"Russia Has Just Issued An Ultimatum To Ukraine, And The Conditions For War Are Now Set"

"Russia Has Just Issued An Ultimatum To Ukraine, 

And The Conditions For War Are Now Set"

by Michael Snyder

"This is not a game. As this crisis has been unfolding in Ukraine, I have been seeing people all over the Internet cheer for either side like they would cheer for their favorite football teams. But these people don’t understand what is at stake. If World War III erupts in Ukraine, it will very likely lead to nuclear war between the United States and Russia down the road. So we should all be deeply grieved over what is happening, because we are getting really close to a point of no return.

One of the good things about the Trump years was that President Trump was not interested in messing with Russia. So the status quo in Ukraine was respected by both sides for four years, and there was relative peace in the region.

But then Joe Biden took power, and he has surrounded himself with an all-star team of warmongers. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff General Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken are all card-carrying members of the War Party, and they don’t seem interested in finding a way to have peace with Russia at all.

After having his security concerns mocked and laughed at for the past year, Vladimir Putin finally admitted that negotiations are at “a dead end” on Monday. It would have been so easy to negotiate a peaceful solution with the Russians that would have kept Russia out of Ukraine, but that isn’t what the War Party wanted.

Now Putin has run out of patience, and on Monday he greatly escalated the crisis by formally recognizing the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk and by announcing that he would be sending troops into the two separatist republics… "Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent on Monday and ordered the Russian army to launch what Moscow called a peacekeeping operation in the area, upping the ante in a crisis the West fears could unleash a major war. Putin told Russia’s defense ministry to deploy troops into the two breakaway regions to “keep the peace” in a decree issued shortly after he announced recognition for Russia-backed separatists there, drawing US and European vows of new sanctions."

I think that Putin wanted to make a move before the Ukrainians did. According to one Russian official, there were “almost 60K Ukrainian military personnel concentrated near the borders of the Republics of Lugansk & Donetsk”, and I think that Putin decided that the only way to keep Ukraine from overrunning the two republics was to move his own forces in first. Hopefully that actually works.

Hopefully the Russians will stay in Donetsk and Luhansk, and hopefully the Ukrainians will stay on their side. If that is the end result, there may still be hope of defusing the situation. But I wouldn’t count on it.

Putin sounds like a man that is convinced that war is coming. The following comes from a very rough translation of his speech on Monday… “From those who took power in Kiev we demand to stop any and all military actions against Donbass. Otherwise, the consequences will be on Ukraine. I count on the support of all patriotic forces in Russia.”

Russia has essentially issued an ultimatum to Ukraine. If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk, the Russians will invade Ukraine. Of course some western media sources are actually using the term “invasion” to describe Russian troop movements into the separatist republics.

If you have bought into that propaganda, let me ask you a question. Do the people in this video look like they have just been “invaded”?…

"Twitter can be a horrible place at times, but tonight’s decision by President Putin to recognise the Donbass republics is the news people there have been looking forward to for 8 years. I’ll sign off tonight with this video from Lenin Square in Donetsk. #Donbass 🇷🇺 pic.twitter.com/l8YJVF84tf, — Dean O’Brien (@DeanoBeano1) February 21, 2022

This would be a good opportunity for both sides to take a deep breath and start backing down. But that isn’t going to happen.

Western leaders continue to use extremely harsh rhetoric and they continue to insist that a full-blown invasion of Ukraine is imminent. The following is what Jake Sullivan just told the Today Show… “We believe that any military operation of the size, scope and magnitude of what we believe the Russians are planning will be extremely violent. It will cost the lives of Ukrainians and Russians, civilians and military personnel alike,” Sullivan said during an appearance on NBC’s “Today.” “But we also have intelligence to suggest that there will be an even greater form of brutality because this will not simply be some conventional war between two armies,” he added. “It will be a war waged by Russia on the Ukrainian people to repress them, to crush them, to harm them.”

And another U.S. official is alleging that Russia has a list of people that they will be specifically targeting once the invasion has been completed… “Disturbing information recently obtained by the United States that indicates that human rights violations and abuses in the aftermath of a further invasion are being planned,” Ambassador Bathsheba Nell Crocker, the US Representative to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, alleges in a letter to Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

These acts, which in past Russian operations have included targeted killings, kidnappings/forced disappearances, unjust detentions, and the use of torture, would likely target those who oppose Russian actions, including Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons,” reads the letter, which was first reported by The Washington Post and obtained by CNN."

So Russia plans to violently round up dissidents, activists and anyone else that is opposed to their rule? Oh, you mean that it will be kind of like what just happened in Canada with the full approval of the U.S. government? If the Biden administration actually cared about human rights, they would be condemning the horrific brutality that we just witnessed in Ottawa. But of course that will never happen.

Let’s watch and see what happens over in Ukraine during the next several days. One very alarming sign is that the Russians have just closed off much of the airspace over the Sea of Azov… "Russia’s Aeronautical Information Center issued a NOTAM (a Notice to Airmen) on Sunday which will close most of the airspace over the Sea of Azov starting at midnight between Sunday and Monday, as the US continued to warn that Russia intends to invade Ukraine."

I don’t think that this indicates that a full-blown invasion of Ukraine is imminent. But at this point the conditions for war have been clearly set. If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk now, the Russians have made it exceedingly clear that they will invade Ukraine. So this actually puts a lot of power into the hands of the War Party in Washington. Joe Biden and his all-star team of warmongers now know exactly what it will take to spark a war. Will they decide to pull the trigger?

Let us hope not, because once World War III begins nothing will ever be the same again."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

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"Decree of the President of the Russian Federation"

Musical Interlude:Walter Murphy, "A Fifth of Beethoven"

Walter Murphy, "A Fifth of Beethoven"

"It's What You Know For Sure..."

“Consider a turkey that is fed every day. Every single feeding will firm up the bird’s belief that it is the general rule of life to be fed every day by friendly members of the human race ‘looking out for its best interests,’ as a politician would say. On the afternoon of the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, something unexpected will happen to the turkey. It will incur a revision of belief.“

- Nouriel Roubini

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. 

