rid of all human workers and just manage the robots with loving care. But the reality is robots have limits, as I explain in my book "Will You Be Richer or Poorer?" – limits imposed by physics and finance.

And so, weeping inconsolably, Corporate America continues exploiting its workforce with the usual threats: you’re powerless because we can automate your job or offshore it to Lower Slobovia. Contrast this with the real world: a young man of my acquaintance recently took a job at a Corporate America Big Box outlet. His wage was $12/hour, and all the power was of course in the hands of Corporate America: he had no power over his schedule, or anything else.

In the script of the past four decades, Corporate America (while crushing small business and buying the best government money can buy) could keep the serfs slaving away for stagnating wages, all in service of maximizing corporate insiders’ stock options, buybacks and soaring profits. This individual was tipped off to a much better opportunity, and when he gave notice to the Big Box manager, the manager corralled him for two hours, first offering a $3/hour raise (25%) and then badgering him to stay on as a serf on the Big Box plantation. He refused.

This is the pure distillation of Corporate America and the Aristocracy: if they’d offered this hard-working individual the 25% raise after he proved his worth, then maybe he wouldn’t have been so motivated to seek better opportunities elsewhere.

At long last, some the $50 trillion plundered from workers is trickling back to the people who actually create the income and wealth. As a thought experiment, consider an economy in which farmers and workers reaped 15% gains annually like clockwork, and Corporate America’s insiders, financiers and speculators, and Wall Street’s parasites all lost 15% of their wealth and income every year like clockwork.

In other words, imagine the $50 trillion flowing back to those who generated it from those who looted it. As I often note here, when you push the pendulum to an extreme of wealth and income inequality, it will swing to the opposite extreme minus a tiny bit of friction. The serfs are quietly slipping away, and the Aristocracy, blinded by hubris and greed, believes nothing will ever change because, well, their wealth and power is deserved. What they really deserve will manifest in the next four years as the chairs at the banquet of consequences are shuffled."

"How It Really Is"

 

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/13/21: "Meltdown: Inflation Is Surging, Hourly Wages Fall! The Entire System Is Fraudulent"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/13/21:
"Meltdown: Inflation Is Surging, Hourly Wages Fall! 
The Entire System Is Fraudulent"

Monday, July 12, 2021

"Economic Armageddon; Prepare for Impact; Millions to Be Evicted"

Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, PM 7/12/21:
"Economic Armageddon; Prepare for Impact; 
Millions to Be Evicted"

"Even the Rich are Getting Affected by the Everything Bubble"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, IAllegedly, PM 7/12/21:
"Even the Rich are Getting Affected
 by the Everything Bubble"

Musical Interlude: Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"

Full screen recommended.
Yanni & Samvel Yervinyan, "Until The Last Moment"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“While drifting through the cosmos, a magnificent interstellar dust cloud became sculpted by stellar winds and radiation to assume a recognizable shape. Fittingly named the Horsehead Nebula, it is embedded in the vast and complex Orion Nebula (M42). A potentially rewarding but difficult object to view personally with a small telescope, the above gorgeously detailed image was recently taken in infrared light by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope in honor of the 23rd anniversary of Hubble's launch. 
The dark molecular cloud, roughly 1,500 light years distant, is cataloged as Barnard 33 and is seen above primarily because it is backlit by the nearby massive star Sigma Orionis. The Horsehead Nebula will slowly shift its apparent shape over the next few million years and will eventually be destroyed by the high energy starlight.”

"A World in Confusion: Cultivating Inner Clarity"

"A World in Confusion: Cultivating Inner Clarity"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM

"When the world is in chaos, we can still have our own inner peace and maintain a sense of calm in a sea of unrest. People who maintain their sense of calm when things around them are in a state of flux and confusion are always wonderful to be around. We feel calmer just being near them, as if they have activated our own sense of inner peace. From them we learn that we can be calm, even when everything around us is in turmoil, because we know that no matter what happens, this inner sense of calm will help us to function well. Often, times of confusion are the times that enable us to find that part of ourselves that knows how to cope, and how to be a light to others in the storm.