It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” 

- Mark Twain

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"When you have eliminated the impossible, 

whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

- Sherlock Holmes

"We Like To Think..."

“We like to think that we are rational beings; humane, conscientious, civilized, thoughtful. But when things fall apart, even just a little, it becomes clear we are not better than animals. We have opposable thumbs, we think, we walk erect, we speak, we dream, but deep down we are still routing around in the primordial ooze; biting, clawing, scratching out an existence in the cold, dark world like the rest of the tree-toads and sloths.”

- “Grey’s Anatomy”

"How It Really Is"

 

"Economic Bubble has Burst and It's Going to Get Messy"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 2/22/22:

"Economic Bubble has Burst and It's Going to Get Messy"

"We are living in a world where every bubble is about to burst. The Fed has the pin to pop it all. Interest rates for the key to keeping the country out of a recession and depression. The Fed really doesn’t seem like helping small business or the average person."

Gregory Mannarino, "Be Ready: A Global Energy Crisis Is Coming"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/22/22:

"Be Ready: A Global Energy Crisis Is Coming"

- https://traderschoice.net/

"Our Leaders Made a Pact with the Devil, and Now the Devil Wants His Due"

"Our Leaders Made a Pact with the Devil,

and Now the Devil Wants His Due"

by Charles Hugh Smith

"Unbeknownst to most people, America's leadership made a pact with the Devil: rather than face the constraints and injustices of our economic-financial system directly, a reckoning that would require difficult choices and some sacrifice by the ruling financial-political elites, our leaders chose the Devil's Pact: substitute the creation of asset-bubble "wealth" in the hands of the few for widespread prosperity.

The Devil's promise: that some thin trickle of the trillions of dollars bestowed on the few would magically trickle down to the many. This was as visibly foolish as the promise of immortality on Planet Earth, but our craven, greedy leadership quickly sealed the deal with the Devil and promptly inflated the greatest credit-asset bubble in human history.

Rather than trade away one's soul, America's leaders traded away the future security and stability of the nation. By refusing to deal with the real problems exposed by the collapsing financial scams in 2008-09, our leaders - both the unelected Federal Reserve and the elected "best government money can buy" - chose to bail out the scammers who had greased their palms so generously and sacrificed the prosperity of the many to do so.

This is more or less the equivalent of sacrificing innocents at the altar of the gods to ensure the leaders' rule will continue to be successful.

The Devil was delighted to serve up the illusion of godlike powers to our corrupt, greedy leaders. The deal looked oh-so win-win: we enrich the top few percent and offload the costs and sacrifices on the powerless many, who were told that they would benefit from the trickle of cash leaking out of the super-wealthy's bulging pockets.

But now the Devil is demanding his due: the unprecedented credit-fueled bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate are popping, and America's corrupt leaders can only stammer and spew excuses and empty promises. All this amounts to begging the Devil to renegotiate the deal because now the downside is not just visible but inevitable. So sorry, America's leadership - the Devil doesn't respond to pleas or threats. Sorry about that; the deal stands as agreed. All your bogus gains and powers will evaporate, and then the destruction really begins.

How does all this end? In ruin, of course. Our craven, self-serving leadership may well bleat, "the Devil made us do it!" but that is not true: they fell all over themselves to sell the future stability and security of the nation for the quick-fix riches of bubbles and corruption."

- https://www.oftwominds.com/

"Never Hunt Mosquitos with a Shotgun"

"Never Hunt Mosquitos with a Shotgun"

by Bob Moriarty


"For game birds and small game, shotguns ranging in size from a tiny .410 to a ginormous ten gauge can be quite effective. For those who have actually tried, it seems possible that you can kill mosquitos with a shotgun. However it is not a great idea because while it may work, you end up doing far more damage to the cat, your kids and the walls of your house in a futile effort to defeat a mosquito.

Mosquitos are an irritation. So are protestors. But mosquitos are by their very nature an irritation. So it is with protestors. They want to be a giant pain in the ass until someone listens to their complaints.

Justin Trudeau and his government don’t think it is worth their time to listen to anyone objecting to how they govern. The protests have gone on for three weeks across Canada but focused on Ottawa. Since the protestors wouldn’t go home Trudeau made up his mind to destroy them and the rule of law in Canada at the same time.

I’m an American. I watched in horror a year ago as the BLM and ANTIF burned cities to the ground with dozens of dead and billions of dollars worth of damage to infrastructure. The government of California, Washington and Oregon did nothing. My most memorable vision was when a MSM mouthpiece stood in front of a burning building and talked about the “mostly peaceful protests.”

The Canadian protestors were peaceful, lawful, didn’t shoot anyone, and didn’t burn any buildings down. They just wanted to be heard. So Trudeau didn’t use a shotgun to kill a mosquito. No. It was worse. He used a hand grenade to kill a mosquito. I’m sure it was effective.

Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act for the very first time reminds me of Hitler’s use of the Enabling Act of 1933 where the government passed laws allowing them to remove all civil protections from anyone daring to disagree with actions of the government. Basically it handed all power to the government.

When Trudeau announced the Emergencies Act he made it clear that it was temporary and would be used for only thirty days. The Emergencies Act was not passed by the legislature; there was no debate and no vote. Only the cabinet and Trudeau enabled it.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has made it clear that she will use the temporary power granted to her to seize bank accounts from protestors and even those who legally donated money for the support of the truckers. She of course is the granddaughter of a Ukrainian Nazi collaborator so has vast experience with advancing the Nazi agenda. She also casually mentioned that some of the provisions of the Emergencies Act would be made permanent in much the same way as the Enabling Act.

The over reaction of the Trudeau regime to the peaceful protests across Canada are just a small part of a far more important issue. While Trudeau may wear the cloak of being the PM, he is nothing but a sock puppet for Klaus Schwab and his plan for turning the majority of people in the world into slaves by 2030. “You will own nothing. You will owe nothing. You will be happy.” We know that is true, have you ever seen a slave who claimed to be unhappy?

We are at the most critical point in world history. The next few weeks will determine our future. Is it freedom and democracy or is it chains and slavery?

There is the greatest dichotomy between what we are told and what we can actually view with our own two eyes in all of history. Governments and the media aren’t lying about a few things or most things. They are lying about everything.

Let’s look at Covid with the knowledge gained in two years.

1. It was a bad flu not worthy of mass hysteria. Yes, Covid kills. The flu has always killed.

2. The “we need to lock down for two weeks to flatten the curve” turned into two years and didn’t work anyway.

3. Masks don’t work. Even the CDC now admits. If masks worked so well, why is Covid still around?

4. Social distancing is meaningless and has never been shown to have any effect on the transmission of Covid.

5. The PCR tests never worked, they generated an absurdly high number of false positives. A prior cold would show the same results as any flu. The CDC finally killed the use of the test at the end of 2021.

6. The CDC admitted that 94% of people, who died, died “with” Covid, not “of” covid. Since the tests generated incorrect results all of the numbers released by the government as to deaths were meaningless.

7. The CDC admitted in April of 2020 that both HCQ and Ivermectin were effective anti-viral medications. Since that killed the legal justification for any EUA for the “vaccine” the CDC retracted the information from public view.

8. The “vaccines” don’t work and in fact may increase the chance of someone coming down with Covid. The most vaccinated countries in the world have the most cases of Covid.

9. Excessive death rates shown in statistics coming from the insurance and health industry show that in the last year, the number of excess deaths over what has always been a stable and predictable rate, are up a remarkable 40% year over year. The jabs not only don’t work, they are killing those who took the shots in the millions already. It is now impossible to ignore the damage from the shots unless you have your head in the sand.

But Klaus Schwab is using the Covid mob hysteria to advance his sick agenda of The Great Reset. Trudeau, Macron and Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand are all part of the Young Global Leaders who Schwab has indoctrinated into advancing his Great Reset plan for mass global slavery.

We have a similar break between what we can see with our own eyes and what we are told from government and the mass media with the truckers' protest in Canada. According to the media, it is some right wing racist gathering of Trump supporters intending to overthrow government in Canada. But for anyone who has watched the hundreds of videos of the convoy driving into Ottawa, it is clearly a movement of ordinary Canadians tired of having their freedom stolen from them by a prime minister and legislature clearly tone deaf and out of control.

When Canadians protest, it is peaceful. The only thing Canadians ever riot for would be a hockey game. Trudeau has called the truckers and supporters every name in the book including insulting a Jewish member of the legislature by suggesting she was a Nazi flag waving radical.

The media says one thing but with our own eyes we can clearly see an entirely different movement asking, indeed, demanding their government change course. Who will win? The police are even more out of control than Trudeau. Anyone who even contributed to the truckers not only had their names passed on to the media, they are subject to having their financial assets seized for doing something that was perfectly legal when they did it.

When does adult leadership in the legal system in Canada or the Military step in and realize what Trudeau and Schwab are turning their country into?

The ongoing Ukraine/Russia saga is another mass media charade where 100% of what we are told is a lie.

In 2014 the US spent $5 billion dollars overthrowing the legally elected government of Ukraine in a coup because the elected government leaned toward Russia rather than toward the bankrupt and corrupt to the gills EU. The Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine that is virtually all Russian voted 96% to rejoin Russia and fighting took place.

By 2016 Ukraine, France, Germany, the UK and Russia realized it was a meaningless conflict and they agreed in the Minsk II agreement that the government of Ukraine would deal directly with Donbass in the future to settle disputes. To date, Ukraine has refused to talk to Donbass. It is not Russia behind the conflict; it is the US, Nato and their sock puppets in Ukraine.

Last fall the Ukrainian government was pushed by the US and Nato to mass their troops on the border of Donbass in preparation for an invasion to restore the region to Ukraine. In response Russia has mobilized their troops to their border. Russia responded to the actions of Ukraine, not the other way around.

Now Ukraine has been shelling Donbass for nearly a week but the media and Nato insist Russia has invaded. Russia hasn’t invaded anyone and it is the government of Ukraine that has been the aggressor all along. None of which you will read in the media. All you get from the media is lies.

This is a conflict between the elites of Davos and Klaus Schwab and the remaining mass of the 99% coming to a head. It is a coup d’état on the part of the elites in an effort to destroy democracy, freedom and the rule of law. The mass media has clearly proven to the world how they support tyranny.

A dozen countries in the world have realized that after two years of lies from governments, Big Pharma and the media, it is time to learn to live with what is nothing more than a bad flu. The truckers' requests for the Canadian government to back off their draconian rules are perfectly reasonable.

Likewise, it is perfectly reasonable for Russia to object to having offensive nuclear missiles right on their border in exactly the same way John F Kennedy did with Cuba in 1962. The Ukraine is not worth starting World War III over even if the Military Industrial Complex sees war as an opportunity.

The next couple of weeks will determine the future of the world. Is it freedom or will the monsters take over under Klaus Schwab."

- http://www.321gold.com/editorials/

"Bank Runs Have Begun! Banks Face Outages As People Rush To Get Their Money Out Of The System"

Full screen recommended.

"Bank Runs Have Begun! Banks Face Outages 

As People Rush To Get Their Money Out Of The System"

by Epic Economist

"In several parts of the world, bank runs have accelerated over the past few days after banking systems mysteriously started to go offline, raising fears that a potential system collapse is looming as geopolitical tensions rise all across the globe. Those who still think that these recent bank outages, closures, and disruptions were isolated events that will soon be fixed, will probably be unpleasantly surprised to discover that this is part of the ‘new normal’.

Conditions in the financial system are making many people lose their trust in banks, especially now that interest rate hikes threaten to unleash a credit crunch similar to what happened during the 2008 financial crisis. But problems in the financial world go way deeper than most people think, and that’s an extremely alarming situation for consumers, who don’t even know what they’re truly in for.