If we allow ourselves to be thrown off balance by every piece of disturbing news that comes our way, we may be relying too much on our emotions. On the other hand, our thoughts may also be unreliable at times like these, as they chatter on endlessly about what might happen next. If our feelings and thoughts activate one another in a hectic way, then we become caught up in the confusion that surrounds us. However, if we can locate the stillness at the center of our hearts, we can find composure in almost any situation. In addition, we provide a safe place for our friends and family, who are also prone to taking on the confusion of a world in flux.

It helps to remember that we don't need to completely understand what's happening right now, nor do we need to be able to predict the future. Most of us just want to find our way to being at peace with whatever happens, and we can find this peace inside. Cultivating our inner clarity with meditation, journaling, and reading words that inspire us, will lead us to that place inside us that's already there, just waiting."

"A Wise Man Once Said..."

“A wise man once said you can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it. What he meant is nothing comes without a price. So before you go into battle, you better decide how much you’re willing to lose. Too often, going after what feels good means letting go of what you know is right, and letting someone in means abandoning the walls you’ve spent a lifetime building. Of course, the toughest sacrifices are the ones we don’t see coming, when we don’t have time to come up with a strategy to pick a side or to measure the potential loss. When that happens, when the battle chooses us and not the other way around, that’s when the sacrifice can turn out to be more than we can bear.”
- “Dr. Meredith Grey”, “Grey’s Anatomy"

"It’s NOT a Conspiracy"

"It’s NOT a Conspiracy"
by Jim Rickards

"Philosophers and analysts use a principle called Occam’s Razor (sometimes Ockham’s Razor) to solve difficult problems. It says that when you are confronted with two possible solutions to a problem, one complicated and one simple, it’s usually better to select the simple solution. There’s always some attraction to the complicated solution because humans like intrigue and plot twists. But statistically, the simple solution is more likely to be correct and therefore the one that analysts should prefer unless contrary evidence presents. This approach is useful in dealing with conspiracy theories.

Yes, real conspiracies exist (such as the plot to assassinate JFK), and analysts must be alert to the possibility. But most so-called conspiracies have much simpler explanations that are more likely to be correct. One of the most potent drivers of coordinated political action is not a deep, dark conspiracy. It’s usually just the result of like-minded individuals cooperating to achieve the same goal.

It’s Groupthink, Not Conspiracy: If the political players all think alike and agree on goals, you don’t need a conspiracy. Just let them go to work every day and communicate with each other, and you’ll get the coordinated result without the inevitable twists and turns of a conspiracy.

That’s a good thing to bear in mind when considering the current administration. 23 top Biden administration officials all worked at the same consulting firm called WestExec Advisors. These officials include Press Secretary Jen Psaki, Secretary of State Tony Blinken and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines. For those who may be unfamiliar, “WestExec” is a reference to West Executive Avenue, a non-public road that runs between the West Wing of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

The West Wing is not that large and only has a few choice offices plus the Situation Room, the Roosevelt Room (for larger meetings) and the Cabinet Room, which is smaller. Most officials who say they “work in the White House” actually work in the Eisenhower Building, which means they walk across West Executive Avenue when they have meetings with top Biden officials.

The WestExec Advisors name is a play on that kind of insider status of the long list of former WestExec principals who are now running the country. (Don’t look to Biden as the source of power; he’s not mentally competent and does what the WestExec crowd or the rest of the Biden family tell him to do).

A Threat to National Security: So, with all of this power emerging from one firm, does that mean there’s a conspiracy among the alums to control the world? Not really. But, it points to a bigger problem, which is the lack of cognitive diversity. The WestExec crowd all went to top schools, had top jobs in previous administrations, exhibit high IQs, and boast lots of credentials.

If you look at their resumes, you’ll see they all went to the same schools, had the same professors and pursued the same career paths. With few exceptions, it’s all Harvard, Yale and Columbia with a small dose of Stanford or Chicago for good measure.

They all went to law school or got PhDs and worked for the same small set of law firms or consulting firms. Then they all worked in a small set of government agencies, including the State Department, National Security Council or the Intelligence Community.

They all think alike. That’s an acute weakness because if they all look at things the same way, they will all miss the real dangers coming that don’t fit into their mental molds. Lack of cognitive diversity is a fatal weakness.

As a leader, you should always be willing to lower the average IQ if it means you can increase the range of viewpoints. At least someone might point out it’s raining to a group that’s too buried in briefing books to look out the window. This uniform mindset is itself a danger to national security. Sooner than later, a threat will arise that none of them will see coming.

On the Verge of the Most Destructive War Since WWII? And there’s no shortage of threats in the world. Perhaps the most pressing right now is China’s aggressive posturing in East Asia. It’s not just China and the U.S. The world’s three largest economies - the U.S., China and Japan - may be squaring off for the most destructive and costly war since the end of World War II.

The main protagonists will be China and the U.S. The cause of war will be a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which may be coming much sooner than the world expects. China would start the war with an invasion across the Taiwan Strait. The U.S. would be obliged to come to the defense of Taiwan and take measures to disable the Chinese fleet and its air support. But, Japan is no bystander.

A glimpse at a map shows that if Taiwan were in Communist China’s hands, Japan’s own sea lanes would be threatened, including its access to imported oil. Japan has its own island disputes with China. If China were to capture Taiwan, Japan’s islands in the East China Sea would likely be the next to fall.

The U.S. could fall back to a line of islands, including Guam, Hawaii and the Aleutians, but no fallback is possible for Japan. If China seizes Taiwan and the U.S. falls back, Japan would be under the thumb of China, and they know it. Of course, a fallback by the U.S. would be an enormous blow to U.S. credibility, as well as its economic power. That’s why an alliance of the U.S. and Japan against China to defend Taiwan (along with Taiwan’s own formidable defense capability) is the most likely response to a Chinese amphibious assault.

“Wolf Warrior” Diplomacy: The question for the world is whether China will get the message and refrain from attacking Taiwan. Unfortunately, signs point in the opposite direction. China has left its non-threatening style of diplomacy in the past. Today, China pursues “Wolf Warrior diplomacy,” named after a popular Chinese movie that features aggressive Navy SEAL-style tactics as practiced by Peoples’ Liberation Army commandos.

China has come out of its shell and seeks regional hegemony to be followed by global hegemony. It is aggressively pushing on its neighbors in India, Myanmar, and the six nations that surround the South China Sea. Taiwan is the prize, and China is preparing to seize it. This attack will be Xi Jinping’s legacy and his attempt to rival the reputation of Mao Zedong. Will Team Biden be able to see it coming? U.S. investors should not take Chinese restraint for granted. Allocations to cash, gold and U.S. Treasury notes will preserve wealth when the worst happens."
Related:

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/12/21: "FED Admits They Are Propping Up The Market! ECB To Maintain 'Emergency' Bond Buying"

Gregory Mannarino, PM 7/12/21:
"FED Admits They Are Propping Up The Market! 
ECB To Maintain 'Emergency' Bond Buying"

"The Scale Of The Nightmarish Crisis Currently Unfolding In Our Western States Is Being Compared To Hurricane Katrina"

"The Scale Of The Nightmarish Crisis Currently Unfolding 
In Our Western States Is Being Compared To Hurricane Katrina"
by Michael Snyder

"One of the worst natural disasters in the history of our country is unfolding right in front of our eyes. In the entire history of the United States, we have never seen heat in the western third of the nation like we have in 2021. In the entire history of the United States, we have never seen drought in the western third of the nation like we have in 2021. Needless to say, countless numbers of farmers and ranchers are deeply suffering because of the heat and drought, and it is being projected that this is going to be one of the worst years for wildfires that we have ever experienced. As you will see below, this crisis is being compared to Hurricane Katrina, but Hurricane Katrina only lasted for a few days. The crisis that we are now facing has already stretched on for many months, and there is no end in sight.

Let me start by discussing the record-breaking heat. Yet another heat wave is baking the western third of the nation right now, and it is being reported that the high temperature in Death Valley actually reached 130 degrees on Friday… "On Friday, the temperature at Death Valley soared to 130 degrees, breaking the previous daily record high of 129 set back in 1913, according to the National Weather Service. This reading comes within 4 degrees of the all-time world record of 134 F set there in 1913. The 134-degree mark happens to be the world record for the highest temperature ever measured on Earth."