All over the world, and particularly in the U.S., Canada, the UK, and China, thousands of bank branches were suddenly closed since the burst of the health crisis. Banks say this is happening because people are still afraid to leave their homes and have been preferring to make their transactions using online platforms. Operational costs also have been going up, and banks tend to cut on expenses wherever they can.

In 2020, 2,126 bank branches were closed in the United States, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. That was the highest number of bank closures ever recorded until 2021 when roughly 3,000 more branches disappeared from the system without further notice. From March 2020 to October 2021, over 4,000 branches were shut down. Nationwide, Wells Fargo closed a net 267 branch locations in 2020, and that number escalated to 993 by the end of 2021, according to data released in a report conducted by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. “This suggests banks are simply rushing to close as many branches as they can, as quickly as they can, anywhere they can,” the authors highlighted in the report.

And although that itself is a matter of concern, the main problem is that the reduced number of functioning branches and available ATM machines means that many people will not be able to get cash on their hands in case an emergency hits. People will not be able to have access to their savings or regular banking services if an outage occurs.

On top of that, new rules backed by several global economies, including the U.S. government, do not require major banks to ensure that communities will have access to cash when their last branch shuts. In Europe, that has sparked some fierce consumer backlash over the past couple of weeks, but strangely enough, this news hasn’t hit the U.S. headlines just yet. In the UK, some dissatisfied customers started to move their money from their accounts and into their crypto wallets, while others engaged in a bank run to take their money out of the system. As a result, several banks have seized people’s assets and crypto portfolios amid growing fears that bank runs would continue to occur on a ‘faster, greater scale’, according to a recent report published by MarketWatch.

To make things worse, banking insiders are warning that 700 to 800 branches will be closed this year in the U.S. alone, ‘as high street banks continue to cut costs and attempt to speed up the process of digitalization,’ they said. With all things considered, it’s understandable why so many people out there have started to rush to withdraw their money from their accounts before more mandated interruptions are imposed by government authorities. The world’s population is just now realizing that the system is much more fragile than it seems, and that, in fact, their wealth is not protected in their bank accounts.

It won’t be surprising if more bank runs start to occur in the near future. The global population is finally waking up to the reality that those very few people in positions of power can choose to confiscate the money we worked for during our entire lives with no good explanation for it. Keeping in mind that things are going from bad to worse in the financial markets, it’s a good idea to start finding alternatives to protect our wealth before it all starts to fall apart around us. Our leaders won’t come to rescue us, and it is safe to say that bank bureaucrats most certainly won’t."

- https://www.epiceconomist.com/

“Putin Declares Donetsk And Luhansk Independent Countries”

“Putin Declares Donetsk And Luhansk Independent Countries”

○

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, 

but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

- Albert Einstein

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"Something Really Evil Is Happening In Ukraine"

 by Michael Snyder

"How can we figure out exactly what is going on in Ukraine when literally everybody is lying?  Anyone that willingly embraces the propaganda that is being put out by either side without questioning it is simply not being rational.  At a time like this, we must think for ourselves and we must come to our own conclusions.  And we should be doing whatever we can to stop a global war from starting.  For years, I have been warning that the United States and Russia were heading toward war, and now we are almost there.  If we can’t stop it from happening, tens of millions of people could die, and so the stakes are incredibly high.

Do I trust Vladimir Putin? No way. He says that the troops that he has massed on Ukraine’s borders are not a threat. Of course they are a threat. But is it a threat to invade Ukraine, or is it a threat to strike back if Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk?

Of course I don’t trust the Biden administration either. You would be amazed at how many otherwise rational people are telling me that even though the Biden administration has not stopped lying ever since they took power that I should now fully believe everything that they are telling us about Ukraine.

What a joke. Anyone that has unquestioning faith in anything that Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Anthony Blinken or Jake Sullivan has to say is being quite foolish.

I don’t want propaganda. I just want the truth. So what is the truth? Well, that is going to be hard to figure out in an environment where lies are being constantly fired in our direction.

To the best that I can determine, widespread artillery bombardment began less than 24 hours after Russia announced that some troops would start to be pulled back from the border areas. On Friday, the level of shelling was particularly bad.  According to the OSCE, there were over 1,400 explosions “in the rebel held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk” during that 24 hour period…

"Fears of tensions boiling over were backed up by figures released Saturday by the OSCE, which showed there were more than 1,400 explosions in the rebel held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk on Friday. The OSCE’s Special Monitoring Mission that is deployed in the conflict zone said it had logged 553 explosions in Donetsk and a further 860 in neighboring Luhansk – adding that it had confirmed one civilian casualty in a government-controlled area of Donetsk. It put the total number of ceasefire violations on Friday at more than 1,500, compared with 870 the day before, suggesting an upwards trajectory of gunfire and mortars."

What I just shared comes from a British news source, and that is important to note, because western news sources are supposed to be convincing us that the Russians are about to invade Ukraine. But it is the Ukrainians that appear to be prepping for an invasion as they relentlessly pound Donetsk and Luhansk.

Of course the Ukrainians deny this, and some western media sources are actually trying to claim that the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk are shelling themselves hundreds of times in an effort to justify a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

So what is the truth? That is a very good question. It is certainly true that the separatists have been firing back into Ukrainian-held territory, and the government of Ukraine is calling this “provocative firing”. But as far as I can determine, it was the Ukrainians that started firing first. I certainly can’t prove that, because I am just one guy on the other side of the planet trying to figure things out as both sides relentlessly lie to all of us. However, what should be incredibly clear to everyone is that somebody out there really, really wants a war to happen. In the weeks ahead, I think that it will become clear who that is.

The Russians are trying to convince us that Ukraine is preparing to invade Donetsk and Luhansk now that they have been armed to the teeth by the U.S. and other NATO countries… The Kremlin said the supply of weapons and ammunition by NATO countries to Ukraine was pushing Kyiv towards a ‘military solution’ against separatists in the country’s east. ‘As a result, civilians… who have to evacuate to Russia to escape the intensifying shelling, suffer,’ the Kremlin added.