Unfortunately, things didn’t really cool off during the weekend. The high temperature in Death Valley was 129 degrees on Saturday, and it was expected that the same high temperature would be hit on Sunday… "AccuWeather expected the temperature in Death Valley to reach 129 degrees Sunday, which would tie for the daily record high. Death Valley hit the same temperature Saturday. The world record high is 134 degrees."

Forecasters called for Las Vegas to hit another all-time high, as it did Saturday with a temperature of 117 degrees. On Saturday, St. George, Utah, also hit 117, setting another tie for an all-time high, according to the National Weather Service in Salt Lake City.

There are moments every summer when conditions get really hot, but so far this summer the heat has been absolutely relentless. The extremely high temperatures that we have witnessed this month follow the hottest June that the continent of North America has ever experienced…"Researchers have confirmed what millions of Americans and Canadians who just endured scorching temperatures probably already suspected: Last month was the hottest June on record in North America.

The Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), an agency supported by the European Union, said that average surface temperatures for June in North America were about one-quarter of a degree Fahrenheit (0.15 of a degree Celsius) higher than the average for June 2012, the previous record-holder.

At the same time, there has been very little meaningful precipitation in the western third of the nation this summer, and the latest map from the U.S. Drought Monitor is the worst that I have ever seen. The state of Utah is being hit particularly hard, and one official is openly admitting that this is “the worst drought in the state of Utah’s history”… "That official, Dave Ure, speaking just after a tour of waterworks facilities in Summit County, put the situation in stark terms. “We are in the worst drought in the state of Utah’s history right now, and the only thing compared to it is the droughts back in 1895 and 1933,” Ure said."

If you don’t live in the western third of the nation, it is going to be difficult for you to grasp how desperate things are becoming. This isn’t just a drought. What we are witnessing right now is a mega-disaster of epic proportions, and scientists are telling us not to expect relief for the foreseeable future.

Farmers and ranchers are having a particularly difficult time. They can’t operate successfully without water, and one rancher in Utah told Fox News that this crisis is “going to equal or surpass the amount of people that that were impacted by Hurricane Katrina”… Ron Gibson manages 1,500 head of cattle in Northern Utah but may soon lack the resources to sustain his herd. Scorching temperatures and the absence of rain have created a depletion in feed supply for cattle farmers like Ron. With watering rights in his area cut about 70% in efforts to preserve the water supply, more farmers are forced to outsource their feed, and the high demand has driven up the price four times greater than usual. “When we look at the amount of impact that this kind of disaster is going to have on the country, it’s going to equal or surpass the amount of people that that were impacted by Hurricane Katrina,” he told Fox News.

Hurricane Katrina absolutely devastated one major city, but this crisis threatens to cripple one-third of the entire nation. The longer the drought drags on, the lower water levels get, and at this point reservoir levels are getting dangerously low… "Reservoir levels are dropping throughout the West, as the drought tightens its grip on the region and intense summer heat further stresses both water supply and the surrounding landscape. Many reservoirs are at or approaching historic low levels due to lackluster rainy seasons combined with increasing temperatures due to climate change.

The drought crisis is perhaps most apparent in the Colorado River basin, which saw one of its driest years on record, following two decades of less-than-adequate flows. The nation’s largest reservoir, Lake Mead near Las Vegas, is at its lowest level since the lake filled after the construction of the Hoover dam in the 1930s; it currently sits at 1,069 feet above sea level, or 35% of its total capacity. It supplies water to Arizona, Nevada, California and Mexico."

Water restrictions have already been implemented in many areas, but if this drought persists we are eventually going to see water restrictions that are far more draconian than we have ever seen before. Needless to say, a lot of people living in the region won’t like that at all.

Of course the hot, dry conditions have also created an ideal environment for wildfires, and right at this moment hundreds of thousands of acres are currently burninghttps://www.usatoday.com/story/news/weather/2021/07/11/western-united-states-wildfires-california-oregon-arizona/7932453002/… "More than 300,000 acres are burning across six states across the western United States on Sunday as the region battled yet another brutal heat wave that shattered records and strained power grids. The largest, the so-called Bootleg Fire, burned across 143,607 acres in Oregon and was 0% contained. Officials in neighboring state California asked all residents to reduce power consumption quickly after the fire knocked out interstate power lines, preventing up to 4,000 megawatts of electricity from flowing into the state."

We are being told that this is going to be one of the worst years for wildfires in our history, and it may end up topping the list by the time it is all said and done. This isn’t just a “bad summer” we are talking about. What we are facing is a crisis that is unprecedented in size and scope, and scientists are telling us that it isn’t going to end any time soon."

"The Trouble With Trouble"

"The Trouble With Trouble"
by Bill Bonner

YOUGHAL, IRELAND – "America desperately needs leadership; it gets jesters, jokers, and jackasses instead. How come? To make a long story short, the elites control the government. The government controls the “printing press.” The printing press gives them wealth and power. How can they resist They sit in their panelled studies… pour a shallow glass of whiskey… open their laptops… and look at their 401(k)s. “Another good month,” they say to themselves.

Infinite Cash: Stocks are trading at all-time highs. On Friday, the S&P 500 index, compared to sales, hit a new record. And the Tobin’s Q ratio, comparing a stock’s market value to the cost of replacing the asset behind it, has never been higher. This stock market bonanza has helped the elites transfer trillions to themselves ($30 trillion is our guesstimate… and we’re sticking with it). They also use this cornucopia of almost infinite cash – fake money from the Federal Reserve – to fund their own grab bag of wishes, fantasies, and claptrap theories.

Zombie Companies: But why is there so little (almost none at all) dissent from the programs and schemes that are bound to ruin the country? Why are there no wise men? No selfless graybeards? For one thing, in a world of free money, there’s almost no penalty for being a numbskull. And no reward for prudence. You run your business at a loss? No problem. Just borrow whatever you need. Almost one out of four of the companies on the Russell 3000 Index are not making enough money to pay even the interest on their debts. That’s 44% more companies than last year. And last year, these zombies owed about $1 trillion. Now, it’s almost $2 trillion.

When wobbly companies borrow, they call the loans “junk bonds.” Typically, investors demand a premium for lending to these companies, for the obvious reason – it’s likely that the loans will never be repaid. And when investors are feeling particularly fearful – say, during a financial crisis, like we saw in 2008 – the yield on these junk bonds goes up. In 2008, for example, investors demanded a real yield (over inflation) of 20%.

Can’t Lose: But guess what? Last week, the Bank of America’s index of junk bond yields fell below 4% – which puts it below the level of consumer price inflation. So now, the riskiest companies – those voted least likely to succeed – are able to borrow money at a profit! Wall Street gamblers have never had it better. At today’s federal funds rate… and today’s consumer price inflation…the carry cost for the big speculators is hugely negative. In other words, if they just took money directly from the Federal Reserve… paid the 0.25% interest (the Fed’s current key lending rate)… and gave back the money a year later… they’d make 4.75%!

Spreading Rot: But the rot spreads out… like gangrene. The universities all benefited from the feds’ student loan program. (Not to mention all the federal grants and giveaways to professors willing to debase themselves by studying “‘diversity.”)And even the Pentagon has taken advantage of the public in the Bubble Epoch. The military budget was $300 billion in 1989 – when America’s last serious enemy, the Soviet Union, gave up. At the time, former U.S. Secretaries of Defense estimated that the budget could be cut in half with no loss of national security. Instead, the budget doubled!

Whole new industries – with their own lobbyists – are eager to climb on board this bus. Move over lobbyists for Goldman Sachs and Raytheon. Make room for the Green Lobby… funded by… you guessed it… funny money. NFTscryptosmeme stocksbillionaire space cadets , whee! There’s no penalty for self-indulgence… and no reward for hard work, self-discipline, and careful planning.

Big Hurrah: This is not supposed to happen. Cooler heads are meant to prevail. Old-timers are supposed to say: “This just isn’t right; it makes no sense. You folks over the Fed have gotta unwind this madness.” Call in the old grumps… the wet blankets… the spoil sports! But wait… The old-timers are corruptible, too. They have their stock portfolios. They have their contracts, their tenured professorships, their cryptos… and their reputations, too.

They were silent when Fed chief Alan Greenspan gave them his famous “Greenspan Put” in the late 1980s. They said nothing when dot-coms went to the moon… or when houses became speculative investments. And they cheered when another Fed chief, Ben Bernanke, bailed out Wall Street in 2008… and gave another big hurrah when the Jerome Powell Fed stepped up the bailouts in 2020. And the stimmy checks? Well… if they help keep the peace… why not?