On the other hand, the Biden administration is trying to convince us that Russia is trying to “create a false pretext for invasion” because Putin is a madman that desperately wants to get his hands on Ukraine.  In fact, Kamala Harris says that what we are witnessing is right out of the “playbook of Russian aggression”…“There is a playbook of Russian aggression,” Harris told the heads of state and government, foreign dignitaries and a large delegation from the United States. “And this playbook is too familiar for us all. Russia will plead ignorance and innocence. It will create a false pretext for invasion. And it will amass troops and firepower in plain sight.”

So who is right and who is wrong? Just hours ago, we learned that U.S. officials have supposedly gotten new “intelligence” that Putin has issued “an order to go ahead with an invasion of Ukraine”…"The U.S. has picked up intelligence showing that Russian military officials were given an order to go ahead with an invasion of Ukraine, a U.S. official and another person with knowledge of the matter told NBC News. The intelligence, which was developed very recently, informed President Joe Biden’s startling declaration Friday that the U.S. believes President Vladimir Putin has already decided to invade, the people said."

I don’t think that Russia is going to invade Ukraine today. Or tomorrow. Or the next day. In fact, I don’t think that he wants to invade Ukraine at all. But I do think that Putin definitely wants to keep Ukraine out of NATO and western missiles off of his doorstep. Just check out some remarks that he made late last year… “It is you who must give us guarantees, and you must do it immediately, right now,” he said at his annual news conference late last year. “Are we deploying missiles near the US border? No, we are not. It is the United States that has come to our home with its missiles and is already standing at our doorstep.”

I also think that Putin is very interested in keeping Ukraine out of Donetsk and Luhansk. If Ukraine invades Donetsk and Luhansk and starts taking lots of territory, I think that Putin will feel forced to intervene. And then western leaders will have the “Russian invasion” that they have been promising us.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made headlines all over the globe when he warned that the Russians are planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945”… "Evidence suggests Russia is planning “the biggest war in Europe since 1945”, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said. He told the BBC’s Sophie Raworth in an interview: “All the signs are that the plan has already in some senses begun.” Intelligence suggests Russia intends to launch an invasion that will encircle Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Mr Johnson said."

No, I don’t think that is what the Russians truly want. But if neither side backs down, I think that is exactly what we are going to get. Nobody should be invading anybody. The Russians should not invade Ukraine, and the Ukrainians should not invade Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ultimately, everybody should just take a step back and relax. But it appears that is not going to happen.  Thanks to all of the shelling in Donetsk and Luhansk, the Russians have announced that they will be extending their “military drills” in Belarus indefinitely… "Russia will extend its military drills with Belarus because of rising violence in Ukraine’s Donbas region, the government in Minsk said, as Russian President Vladimir Putin accepted a new round of talks with Kyiv amid warnings of an imminent Russian invasion."

If war starts, that will plunge the U.S. and Russia into a permanent state of conflict. Of course missiles would not start flying back and forth immediately.  At first, both sides would use other measures to put pressure on the opposing side. But eventually a breaking point would be reached, and someone would go for the jugular. We must not allow things to get to that point. Because if we do cross that line, tens of millions of people could die in a war that nobody wants."

- http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

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Full screen recommended.

"Putin Orders Forces Into Ukraine Breakaway Regions"

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"Putin Orders Peacekeeping Operation In Ukraine's Breakaway Regions"

by Tyler Durden

Update (525pm ET): "In the latest development out of the Donbas, Reuters reports that under its new agreement with separatist leaders, Russia has a right to build and establish military bases in eastern Ukraine.

BREAKING: Russia’s agreements just signed with the LPR and DPR give the right to use military infrastructure and military bases on each other’s territory, and provide for joint protection of the borders of Donbass

— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) February 21, 2022

Meanwhile, as the night progresses in eastern Ukraine, we are now getting footage of "peacekeepers" being bussed in to the Donbas across the border.

#Ukraine: Footage of #Russia’s military “peacekeepers” being bussed in to the Donbas across the border. This is essentially the beginning of the invasion. pic.twitter.com/7pUgkJrJzQ"

— Jake Hanrahan (@Jake_Hanrahan) February 21, 2022

- https://www.zerohedge.com/

Must Watch! “Terrifying Signs Of Financial Crisis; Walking Through An Economic Collapse; Heading For A Crash Soon”

Full screen recommended.

Jeremiah Babe, PM 2/21/22:

“Terrifying Signs Of Financial Crisis; Walking Through

 An Economic Collapse; Heading For A Crash Soon”

Musical Interlude: The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"; "Eye In The Sky"

 

The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"

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Full screen!

The Alan Parsons Project, "Eye In The Sky"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Point your telescope toward the high flying constellation Pegasus and you can find this expanse of Milky Way stars and distant galaxies. Centered on NGC 7814, the pretty field of view would almost be covered by a full moon. NGC 7814 is sometimes called the Little Sombrero for its resemblance to the brighter more famous M104, the Sombrero Galaxy.

Both Sombrero and Little Sombrero are spiral galaxies seen edge-on, and both have extensive central bulges cut by a thinner disk with dust lanes in silhouette. In fact, NGC 7814 is some 40 million light-years away and an estimated 60,000 light-years across. That actually makes the Little Sombrero about the same physical size as its better known namesake, appearing to be smaller and fainter only because it is farther away. A very faint dwarf galaxy, potentially a satellite of NGC 7814, is revealed in the deep exposure just below the Little Sombrero.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131025.html

"This Difficult Thing of Being Human"

"This Difficult Thing of Being Human"

by Bodhipaksa

"It's always good to remember that life isn't easy. I don't mean to say that life is always hard in the sense of it always being painful. Clearly there are times when we're happy, when things are going well, when we feel that our life is headed in the right direction and that even greater fulfillment is just ahead of us, etc. What I mean is that even when we have times in our life that are good, that doesn't last. In fact, often the things we're so excited and happy about later turn out to be things that also cause us suffering.

For example, you start a brand new relationship and you're in love and it's exciting and fulfilling. And then you find yourself butting heads with your partner, and you hurt each others feelings. Maybe you even split up. Does that sound familiar?

For example, the new job that you're thrilled about turns out to contain stresses you hadn't imagined. Has that ever happened?

For example, the house you're so pleased to have bought inevitably ends up requiring maintenance. Or perhaps the house value plummets. Or perhaps your circumstances change and you find it a struggle to meet the mortgage. Maybe you've been lucky, or maybe you've been there.

Happiness has a way of evaporating. Unhappiness has a way of sneaking up on us and sucker-punching us in the gut.

On a deep level, none of really understand happiness and unhappiness. If we truly understood the dynamics of these things, we'd be happy all the time and would never be miserable. We'd be enlightened. But pre-enlightenment, we're all stumbling in the dark, and sometimes colliding painfully with life as we do so.

This being human is not easy. We're doing a difficult thing in living a human life. It's good to accept all this, because life is so much harder when we think it should be easy. When we think life should be straightforward, and that we think we have it all sorted out, then unhappiness becomes a sign that we've  failed. And that makes being in pain even more painful.

We haven't failed when we're unhappy; we're just being human. We're simply experiencing the tender truth of what it is to live a human life. So when you're unhappy, don't beat yourself up about it. Don't fight it. Accept that this is how things are right now. Often when you do that, you'll very quickly - sometimes instantly - start to feel better. By accepting our suffering, we start to move through it. And as you look around you, realize that everyone else is doing this difficult thing of being human too. They're all struggling. We're all struggling. We all want happiness and find happiness elusive. We all want to avoid suffering and yet keep stumbling into it, over and over.

Many of the things that bother you about other people are their attempts to deal with this difficult existential situation, in which we desire happiness, and don't experience as much of it as we want, and desire to be free from suffering, and yet keep becoming trapped in it. Their moods, their clinging, their anger - all of these are the results of human beings struggling to find happiness, and having trouble doing so.

If we can recognize that this human life is not easy - if we can empathize with that very basic existential fact - then perhaps we can be just a little kinder to ourselves and others. And that would help make this human life just a little easier to navigate."

- https://www.wildmind.org/

The Poet: David Whyte, "The Winter of Listening"

"The Winter of Listening"

"No one but me by the fire,

my hands burning red in the palms while

the night wind carries everything away outside.

All this petty worry while the great cloak

of the sky grows dark and intense

round every living thing.

What is precious inside us does not

care to be known by the mind

in ways that diminish its presence.

What we strive for in perfection

is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire,

what disturbs and then nourishes

has everything we need.

What we hate in ourselves

is what we cannot know in ourselves but

what is true to the pattern does not need

to be explained.

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy

waiting to be born.

Even with the summer so far off

I feel it grown in me now and ready

to arrive in the world.

All those years listening to those

who had nothing to say.

All those years forgetting how everything

has its own voice to make itself heard.

All those years forgetting how easily

you can belong to everything

simply by listening.

And the slow difficulty

of remembering how everything

is born from an opposite

and miraculous otherness.

Silence and winter

has led me to that otherness.

So let this winter of listening

be enough for the new life

I must call my own."

- David Whyte,

"The House of Belonging"

"Marooned!"

"Marooned!"

by Bill Bonner

"We shall not cease from exploration,

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time."

~ T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding”

Youghal, Ireland - "A storm named Eunice hit Ireland over the weekend. Winds of 122 mph were recorded in nearby Britain, the fastest ever. Gusts blew over trees by the thousands, including several at our place. One closed the road to the south of us… another fell over the road to the north…leaving us marooned.

Here in Ireland, it’s the property owner’s responsibility to keep his trees from blocking the road, so we made haste to cut them up – while watching the nearby trees in the hopes that none would fall upon us whilst we were working.

Something always goes wrong when you are cutting up fallen trees. They are puzzling, limbs tangled in other trees… and often, power lines; it’s not always clear in which direction they are sprung. So when you go to cut a branch, it can move in unexpected ways, either trapping your chainsaw or smashing you in the face. This occasion was no exception. “You never know which way they’re going to go,” said Tommy, a cigarette in his mouth and a chainsaw in his hands. He had just cut off a limb which, unexpectedly, fell on your editor, knocking him to the ground. But no harm was done… and overall, we had a jolly time of it.

To the north and south, roads were blocked.

Enough Rope: Meanwhile, the noose around the Fed’s neck grows tighter. Bloomberg: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and his colleagues in the coming week can expect to see their key inflation metric accelerate to a fresh four-decade high last seen when Paul Volcker led the U.S. central bank.

The personal consumption expenditures price index, which the Fed uses for its inflation target, probably jumped 6% in January from a year earlier, according to the median of a Bloomberg survey of economists. The core measure, which excludes food and fuel, is forecast to climb 5.2%. Less than a month before the Fed’s next policy meeting, a sharper-than-projected advance in the price gauge could turn up the heat for a half-point increase in the benchmark interest rate. January’s consumer-price index rose more than forecast, with broad advances in the costs of goods and services.

Inflate or Die. Either the Fed continues with its reckless money-printing. Or it ‘tightens up,’ in which case you can say goodbye to the bubble economy. Paul Volcker was the last competent Fed chief. He was also the last one to tighten the money supply in order to stifle inflation. That is not to say that he was always right about what was going on. But when push came to shove, Volcker pushed back… and stopped inflation. But that was 40 years ago.

On Friday, we were looking at the long cycles of the markets. In a nutshell, prices go up and down in patterns that last for decades. Why? Because markets are part of human life. And like almost everything else in life – we make an exception for science and technology, where real progress is possible – there are deeply imbedded patterns, models, and archetypes.

Why do we fall in love? Is there a law that tells us we must? And then, why do we get married? Love and marriage just seem to go together… well… like a horse and carriage. And then, we have children… and they have children… and life goes on. Good? Bad? We don’t know, but it’s been going on for a long time, following a template we recognize, but can never completely understand.