No Objection: And now, watching their accounts rise and preparing for retirement, they raise no objection… neither to the fake money… nor to the $3 trillion deficits… nor to any of the daffy policies that will surely end in tears. But the trouble with trouble, as they say, is that it starts out as fun. The elite graybeards forgot the lessons of the past and enjoyed more than 30 years of dabbling, dibbling, and doodling at the public’s expense. And now, the party is wrapping up. And the graybeards have nothing more to say."




The Daily "Near You?"

Vaudreuil, Quebec, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

The Poet: Edward Hirsch, "I Was Never Able To Pray"

"I Was Never Able To Pray"

"Wheel me down to the shore
where the lighthouse was abandoned
and the moon tolls in the rafters.
Let me hear the wind paging through the trees
and see the stars flaring out, one by one,
like the forgotten faces of the dead.
I was never able to pray,
but let me inscribe my name
in the book of waves
and then stare into the dome
of a sky that never ends
and see my voice sail into the night."

- Edward Hirsch

"Humanity Today..."

"Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life."
- Edward O. Wilson

“One of the penalties of being a human being is other human beings.”
- Christopher Morley, “Hide and Seek”

Jim Kunstler, "A Bodyguard of Lies"

"A Bodyguard of Lies"
by Jim Kunstler

"A bunch of readers sent me a video on the Odysee platform that seems to have lit up the Internet over the weekend, a conversation between the international lawyer Reiner Fuellmich and a character named David Martin, PhD, CEO of M-Cam, a company that researches and advises on intellectual property and patents, especially in medicine. Dr. Martin is “a fellow” at the University of Virginia School of Business Administration and formerly an assistant professor at UVa’s School of Medicine. Mr. Fuellmich is a German national who claims to be bringing a case to the world court to prosecute various parties for hoaxing the world over the coronavirus we call Covid-19.

Mr. Fuellmich’s claim is based on the allegation that the world has been played by “a PCR test pandemic,” not by a novel coronavirus, saying that the PCR test is entirely unreliable, but was used to generate millions of “cases.” Dr. Martin claims that scores of patents were filed as far back as 2008 on features found in Covid 19 - the spike protein, the polybasic cleavage site, and the ace-2 receptor binding domain - by people doing “bioweapons” research at the University of North Carolina (e.g., Dr. Ralph Baric) as well as the US Military’s DARPA, the Wuhan, China, virology lab, and Dr. Anthony Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), much of it intermediated by Peter Daszak of the EcoHealth Alliance, and allegedly involving a criminal conspiracy with several pharmaceutical companies to make a lot of money off an engineered global health emergency. He claims further that the mRNA vaccines are “medical devices” designed to induce illness.

This complex story has its charms (Fuellmich & Martin are very good talkers) and has undergone serial debunkings by some of the usual debunkers, themselves not necessarily reliable organs of debunkery, such as The Washington Post. Dr. Martin appears to be associated with the “Plandemic” crowd and with some marginal crypto-religious groups inveighing against Jewish conspiracies and freemasonry - two big red flags for me.

But we live in a time when reality is exceptionally slippery and there are parts of the story that are now accepted as real in the emergent consensual reality of what actually happened. For instance: that Dr. Anthony Fauci funded gain-of-function research using Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance as a conduit. And the numerous patent records do exist within the stated time-line. The scientific and legal facts around all this are abstruse, and most college-educated (and beyond) Americans might have trouble processing the story.

But this leads to another story that lit up the Internet over the weekend: the 35-piece Twitter thread put out by blogger/podcaster Daryl Cooper under the username “Martyr Made” analyzing why half the country is so angry about being bamboozled by the authorities over the past five years, and why they now doubt the results of the 2020 election. It lit up the Internet because it was concise and clear, showing the immense bad faith that Americans have been subjected to and the resulting institutional perfidy. As I have said here many times, much of this trouble with reality goes back to RussiaGate, the mendacity of which can hardly be over-stated. Here’s an even more concise edited string of Mr. Cooper’s most pungent points:

"The FBI/etc spied on the 2016 Trump campaign using evidence manufactured by the Clinton campaign. We now know that all involved knew it was fake from Day 1… Everyone involved lied about their involvement as long as they could… It’s hard to describe to people on the left (who are used to thinking of gov’t as a conspiracy… Watergate, COINTELPRO, WMD, etc) how shocking & disillusioning this was for people who encourage their sons to enlist in the Army… They could have managed the shock if it only involved the government. But the behavior of the corporate press is really what radicalized them (conservatives). They hate journalists more than they hate any politician or gov’t official, because they feel most betrayed by them… Many of them don’t know for certain whether ballots were faked in November 2020, but they know for absolute certain that the press, the FBI, etc would lie to them if there was. They have every reason to believe that, and it’s probably true.”

That’s a pretty deft summation of what has gone on in this country for a matter of years: complete institutional betrayal. Most of the political establishment is implicated in this, but mainly the Democratic Party as a whole, certain members of the Republican congressional leadership (Senators McConnell, Burr, Rubio and others), officers of the permanent DC bureaucracy, and most damningly, the press. I would also throw in the judiciary, especially the DC federal courts.

So, don’t expect that half of the country to comply with directives or mandates about anything until some of that is corrected, especially the RussiaGate piece. The person assigned to correct that, of course, is named John Durham, now special prosecutor. Many Americans have given up on him for the excellent reason that they have seen one seemingly criminal event after another unspool before them (the Eric Ciaramella/CIA impeachment op; the malicious treatment of General Flynn by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, the Hunter Biden laptop affair, the Fauci gain-of-function funding) with no attempt at formal adjudication, and a bodyguard of lies provided by the news media - and through it all, John Durham is missing-in-action.

It’s been a very long wait and remarkably, absolutely nothing has leaked out of his office in all these months. Is it really possible that Mr. Durham will just slip away down history’s memory hole without ever registering what he spent the last two years doing? Personally, I don’t think that’s possible. It is possible, though, that Attorney General Merrick Garland is interfering with Mr. Durham’s investigation in ways we don’t know about. If so, that would an invitation to some pretty grave civil unrest."

"Moderna Rep Admits Everyone Is Part of Huge Experiment" (Excerpt)

"Moderna Rep Admits Everyone Is Part of Huge Experiment"
by Dr. Joseph Mercola

Except: "In the featured video, which aired June 22, 2021, independent reporter Stew Peters plays an audio recording made by a young woman who suddenly developed Guillain-Barre syndrome after her Moderna injection. Her neurologist believes her condition is the direct result of the COVID shot. Please view the video on Rumble, Google Blogger will not permit it to be embedded: 

While the neurologist filed an adverse event report with the U.S. Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), the woman decided to report it to Moderna as well. The Moderna rep does not appear the least surprised by the injury, and appears to admit he’s received similar reports before.

Everyone Who Gets the Jab Is Part of the Safety Trial: During that call, the Moderna representative reads her the following disclaimer: “The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine has not been approved or licensed by the Food and Drug Administration, but it has been authorized for emergency use by the FDA under an emergency use authorization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019, for use in individuals 18 years of age and older.

There is no FDA-approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19. The EUA for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is in effect for the duration of the COVID-19 EUA declaration, justifying emergency use of the product unless that declaration is terminated or the authorization is revoked sooner.”

The rep also points out that all clinical trial phases are still ongoing, and that long-term protective efficacy against COVID-19 is unknown. When the patient asks whether everyone who gets the COVID shot - even if they did not specifically sign up to be a trial participant - is in fact part of the clinical trial, he replies, with a chuckle, “pretty much, yeah.”

So, in a nutshell, while vaccine makers, health authorities, mainstream media, social media platforms like Facebook and public advertisements tell you the vaccine has undergone rigorous testing, has been “approved” and is safe and effective, none of those claims are true.

The shots have received emergency use authorization only, which is completely different from regular FDA approval and licensing. They don’t know how effective the shot is, or how long the effects last, and they don’t know if it’s safe, because the trials have not been completed. In fact, the public vaccination campaign is a big part of those trials, whether people realize it or not.

Children Are Being Coerced into Medical Experimentation: This makes the push to inject children and teens all the more disturbing. Vaccine manufacturers have received EUA for children as young as 12, and parents are now being told their children “must” participate in what is a medical experiment.

People are being told it’s their social “duty” to participate in a medical experiment. People are told they have to participate in a medical experiment or lose their job or educational prospects. What’s happening here is no different than being told you “must” participate in a new cancer drug trial in order to keep your job or attend school. It’s completely absurd, unethical and illegal.

When people do get the shot, they are not informed that they’re taking part in a medical experiment and they’re not asked to sign a consent form (as this particular requirement is waived under EUA rules). While consent forms are waived under an EUA, providing truthful information about potential side effects is not.

It’s really important to realize that coercing people to participate in medical experimentation violates long-established research ethics rules. If you wanted to perform a medical study and decided to lure participants with free ice cream or a free Playstation, the ethics committee would shut down your project.

The problem here is that the COVID-19 injection trials have no oversight boards. There’s no Data Safety Monitoring Board, no Clinical Event Committee and no Clinical Ethics Committee. This despite the fact that such oversight is standard practice for all human research. If such committees do exist, they’ve not been announced and no standard reports have been published.

Myocarditis Update: Peters also addresses an increasingly common side effect, namely myocarditis, i.e., heart inflammation. Animal research performed by Masonic Medical Research Institute researchers in collaboration with the Boston Children’s Hospital was posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, June 20, 2021.

The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein subunit directly damages the heart and causes myocarditis by triggering an exaggerated immune response - a cytokine storm - in the heart cells.

The study, “Selectively Expressing SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein S1 Subunit in Cardiomyocytes Induces Cardiac Hypertrophy in Mice,”7 found that the spike protein itself (without the rest of the virus) “directly impairs endothelial function.” As it turns out, the S1 subunit of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein activates NF-kB, a protein that controls not only the transcription of DNA but also cellular survival, cytokine production and secondary inflammation.

This disease process does not involve the ACE2 receptor but rather the toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), which is responsible for the detection of pathogens and the initiation of innate immune responses. In summary, the research showed spike protein subunit “caused heart dysfunction, induced hypertrophic remodeling and elicited cardiac inflammation.”

“Since CoV-2-S does not interact with murine ACE2, our study presents a novel ACE2-independent pathological role of CoV-2-S [SARS-CoV-2], and suggests that the circulating CoV-2-S1 [CoV-2-spike protein subunit 1] is a TLR4-recognizable alarmin that may harm the CMs [cardiomyocytes, i.e., heart cells] by triggering their innate immune responses,” the authors state.

In short, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein subunit directly damages the heart and causes myocarditis by triggering an exaggerated immune response - a cytokine storm - in the heart cells. Importantly, hypertrophic remodeling means this is a permanent reshaping and damage of the heart, which refutes claims that the hundreds of myocarditis cases reported to VAERS are of little concern and that their hearts will eventually heal. I believe those assumptions will be found to be wrong, and that many of them may be left with permanently damaged hearts.

‘They Knew What They Were Doing’: As noted by Jane Ruby, Ph.D., on the Stew Peters Show, this research should have been done before these injections were put out into the public domain. Instead of conducting rigorous animal trials, vaccine makers are using the public as guinea pigs in one of the biggest experiments in human history, making tens of billions of dollars in profits while enjoying absolute immunity from any damage their experimental jabs cause.

By falsely labeling these gene modification tools as vaccines (because gene therapy does not qualify as a pandemic treatment that can be granted immunity against liability), they’ve been given the green light to conduct human experimentation without remuneration, informed consent or liability under the guise of a public health emergency.

There’s no way these gene therapies in any rational society would have been released to be tested on this many human subjects, including pregnant women and children, were it not for this sinister misrepresentation.

Here’s the most disturbing part, though: It appears these COVID injections may have been designed to cause this kind of cell damage on purpose. Why? Because the researchers also tested the natural spike protein subunit of another coronavirus called NL63. This virus was chosen because it, like SARS-CoV-2, uses the ACE2 receptor for entry into the human cell. The NL63 spike protein did not, however, trigger this kind of heart damage. “They knew what they were doing when they engineered this mRNA to make this particular spike protein,” Ruby says."
View this complete article here:

"How It Really Is"