When winter comes, it does not keep getting colder and colder until the whole planet is an ice ball. After winter, comes spring… and then summer. So too are we beset by seasons of hope… followed by bleak despair… happy booms, followed by grim busts… war and peace… love and hate… sin and redemption.

We learn… and then re-learn… the same lessons, over and over. Storms come. Storms go.

Primary Trends: Markets merely reflect these seasons of delight and discomfort. And it is not surprising that the ‘long waves’ are so long. One generation learns. The next forgets. It has been roughly a generation since Paul Volcker tamed inflation. Since then, price inflation has been generally declining. We don’t think about fixing our roofs when the sun is shining. And we don’t worry about rising interest rates when yields have been going down as long as we can remember.

Bond yields hit a low after WWII (about the time your editor was born). Then, they rose for the next 30 + years… and then fell again for the next 40 + years. Now they seem to be rising again. The long trends – the ‘primary’ trends – in the stock market are long too. Stocks hit a high in 1929, after which investors waited 27 years (inflation adjusted) for a new high. Measured from the bottom, in 1932, prices rose for 34 years to reach the next top, in 1966.

Then, it was down again, with investors in a losing trade for the next 29 years. Finally, in 1995, the Dow traded once again (inflation adjusted) at levels last seen in 1966. And then, with the Dow at 5,300, it was off to the races with another huge bull market run, which took it over 36,000 in 2021. From the bottom of that cycle – which came in August 1982 to today – stocks have been going up for nearly 40 years.

So, what’s ahead? It is tempting to simply expect another big, long run to the downside. If the pattern holds, investors won’t see these highs again until 2047 – at least. Should you bail out now? As we showed on Friday, measured in gold, stocks have gone nowhere for the last 93 years. You could buy the entire group of Dow stocks for 18 ounces of gold in 1929. Those same 18 ounces will buy the Dow today.

So why bother? Dividends! Companies make goods and provide services. They are the source of real wealth – which they share with stockholders. The trick is to know when to hold ‘em… and know when to fold ‘em. Is that possible? No. Not exactly. But we might be able to give ourselves an edge. Stay tuned..."

- bonnerprivateresearch@substack.com

"The Definition Of Hell..."

 

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

- Charles Frazier

The Daily "Near You?"

Solway, Minnesota, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Grocery Prices Skyrocketing At Target! This Is Ridiculous!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures with Danno, AM 2/21/22:

"Grocery Prices Skyrocketing At Target! This Is Ridiculous!"

"In today's vlog we visit Target and are noticing ridiculously high prices. Prices on groceries continue to rise, as we are also witnessing more empty shelves! It's getting rough out here as stores are struggling to get in products."

Gregory Mannarino, "Markets, A Look Ahead"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/21/22:

"Markets, A Look Ahead"

- https://traderschoice.net

"Banks are Ripping Us Off! - Beware of the Hidden Fees"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, iAllegedly, AM 2/21/22:

"Banks are Ripping Us Off! - Beware of the Hidden Fees"

"Beware of the hidden fees. They are everywhere and the tighter the economy gets the more we have these ridiculous fees. From Banking, Entertainment, Travel to everyday shopping we have hidden fees that we have to combat."

"How It Really Should Be"

"The Devil’s Work"

"The Devil’s Work"

by The Zman

"There is an old expression that has fallen out of favor in the post-scarcity age, but it may be the key to understanding the current crises. That expression is, “Idle hands do the Devil’s work.” When people do not have anything productive and useful to do with their time, they are more likely to get involved in trouble and criminality. A variant of this is “The Devil makes work for idle hands.” The idea there is if you want to avoid Old Scratch, then make sure you keep yourself useful to God.

The source of these proverbs is unknown, but variations of them go back to the early middle ages, so it is probable they evolved with Christianity. It is not unreasonable to think the idea is universal to civilization. After all, every human society has had to deal with the idle, lazy, and troublesome. Making sure these people are kept too busy to cause trouble is one of those primary challenges of civilization. Every ruler has known that too many idle young men is bad for his rule.

Even in the smaller context, this is something we instinctively know. In the workplace, people with too much free time get into trouble. If the IT staff has too much free time, they start tinkering around with the stuff that is working and before long that stuff stops working and the system goes down. A big part of what goes on inside the schools is to keep the kids and the teachers busy. Home schoolers have known for years that the learning content is just a few hours a day. The rest is busy work.

The point here is that people of all ages need a purpose, something that occupies their mind and their time. If something useful and productive is not filling that need, then something useless or unproductive will fill the void. For most people this may be a hobby or leisure activity. For others, it often means a useless activity is turned into something important. Elevating the mundane to the level of the critical and then creating drama around the performance of the mundane activity.

This is what we see in our political class. The ruling class of every society has a ceremonial role, a procedural role, and a practical role. Outside of a crisis like a war or natural disaster, the political class is performing its duties in the same way a line worker in a factory preforms his role. In popular government this means the pol shows up at public events. He performs the tasks his office requires like signing papers and casting votes. He helps grease the wheels when they need grease.

Into the 20th century, most of our political offices were part-time jobs. State legislatures met for a short period during the year. Otherwise, the legislators were back home doing their jobs. Executive positions like governor and president were fulltime jobs, as they were in charge of the civil service and in the case of president, commander-in-chief of the military. Within living memory, Washington DC would empty out in the spring and remain empty until the fall when Congress returned.

What we see today is politics at all levels has become a full-time job, but one with less to do when it was considered a part-time job. Congress, for example, is something close to a 24-hour drama now. The politicians and their retinues are now doing politics as a full-time obsession. Yet almost all of what they do is unnecessary. In fact, much of what they do is harmful. Very few things passed by Congress enjoy the support of the majority of the people or even a large plurality.

It is not just that these part-time jobs have been made into full-time obsessions. It is that much of what we used to need from government is now filled by individuals, ad hoc networks, and the private sector. Much of what government does is actually done by private contractors on government contracts. One of the ironies of the post-Cold War world is that the federal workforce has declined relative to the population, while the number of people employed in politics has gone up.

Then there is the fact that much of what government does could be automated or simply eliminated entirely. The services that are required like renewing licenses and paying fees can all be automated. In many cases they have been, but that did not result in fewer people, as we see in the dreaded private sector. Instead, it resulted in more idle hands looking for a purpose. On the political side, much of what Congress does could also be eliminated or automated.

What has happened in the last 30 years is we have grown the idle class at the top of our society and while decreasing their necessity. Much of what goes on in our politics is make work designed to get public attention. Think about it. If the cable news channels were shuttered and the social media platforms run by the oligarchs were closed, what would change in America? Nothing of practical importance. Our world would get quieter and there would be a boom in forgotten hobbies.

American political culture evolved during the Cold War to fight communism and prevent a nuclear war. Those were important tasks that occupied the minds and hands of the political class. Once those things went away, those idle hands searched about for a new crisis. Health care, Gaia worship, Islam and now invisible Nazis have been used to keep the idle hands of the political class busy. In the process, the political class has been driven mad and is threatening the rest of society."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

"You Better Decide..."

“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"

“'Joe Biden' Wins World War Three"

“'Joe Biden' Wins World War Three"

by Jim Kunstler

"Woo-wee, that was a close call, huh? But remind me: what was the war supposedly about? Protecting Ukraine’s hallowed border? Bwahahahaha…! Borders? We don’t care about no steenkin’ borders (especially our own border). Upholding the sacred honor of NATO? Really? Who exactly would be punished if the US tries to shut down the Nord Stream-2 pipeline that will send much-needed Russian natgas to gasless Germany? (Did you guess our NATO ally, Germany?) Would Germany suddenly discover that the pipeline is none of America’s business? I think so.

Anyway, what’s the beef in Ukraine? Its easternmost Donbas region has rebelled against administration by Kiev. At America’s direction, Kiev harasses the majority ethnic Russian population there with US-made weaponry. Yet Ukraine’s president Zelensky claims he doesn’t want to antagonize Russia, and certainly wants his much-stomped-upon country - the doormat of Europe - to not get stomped-on all over again in any hypothetical war. Ukraine is already an economic basket-case, supported only by CIA-sponsored grifting operations.

Enter Monsieur Macron of France. After two years of antagonizing his countrymen with lockdowns and put-downs, he needs a boost for the national election forthcoming in April. So, he has heroically sued Mr. Putin of Russia for a Ukraine “ceasefire.” Note: the Russians haven’t fired. Anyway, that opened the way for a proposed “summit” meeting between “Joe Biden” and Mr. Putin - when the Russians feel like it. They’re playing it a little coy for the moment, letting the West twist slowly, slowly in the wind. If a summit does happen, what will the two summiteers talk about? Mr. Putin will reiterate that the US and NATO made a solemn promise (in writing) to not expand NATO along Russia’s borderland in 1990 when the Soviet Union fell apart, and y’all reneged on that… and now it stops with Ukraine… really… got it?

“Joe Biden” will not have a coherent response. Maybe he’ll want to talk ice cream flavors or dogs. He is, as the Russians say, not negotiation-worthy, though he can be trotted out for photo ops. But “Joe Biden” needs a big win so he can brag on something in his State of the Union address. His Democratic Party is looking everyday more and more like some hell-borne spawn of Satan bent on wrecking what’s left of the old USA. Everything they’ve done since 2016 has degraded the life of the nation - weaponizing the “Intel Community,” queering a national election, besetting the people with race-and-gender mindf**kery, and inflicting the deadly “vaccines” on the population to “fix” the Fauci-created Covid-19 crisis. Never has the country seen a president so obviously incompetent and unpopular. The people backstage running him like an animatronic automaton are in a panic.

By default, then, the summit meeting will be game-set-and-match, Mr. Putin, only both parties will pretend that it’s some kind of moral victory for “JB,” while Russia gets exactly the terms it seeks: Nord Stream-2 will be completed and Germany will get natgas; there will be no additional stupid sanctions and get rid of the old ones; and the US will close up its CIA shop in Kiev and quit all the pointless antagonism. There will be peace in that corner of the world. And then, on cue, the West’s financial system will implode.

Yes, that’s what is actually going on in the background. That roar you hear is bad credit whooshing out of the banks. It looks like we’re going to get both a ripping inflation and a collapse of equities and assets all at once - with a side-dish of disappearing livelihoods, vaporizing pensions, and sinking standards-of-living. One surmises that all the meshugas over Ukraine was designed as a distraction from the financial disorders now at hand. The news media has faithfully played the Ukraine story to the max while ignoring the growing disarray in North America.

The Toronto Star barely even reported today on the weekend dispersion of truckers in Ottawa - like it never happened… a kind of national hallucination. The big rigs are gone from the streets around Parliament Hill, but one suspects the action isn’t over. Mr. Trudeau’s stupid vaxx mandates are still in place and every passing day more is known about their inefficacy and ghastly after-effects. Nor has the national legislature of Canada voted, as required, in support of the Emergencies Act - meaning that the financial punishments inflicted on the truckers and their supporters was arguably illegal.

Down here in the Land of the Free our truckers are marshaling for the Great US Trucker Convoy of 2022 outside of Barstow, California, to proceed eastward-ho Wednesday morning for our nation’s capital. The notorious fences are back up around the Capitol building. No doubt, the feds will try to shut down the bridges across the Potomac, but there are plenty of back doors into the District. Will “Joe Biden” resort to the same financial intimidation tactics that Mr. Trudeau pulled on his truckers - go after their bank accounts and confiscate assets? Let’s hope the US truckers learned that lesson from the Great White North and have made other arrangements. What if the DC police attempt an Ottawa-style beat-down against our badass truckers? To paraphrase the old American folk song goes: I wouldn’t want to be them on that dreadful day…"

- https://kunstler.com/

"Holding On To Something..."

Sam: "It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something."

Frodo: "What are we holding onto, Sam?"

Sam: "That there's some good in the world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for."

- Samwise Gamgee,

"Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers"