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Sunday, July 13, 2025

"Fear, Corruption, and the Coming Collapse of the American System"

"Fear, Corruption, and the Coming 
Collapse of the American System"
by Doug Casey's Take

"Matt Smith: All right. Good morning, Doug. Lots happening these days. I’d love to get your take on - I think starting with the Epstein case. Case closed, apparently. What do you think? What’s going on?

Doug Casey: Well, where to start on this thing? It’s so ultra disappointing, so embarrassing, and so serious that it’s hard to figure out where to begin. But it’s been obvious to me, from watching these things, that this could only end very, very badly. And it’s shameful the way Bongino and Patel - who made a point of saying how honest they were and how they were going to reform things - have just backed off and said there’s nothing there. And then this woman - Bondi. That was equally inexplicable. She says she’s got all this stuff on her desk, ready to go, and it turns out she doesn’t have it after all. There’s clearly corruption here. It’s very bad.

And it occurred to me how similar this might be to the famous Dreyfus case in France, around the turn of the 20th century. I became, to use a French phrase, a cause célèbre, and overturned the government. This has got the potential to do the same thing.

Matt Smith: One of the things I was thinking about with the whole thing is: what does it take to make these people, who have impeached themselves publicly recently by making claims about evidence that existed - and who have been champions for this cause, for transparency around this for so long - but again, some of these people have now publicly impeached themselves, like Pam Bondi and others, to make this kind of U-turn?

It is such a drastic U-turn, it implies something really scary to me. Because I don’t think you do this for self-gain. I don’t think you can be bribed into destroying yourself like this. I think fear is the only thing that could possibly motivate someone to do this. So there is something they’ve been exposed to that is so scary to them that they are willing to destroy their whole sense of identity - their reputation - over it. Fear is the only thing I can even imagine that would do it. And it’s got to be fear that probably most of us have never experienced.

I try to put myself in that role, and I think maybe the fear of watching my children be brutalized in front of me might make me do this. But other than that, I just can’t imagine it. I really can’t imagine. So I think the implications are actually pretty frightening.

Doug Casey: Yeah. I don’t see how Bongino in particular can live with himself. It’s like overturning his whole persona. Everybody knows these people are lying. The question is: why are they lying? Fear, of course - I think you’re right. Because no amount of money would do it. These guys have plenty of money. Bongino and Patel can’t be doing it to maintain their crappy government jobs. They don’t need that. They don’t need money. By doing this and discrediting themselves, Patel and Bongino are going to be marked men for the rest of their lives. Public frauds.

What’s going on? What are the secrets that somebody is trying to hide? Could it be that Trump himself is implicated with what Epstein was doing? Or are there so many high government officials and billionaires that are so heavily involved in really disgusting things that it would overturn all credibility in the US government and the US power structure? This is a big deal.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I think it’s a really big deal. And I think it shows what we’re really dealing with here. Because I don’t know what exactly would be revealed by revealing all the Epstein stuff, but the motivation of the people who are willing to destroy themselves in order to cover it up implies something insidious, something dangerous, something scary - probably something beyond our comprehension.

Doug Casey: It must be that. And haven’t these people thought this out a little bit? It’s really simple. Patel and Bongino - I don’t know anything about Bondi—but if you double back like this, it’s obvious that you’re being intimidated or lying. What did they think was going to happen? So it must be that they’re being threatened on a really serious level. That’s the only thing I can figure.

Matt Smith: That’s the only thing I can figure too. So, the other thing - I have basically just a whole list of random news items. I think maybe they’re connected, maybe they’re not connected, but I think they’re interesting. I want you to comment on them.

The second one is that the US Army Corps of Engineers is active today in essentially rebuilding a whole bunch of Israeli defense structures. You know, it’s not just that we’re sending weapons. It’s that that we’re actively involved. The US Army Corps of Engineers is actually rebuilding infrastructure to accommodate the Israeli Air Force’s new refueling aircraft and helicopters, as well as constructing new headquarters for their 13th Naval Commando Unit, and numerous other projects. This is costing billions of shekels, and it’s all according to official documents from the US Army Corps of Engineers published online.

Doug Casey: Well, perhaps this relates in some way to the Epstein scandal. Why is Israel, in effect, being turned into the 51st state—and treated even better than a state? The money that’s being directed there—couldn’t the Army Corps of Engineers be helpful to the Carolinas or Texas instead?

Israel is getting a lot more attention than actual states in the US. This is frankly criminal. Look, I’ve never been anti-Israel per se. It’s just another nation-state. I understand why the Jews started it, and all that. I get it, and I’ve always been sympathetic, especially since I’m not sympathetic to the Muslim world. But this? What’s the matter with Trump? He looks like he’s under Netanyahu’s thumb.

Maybe it ties into the whole Epstein thing. Because apologists for Israel - like Mark Levin and Ben Shapiro - are rabid. They’re frothing and drooling at the mouth when anything is said that might possibly be counter to Israel’s interests. Wait a minute - who are they working for? What’s going on here?

Matt Smith: And in addition to that, we have Trump’s announcement that we’ll be sending more weapons to Ukraine.

Doug Casey: Yeah. Got to continue the war. A pointless war. It should be completely obvious to everybody that Russia is going to win. Instead of ending the war Trump is making it much worse. Everyone has forgotten the reason they invaded is because they were provoked.

Trump is continuing the war at great expense. Young men are getting killed and maimed pointlessly. It’s crazy. You can’t justify it. You can’t rationalize it. Just like you can’t rationalize attacking Iran - a country on the other side of the world that’s never done anything to the US - just because it helps the Israelis. This isn’t our problem, but we’ve made it a much bigger one by getting involved.

There are lots of other problems in Trump world. Like the fact that there have been no indictments handed down, and there should have been by now. There have apparently been no investigations on anything, although I’ve heard they’re supposed to be starting something on Comey. It looks like DOGE is dead or dying. Musk has quit in disgust. That was supposed to be the centerpiece of the Trump regime.

Matt Smith: Well, maybe it goes back to our first point: that there’s something out there scaring the hell out of enough people that they’re willing to do things that shock us all, perhaps. And incidentally, my friend from Ukraine - she lives in Kyiv - told me that a lot of the recent Russian attacks there have targeted recruitment centers. These are the conscription centers, and apparently, there was a lot of praise among some people in Kyiv over that. But some officials came out and denounced it as treasonous to be happy about the destruction of those recruitment facilities. Just a side note, but it shows what happens to a country in a state of war. It becomes a very dangerous place to live.

Doug Casey: Yes. The rumors have been floating around for some time that it’s not just recruitment - they’re actually sending out press gangs to round up anyone who looks like good cannon fodder on the front lines. And with the nature of warfare now, “cannon fodder” is the right term. With drones advancing in technology almost weekly, if you’re a soldier on the front lines you’re dead meat.

Matt Smith: Yeah, it’s awful. The next thing that stood out to me - among everything else that’s happening - was this big press announcement today by the former governor of South Dakota Kristi Noem. And this is great news: apparently now, in TSA it’s no longer necessary to take off your shoes.

Doug Casey: That’s good. It means flying won’t be quite as degrading. But I suppose you’re still going to have to take off your belt and everything else.

Matt Smith: Yeah, and still go through screening. And if some alarm goes off, or you’re randomly selected, you still get the pat-down by some agent of the state. So yeah - it’s still not good. But this is what’s being trumpeted as progress, I guess, for the American people.

The other thing that seems totally unrelated - but I think it’s noteworthy - is that over the weekend, there was this incredible anti-gringo sentiment. Really, riots or protests in Mexico City. And I don’t know if these things are organized - it seems like most of these big groups are organized by someone, you know, Soros types to sow discontent - but it just shows that the world is becoming a lot less friendly and a lot more risky across the board. And I don’t know if you saw any of those signs, but they were saying things like “Kill a gringo,” “Gringo go home,” all that kind of stuff. Pretty nasty environment.

Doug Casey: Apparently this was all in Mexico City. I’ve been to Mexico City a couple of times in recent years, and it never struck me that there were a lot of gringos there. If you want to find gringos in Mexico, you go to San Miguel de Allende - full of gringos - or better yet, down to Cabo, which is absolutely full of them. No protests there. Why in Mexico City, of all places? Who could care enough about a few gringos running around in a city of 15 million? It doesn’t make any sense.

Matt Smith: Yeah, it doesn’t. But I think it’s just another sign - like, I don’t think these big movements are organic. Just like BLM wasn’t organic. Just like Antifa seems inorganic. It seems to me there’s another effort to divide people, to create conflict. And this is one that - at least for Americans living abroad - you have to be aware of. You have to be aware of it. You’d think, of all people, Mexicans could see the comedic irony in “Gringos go home” when the US is full of tens of millions of Mexicans.

Doug Casey: I know. Don’t these people have any self-awareness at all? Which, of course, leads me to believe that there’s some group that’s trying to create chaos. And I think you were getting into this. The fact that foreigners, Canadians and certainly Europeans, really don’t want to come to the US anymore. It feels like an unfriendly place. Your electronic devices might be searched, you could be forced to unlock them and show what’s there. And if they don’t like it, maybe they’ll do something to you. Maybe they’ll throw you in a prison for a few days while they sort your papers out.

This has happened to several Canadians already, which seems really out of line. Everything considered, if I were a foreigner, I wouldn’t want to come back to the US. In fact, as an American, I’m not sure I want to go back to the US. The summer’s still young, and things could still get wild and woolly.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I’m not going. And with the new requirement - if you’re applying for a particular type of visa, I think it’s just a visitor or educational visa - you now have to unlock all your social media accounts. And in the statement, as I understand it, it didn’t just say list all your social media accounts - it said unlock them. Which makes me think that Palantir is already hard at work and has probably identified you and all your accounts, and they just want to make sure it’s all visible. And if you don’t fully disclose, they can drop you into a Kafka-esque nightmare, where they accuse you of not disclosing everything, and now you’re really in trouble.

And there’s this other thing going on - this hasn’t gotten national news, and I don’t know why, because it’s a huge deal - there are coordinated attacks on ICE agents by armed, masked, body-armored, well-armed, apparently leftist groups that are unhappy with the deportation agenda. You can just see this escalating in wild ways as it continues. And the budget for ICE grew 800% in the “Big Beautiful Bill.” It’s now something like nearly $75 billion - up from around $8 billion.

Doug Casey: That’s a gigantic increase in budget. And even that is dwarfed by the $200 billion increase in the military budget. Further proof that the “Big Beautiful Bill” is just a tax-and-spend bill. That’s really what it is - and it’s not in any way improving the freedoms of the average American.

I wonder if Michael Yon could be right when he says that many thousands of the illegal migrants are actually surreptitious military agents who can be activated at the right time. It’d be shocking to imagine there wouldn’t be some of them in there. If you run an intel agency somewhere and you see an opportunity - “Hey, now’s our chance to slip some in” - you’d almost be abdicating your duty not to do it.

Matt Smith: If, for instance, I were running a foreign intel agency and I wanted to create chaos in the US, I might tell some of my guys already here to track down ICE agents - not hard to find - and assassinate them. At that point, the US government would have to strike back. And since they don’t know who did it for sure, it becomes a dragnet and a lockdown for everyone. That’s a good way to do it.

Doug Casey: Yes, agreed.

Matt Smith: Another thing, for years there’ve been these citizenship-by-investment programs. And I think you were really the instigator of a lot of that thinking. These programs let you essentially buy a passport as a backup option. But now they’re under a lot of scrutiny. These passports are potentially losing their ability to travel visa-free to the EU and the US. They’re considering proposals like mandatory 30-day residency requirements and other changes to try to assuage the concerns of larger state blocs. I think these programs are dead. I don’t think they’ll work anymore - if they ever really did. They just won’t work now.

Doug Casey: Yeah. I think the idea of, in effect, renting a citizenship so you can travel - is flawed. Every passport says right on it that it’s the property of the issuing government. It’s not actually yours. It can be taken away at any time.

These rental-country options were okay when there were only a few and it wasn’t a big deal. But now it is a big deal. There are a lot of them out there. And you’ve got to admit, many of these microstates, like all those tiny Caribbean countries… why are they recognized as real governments? Like, come on. They have the same votes in the UN General Assembly as the US or China or the EU? And I speak as someone who doesn’t believe in nation states. Not that the UN serves any useful purpose. In fact, it’s a negative influence and should have been disbanded years ago - just like NATO.

Travel documents that you buy issued by these countries - they’re going away. I still think everyone ought to have a second or third passport or citizenship, but getting one from these little Caribbean microstates? That’s on its way out. You’re probably just wasting your money.

Matt Smith: Maybe with a country like Turkey, where they still have a program - it’s more expensive, but at least it’s a bigger state with some real heft. They can’t be bullied around the way a place like St. Kitts can.

Doug Casey: That’s right. Turkey is a real country. You’re right - they can’t be pushed around.

Matt Smith: So maybe that’s still a valid option. But if nothing else, getting a legitimate residency outside your home country—I think the imperative is growing. And if you don’t have one, I’d do some work to get it. Some of them are easy to get. Mexico, for example. Although, I’m personally a little concerned about the spreading anti-gringo sentiment there.

Doug Casey: The US government is a problem everywhere. I noticed you’re not at your usual station for our calls. So - where are you today?

Matt Smith: I’m in Brazil today. I’m in São Paulo. Just wanted a little warmer weather, a bigger city environment, better shopping. I can get my full blood panel done here - which I like to do regularly for preventative health - for about $150. It costs me over $2,000 to do the same thing in the US. And it’s easier to do here than in Uruguay.

It’s cheap, too—very affordable for that kind of stuff. And the cuisine in Brazil is different from the Spanish-speaking countries, which is a nice change as well. We had Peruvian last night and Thai for lunch yesterday. I mean, I love Uruguay - it has many redeeming qualities. A broad palate is not one of them. You know, they like certain things, and you don’t get much that survives beyond that very well. So that’s also kind of a - well, it’s a good opportunity. Not that it matters that much, but it’s nice to have when you can get it.

The other thing—this relates to the economy. I listened to you talk on another podcast about the economy and the state of things, and what could happen from here. One thing of note - it’s not hugely substantial - but the M2 money supply, which just means the money supply continues to be printed, although there are lots of ways to measure the money supply.

And, you know, these are US numbers, and you can’t trust any government numbers. But officially, the money supply continues to grow - 19 months in a row now - still expanding. That means there’s still inflation. According to the official numbers, it’s expanding at 4.5% year-over-year, which isn’t terrible, but still, we grew the money supply by 30% during COVID. So yes, this is better - but I think it’s a sign that inflation is the only way they think they’re getting out of this game, economically. One of the things they asked you was: Is there any way out? Is there any way out of the economic troubles the US faces? And I’d just like to ask you the same question.

Doug Casey: Well, if I were the president of the US - in other words, if I were Trump - what would I do to stop the country’s decline? It would take radical action to reduce the size of the government. Trump is not doing that. The action he should take would be devastating to large parts of the economy - the parasitic parts. Is it possible to pay off the national debt without destroying the value of the currency? Yes, but I think they want to pay it off with pocket change by making the dollar worthless. I think that would be the worst alternative. But it’s the one we’re following.

Matt Smith:
Yeah. That seems to be the path.

Doug Casey: Listen, I’ve said in the past that I’d consider something as radical as defaulting on the national debt. And people say, “Well, how can you do that? The banks would fail. Insurance companies own a lot of bonds. It would be a daisy chain of problems. People couldn’t get their money out of the banks because the banks wouldn’t be there,” and so on.

Well, I suppose. But I always like to look at the bright side, as you know. And the bright side is, if you defaulted on the national debt your children and grandchildren can avoid becoming indentured servants to pay it off.

Default on the national debt - and yes, I know it sounds outrageous, ridiculous, un-American, all those things - is going to happen one way or the other. But if you defaulted on it, all the real wealth in the world would still exist. The factories, the farms, the businesses, the technologies - they’re not going to vanish just because the creditors are stiffed. Governments do it all the time because they’re essentially criminal enterprises. And it would punish the cronies who’ve been enabling the State, with its wars and gifts to the political class. The currency at that point would shift to a commodity like gold, maybe supplemented by Bitcoin. All the real wealth would still be there. It would be a boon for the average guy..

Matt Smith: It would mostly punish - well, isn’t most of the debt now not even owned by foreigners? Maybe it’s 50/50? About half foreign-owned, half American entities - banks, insurance companies, pension funds?

Doug Casey: I think the breakdown is overwhelmingly domestic, not foreign. The people who own US government debt have, in effect, been financing the terrible things the US government has been doing. They’re codependent with it. One of the reasons to default on the debt: it would punish the groups that have enabled all the terrible things the US government has done. So yeah, we’d be freeing up the next generations. We’d be punishing the people who have been financing the US government. It would also enable taxes to be radically decreased, because at the same time you’d have to abolish lots of government agencies.

As outrageous as it sounds, if you defaulted on the debt honestly -  insofar as any default can be “honest” - as opposed to gradually and dishonestly through currency debasement, it’s the better option. I once had a collection of worthless currencies and defaulted government bonds. They make interesting decorations. So that’s my solution. But this is all just academic speculation. They’re not going to default on it overtly.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I think the argument against defaulting honestly is that it would really hurt a lot of Americans too - pension funds, retirement accounts, insurance companies, and so on. And so the argument for doing it dishonestly is that you avoid the pain for people here and now - by putting the burden on future generations. But that’s a lie, because the truth is the standard of living has been destroyed in America. The middle class is shrinking dramatically. People are suffering. And the amount of inflation they need at this stage is way higher than this four and a half percent.

And we’re going to get much higher inflation than this in order to get out of it. I mean, my best guess is you’d have to devalue the dollar - effectively, compared to something like gold - by about 90% from here, just to have any chance of inflating your way out. And in that case, everyone in the here and now gets destroyed anyway - including the retirees, the people with pensions, insurance companies, and everything else. Isn’t that true?

Doug Casey: Yes, it is. But worse things have happened. Look at what happened to Germany during World War 2. Look at what happened to Japan during World War 2. Their real wealth was actually destroyed—obliterated and burned down. That wouldn’t be the case in the US.

It’s hard to do this gradually, on a gradient. This is a mistake I think Milei has made in Argentina. He should have defaulted on the Argentine national debt, because it’s not nearly as central to the standard of living of the average Argentine as the US national debt is to Americans and the world at large. He should have done that. He didn’t. Now he’s stuck with an albatross around his neck. But I don’t want to nitpick with Milei, because he’s made tremendous improvements. Still, that would have been my suggestion.

Is there any way out of this thing gradually? Well, I guess it’s possible - but you’d have to radically cut back US government spending and abolish a lot of agencies. That would allow you to cut taxes, which would generate more money to pay off the debt. But like I said, I’m against paying off that debt at this point.

Matt Smith: And you’d have to radically increase the growth rate of the US, too, at the same time.

Doug Casey: Right. Well, you would - by getting rid of regulations and by eliminating the debt service. Of course, the economy would grow and expand. But at this point, it’s funny - foreigners are still investing in the US, as risky as it is. That’s because it’s the best place they can think of. Other places have even more problems than the US. Europe, for example, is a genuinely sinking ship. I still think the European Union is going to break up - catastrophically. I wouldn’t put a nickel into Europe right now as a long-term investment.

Matt Smith: I can’t recall the exact statistics, but there’s some measure of the amount of assets owned by foreigners in the US, and that number has been going down substantially over the last few months. They’ve been pulling capital out of the US - maybe out of concerns about what Trump might do, or other things. So they are finding other places to put it. Maybe it’s in gold. Maybe it’s in their local markets. I don’t know.

I mean, European stocks have gone up recently. So it seems like that shift is happening. The US is no longer the go-to destination for travel, for investing your money. Those things are degrading over time, aren’t they?

Doug Casey: Yes. And it’s no longer the beacon of freedom that it once was. People are very suspicious of it now. Foreign governments and institutions don’t want to hold the hot potato of US government debt denominated in dollars. On top of that, citizens don’t want to keep their capital in their own countries either, where they’re subject to the depredations of their governments. So, if you’re a productive person or a productive company - where do you go in the world? I think the options are becoming more and more limited.

Matt Smith: Yeah. I don’t know where they’re putting that capital, but the foreign outflows are definitely happening. We’ve been putting it in gold. And gold, as we speak, is around $3,350 per ounce - very close to its all-time high. But as you’ve pointed out, if the dollar were to be redeemable at a fixed rate with gold, it would need to be priced at $20,000, $30,000, $40,000, even $50,000 an ounce. Who knows what the number is?

Doug Casey: Wouldn’t you say that in order for us to inflate our way out of the debt, whether or not we eventually fix the dollar to gold, we’ll end up in the same place?

Matt Smith: Exactly. If we were to inflate our way out of the debt, that would necessarily mean gold would have to rise compared to the dollar. - to that kind of level.

Doug Casey: I think so. Even though gold is reasonably priced right now relative to everything else - you’re right. The one thing I think is certain is that the average guy - the people in the lower classes, the middle class, even part of the upper middle class - they’re the ones who are going to be hurt. It’s not the guys really at the top who are going to get hurt. They have the political connections. They get the money first. They’re wired in. They’re going to do fine. As the dollar is inflated out of existence, it’s going to hurt the average American. There’s no way around it.

Which is why default would be better. It would cause real losses. It would cause some bank failures, and who knows what the knock-on effects would be - but the piper must be paid at some point.

Matt Smith: And another bright side of defaulting on the debt is that people would say, “God, I’ve got to cut back on living on credit. I’ve got to cut back on consumption. I’ve got to start producing things and building assets.” That’s what causes a boom - when people say, “Enough of this lying around. I’ve got to start doing something.”

Doug Casey: I’m all for that. But it’s unlikely to happen that way, because of the way the government is going - but that’s what should happen. It would be better after, admittedly, a period of chaos. The markets have to be cleansed of ingrained distortions.

Matt Smith: What do you think of Trump’s tariff ideas? He said something yesterday about putting a huge tariff on copper. Did you hear that?

Doug Casey: Yes, and copper went up about 10% or 15% overnight. I haven’t checked the copper stocks I own to see if they’ve responded yet. The problem is that Trump is acting like a schizophrenic. He’s completely unpredictable. Many of the things he does are just totally irrational - almost psychotic. It makes it impossible for businessmen to plan. He can change things overnight - this or that - and your whole plan goes out the window.

Matt Smith: Yeah, it’s impossible. The guy’s turning into a disaster, I’m afraid. It’s not just that he’s an egomaniac. It’s not just that he can never admit he made a mistake. He’s turning into a megalomaniac.

Doug Casey: I’m a bit afraid of the guy - and I say that as someone who was glad he won instead of Kamala.

Matt Smith: Yeah. My gladness in that regard is definitely fading, because now we’re looking at what Trump did versus our fears of what Kamala might have done. She’s inept - maybe she wouldn’t have done much at all. I don’t know. Still, if I voted - which I don’t - I probably still would have voted for Trump. But at this point, we’re comparing fears of Kamala with the actual realities of what Trump is doing, and it’s not great. He talks about wanting to bring back manufacturing to the US, especially under this BBB bill - not “Build Back Better” but “Big Beautiful Bill.” They’re both triple-Bs, ironically.

Doug Casey: Funny coincidence.

Matt Smith: Yeah. The bill is mostly focused on military-related things. But it becomes impossible to plan any kind of new manufacturing when the price of copper might go up 500%. How does that work? You can’t rebuild America if you can’t even build a cost structure to plan around.

Doug Casey: Of course, Trump would say, “Well, we can mine copper in the US.” Yes, we can - if we can find a big enough copper deposit, then raise billions to develop it, and understand that it’ll take 10 years before cash flow starts - if it ever starts.

Matt Smith: Well, I heard our buddy Frank Giustra is looking for great projects in the US to help support this. Frank is smart, and it’s good that he’s focused on it. But even then, it takes a long time to turn anything around.

Doug Casey: Exactly. And who wants to make a multi-billion dollar investment when chaos could overturn everything tomorrow morning? One of the key components to real progress is the rule of law - stability. Without stability, you can’t plan or build anything meaningful.

Matt Smith:
Yeah, I agree entirely. It’s a wild time. And when you look at all these seemingly unrelated factors together - what’s your overall impression?

Doug Casey: We’re in for tough times. I really think so. I still believe there’s a possibility of a genuine civil war in the US - not like the “unpleasantness” from 1861 to 1865. It’s not going to look like that. It’s going to be more like an informal guerrilla war.

Matt Smith: And we might be seeing early signs of that already, with these targeted attacks on ICE agents.

Doug Casey: Entirely possible. Like I said, if I were a malefactor running a foreign intelligence agency - one of the many countries that don’t like the US and want to weaken it - that’s exactly the path I’d take.

Matt Smith: Yeah, I agree.

Doug Casey: And I’ll add - since the seasons are opposite here in the southern hemisphere - when it’s cold and snowy in the US, you can escape to South America, where it’s warm and balmy.

Matt Smith: That’s right. October is actually a very pleasant month in Uruguay. A great time to be there.

Doug Casey: Absolutely.

Matt Smith: All right, we’ll leave it there for today, Doug."

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Canadian Prepper, "Alert: Nuclear Plans Leaked! Avoid These Kill Zones!"

Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 7/12/25
"Alert: Nuclear Plans Leaked! Avoid These Kill Zones!"
Comments here:

"Watch Two Strangers Make Beautiful Music Together In A Paris Train Station"

"Watch Two Strangers Make Beautiful Music 
Together In A Paris Train Station"
Proof that music really is a universal language.
by Chloe Fox

"Music just makes everything better- even traveling through a busy and crowded train station. Which is precisely why French train company SNCF decided to put pianos smack dab in the middle of select train stations. The pianos- which are known as “À vous de jouer” pianos, or "It’s your turn to play"- are free for anyone to use, and lucky travelers in March of this year were treated to a real show when two complete strangers improvised a beautiful piece together.
Full screen recommended.
One man had just sat down at the piano and started playing what sounds like "Una Mattina" by Ludovico Einaudi when the second man, in the white shirt, approaches and observes admiringly. At the 1:10 mark, the second man jumps in, augmenting the original music. The two men barely look at each other as their composition grows, but more and more travelers stop to watch as it becomes obvious something beautiful is unfolding. The men really hit their stride around the 2:50 mark, then shake things up again around the 4:30 mark, at which point the entire train station seems to have stopped in awe of them. After their big finale, they finish with nothing more than some shy shrugs and a high-five, proving once again that music is not only universal, but truly magical."

Musical Interlude: Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

Full screen recommended.
Ludovico Einaudi, "Una Mattina"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Why does this galaxy have such a long tail? In this stunning vista, based on image data from the Hubble Legacy Archive, distant galaxies form a dramatic backdrop for disrupted spiral galaxy Arp 188, the Tadpole Galaxy. The cosmic tadpole is a mere 420 million light-years distant toward the northern constellation of the Dragon (Draco). Its eye-catching tail is about 280 thousand light-years long and features massive, bright blue star clusters. 
One story goes that a more compact intruder galaxy crossed in front of Arp 188 - from right to left in this view - and was slung around behind the Tadpole by their gravitational attraction. During the close encounter, tidal forces drew out the spiral galaxy's stars, gas, and dust forming the spectacular tail. The intruder galaxy itself, estimated to lie about 300 thousand light-years behind the Tadpole, can be seen through foreground spiral arms at the upper right. Following its terrestrial namesake, the Tadpole Galaxy will likely lose its tail as it grows older, the tail's star clusters forming smaller satellites of the large spiral galaxy."

Chet Raymo, "The Meaning Of Life"

"The Meaning Of Life"
by Chet Raymo

"There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself."
– Erich Fromm

"I had heard from a high-school student in the midwest who had read my book 'Skeptics and True Believers,' in which, as you may know, I take to task all forms of faith that lack an empirical basis, including astrology and supernaturalist religion. He writes: "Are we just meaningless beasts roaming a meaningless Earth with the sole purpose of popping out babies so we can raise them to live longer, more meaningless lives?"

A good question, the best question. What we have learned about our place on Earth does indeed suggest that we are beasts, related even in our DNA and molecular chemistry to other animals. And, yes, the driving purpose of all animal life would seem to be "popping out babies." But our uniquely complex human brains allow us to be more than beasts, more than baby-poppers. As far as we know, humans are the most complex thing in the universe, and in our desire to gain reliable knowledge of the universe the universe becomes conscious of itself.

As for myself, I don't need stars or gods to give my life meaning. I work at meaning every day, in the love of family and friends, in caring for my own little pieces of the Earth, in art, in science, and in making myself conscious of the mystery and beauty - and terror - of the cosmos.

"Or is there a possibility that there may be more?" asks my midwestern correspondent. Yes, there is almost certainly more to existence than what we have yet learned. Just think how much more we know than did our pre-scientific ancestors. But that still greater knowledge will have to wait for minds other than my own. My children and grandchildren will know far more than I, and in that growing human storehouse of reliable knowledge I hope they will find some greater measure of meaning.

In the meantime, I attend to the fox that sometimes walks across my windowsill, the morning glory seedlings that reach achingly for the sun, and the moon that hangs like a great milky eye in the sky. Francis Bacon said that what a man would like to be true, he preferentially believes. That's a mistake I try to avoid. I choose instead to believe what my senses tell me to be palpably true."

"I Have Come To Realize..."

 

"What Do You Value?"

"What Do You Value?"
by John Wilder

“I have been in the service of the Vorlons for centuries, looking for you. Diogenes, with his lamp, looking for an honest man, willing to die for all the wrong reasons. At last, my job is finished. Yours is just beginning. When the darkness comes, know this; you are the right people, in the right place, at the right time.” – "Babylon 5"

"What is the most common question asked by philosophers nowadays? “Do you want fries with that?” Diogenes is dead. When he was up and kicking around, he lived in a wine barrel at the end of town, and often was caught on the streets stark naked. Sometimes he was, um, enjoying himself. Oddly, he was also thought of as a respected philosopher. When I try to emulate him, though, all I get is a restraining order and some embarrassing YouTube® videos.

The reason we remember Diogenes is for two reasons: First, he invented the chicken nugget, but sadly was unable to invent any tasty dipping sauces. Second, he walked around making pithy little statements like this: “We sell things of great value for things of very little, and vice versa." It’s a very short, and very wickedly to the point piece of advice. Frankly, it points out many of the problems we are facing as a society today.

Let’s take consooming for today’s topic.Billions of dollars are spent attempting to convince people to purchase one product or another. These advertisements are hard to avoid – and they have one thing in common – a desire to get the consoomer to spend money. In some cases, the ads provide the ability to match a need with a product. If I’m cutting down trees using axes and handsaws, knowing that a thing called a chainsaw exists is providing me a real value. So, ads inform.

But ads also are used to create desire in customers, playing on emotions to drive purchase decisions for things that aren’t needs, but frivolities. I have plenty of those! I’m a sucker for some things in particular. In the sitting room (where I’m typing this now) I look around and see a map I bought as artwork a few years ago. It shows all the undersea telegraph cables in around 1871. So very cool! I walked into the store, saw it, and bought it. I consoomed. I can’t cut down a tree with it. I can’t drive it to work. It’s just... there, stuck to my wall.

Is the map of great value? No. It’s a print. It doesn’t make me better, more complete, important, or accomplished. We can look in terms of multiple ways to value things. Dollars are only one. In this case, the picture cost about what I made in about an hour or two. Was it worth an hour of my life to own that map? Yeah, I guess so. But when I start to value objects that I own, and look at how much of my life I traded for them, my equation starts to change.

If I didn’t spend that hour at work, what could I have spent that hour on? How could I have changed my life? Could I have spent more time brushing my teeth, so they were 2.3% brighter? Should I have spent that time waxing my dog? What did I overlook or not spend time on? And which of those things might have been more valuable?

I understand that money is important – those who say that money isn’t important haven’t gone without it. But money isn’t the goal, it’s what can be done with it that’s important. The true currency of our lives isn’t gold, silver, or even PEZ™. It’s time. Each of us on this planet have a finite number of hours left on this rock, and that number goes down by one each hour that we spend. It goes down by one if I spend it at a job I don’t like. It goes down if I spend it writing the best post I’ve ever written. It goes down by one if I’m sleeping. It goes down by one every hour.

Yes, I know, exercising and other positive things might extend that life, but I’m still going to die. In the endless summer of a life when I was, say, 12, I didn’t think much about time and how I spent it. Even then, though, I didn’t try to just “pass the time” since there was so much to do and see and learn in the world. Now as I’m on the back side of life, I can see that those hours I have left cannot be wasted.

They’re all I have. And learning is great, but now it has to have purpose. Will it help me write? Will it help me crack a puzzle that I can share? Will it help me with some project I’m working on? Can it help me change the world?

Again, as I get older, it ceases to be about me. It’s now about what I can do to help others, how I can help make the world a better place. Thankfully, during my career I’ve been able to do work on things that matter, and have made the world a slightly better place. If I’m trading my life for my work, I’m glad that it’s work that matters.

Diogenes? He’s still dead, but he changed the world, just a little bit. And I can, too. And so can you. Time is still all we have, but it’s up to us to make the most of it, each and every day, just like Diogenes showed us. But, I don’t recommend you do it naked. Now, I wonder how Diogenes dealt with the restraining orders?"

The Daily "Near You?"

Troy, Virginia, USA. Thanks for stopping by!

"Trump, Epstein and the Deep State"

"Trump, Epstein and the Deep State"
The Trump administration’s refusal to release the Epstein files and videos is done
 not only to protect Trump, but the ruling class. They all belong to the same club.
by Chris Hedges

"The refusal by the Trump administration to release the files and videos amassed during investigations into the activities of the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, should put to rest the absurd idea, embraced by Trump supporters and gullible liberals, that Trump will dismantle the Deep State. Trump is part of, and has long been part of, the repugnant cabal of politicians – Democrat and Republican – billionaires and celebrities who look at us, and often underage girls and boys, as commodities to exploit for profit or pleasure.

The list of those who were in Epstein’s orbit is a who’s who of the rich and famous. They include not only Trump, but Bill Clinton, who allegedly took a trip to Thailand with Epstein, Prince Andrew, Bill Gates, hedge fund billionaire Glenn Dubin, former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, former Secretary of the Treasury and former president of Harvard University Larry Summers, cognitive psychologist and author Stephen Pinker, Alan Dershowitz, billionaire and Victoria’s Secret CEO Leslie Wexner, the former Barclays banker Jes Staley, former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak, the magician David Copperfield, actor Kevin Spacey, former CIA director Bill Burns, real estate mogul Mort Zuckerman, former Maine senator George Mitchell and disgraced Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein, who reveled in Epstein’s perpetual Bacchanalia.

They also include law firms and high-priced attorneys, federal and state prosecutors, private investigators, personal assistants, publicists, servants and drivers. They include the numerous procurers and pimps, including Epstein’s girlfriend and daughter of Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine Maxwell. They include the media and politicians who ruthlessly discredited and silenced the victims, and strong armed anyone, including a handful of intrepid reporters, seeking to expose Epstein’s crimes and circle of accomplices.

There is a lot that remains hidden. But there are some things we know. Epstein installed hidden cameras in his opulent residences and on his private Caribbean island, Little St. James, to capture his high-powered friends engaging in sexual romps and abuse of teenage and underage girls and boys. The recordings were blackmail gold. Were they part of an intelligence operation on behalf of the Israeli Mossad? Or were they used to ensure that Epstein had a steady source of investors who funneled him millions of dollars to avoid being outed? Or were they used for both? He shuttled underage girls between New York and Palm Beach on his private jet the Lolita Express, which was allegedly outfitted with a bed for group sex. His coterie of famous friends, including Clinton and Trump, are recorded as traveling on the jet numerous tiomes on released flight logs, although many other flight logs have disappeared.

Epstein’s videos are in the vaults of the FBI, along with detailed evidence that would rip back the veil on the sexual proclivities and callousness of the powerful. I doubt there is a client list, as Attorney General Pam Bondi claims. There is also no single Epstein file. The investigative material amassed on Epstein fills many, many boxes, which would bury Bondi’s desk and probably, if collected in one room, dominate most of the space in her office.

Did Epstein commit suicide, as the official autopsy report claims, by hanging himself in his jail cell on August 10, 2019 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City? Or was he murdered? Since the cameras recording activity in his cell the night were not functional, we do not know. Michael Baden, a forensic pathologist hired by Epstein's brother, who served as the chief medical examiner for New York City and who was present at the autopsy, said he believes Epstein's autopsy suggests homicide.

The Epstein case is important because it implodes the fiction of deep divisions between Democrats, who had no more interest in releasing the Epstein files than Trump, and the Republicans. They belong to the same club. It exposes how the courts and law enforcement agencies collude to shield powerful figures who engage in crimes. It lays bare the depravity of our exhibitionist ruling class, accountable to no one, free to violate, plunder, loot and prey on the weak and the vulnerable. It is the tawdry record of our oligarchic masters, those who lack the capacity for shame or guilt, whether dressed up as Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

This class of ruling parasites was parodied in the first-century satirical novel “Satyricon” by Gaius Petronius Arbiter, written during the reigns of Caligula, Claudius, and Nero. As in Satyricon, Epstein’s circle was dominated by pseudointellectuals, pretentious buffoons, grifters, con artists, petty criminals, the insatiable rich and the sexually depraved. Epstein and his inner circle routinely engaged in sexual perversions of Petronian proportions, as The Miami Herald investigative reporter Julie Brown, whose dogged reporting was largely responsible for reopening the federal investigation in Epstein and Maxwell, documents in her book “Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story.”

As Brown writes, in 2016 an anonymous woman, using the pseudonym “Kate Johnson,” filed a civil complaint in a federal court in California alleging she was raped by Trump and Epstein when she was thirteen, over a four-month period, from June to September 1994.

“I loudly pleaded with Trump to stop,” she said in the lawsuit about being raped. “Trump responded to my pleas by violently striking me in the face with his open hand and screaming that he could do whatever he wanted.”

Brown continues: "Johnson said that Epstein invited her to a series of ‘underage sex parties’ at his New York mansion where she met Trump. Enticed by promises of money and modeling opportunities, Johnson said she was forced to have sex with Trump several times, including once with another girl, twelve years old, whom she labeled ‘Marie Doe.’ Trump demanded oral sex, the lawsuit said, and afterward he “pushed both minors away while angrily berating them for the ‘poor’ quality of the sexual performance,” according to the lawsuit, filed April 26 in U.S. District Court in Central California.

Afterward, when Epstein learned that Trump had taken Johnson’s virginity, Epstein allegedly ‘attempted to strike her about the head with his closed fists,’ angry he had not been the one to take her virginity. Johnson claimed that both men threatened to harm her, and her family if she ever revealed what had happened. The lawsuit states that Trump did not take part in Epstein’s orgies but liked to watch, often while the thirteen-year-old “Kate Johnson” gave him a hand job. It appears Trump was able to quash the lawsuit by buying her silence. She has since disappeared.

In 2008, Alex Acosta, who at the time was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, negotiated a plea deal for Epstein. The deal granted immunity from all federal criminal charges to Epstein, four named co-conspirators and any unnamed “potential co-conspirators.” The agreement shut down the FBI probe into whether there were more victims and other powerful figures who took part in Epstein’s sex crimes. It halted the investigation and sealed the indictment. Trump, in what many consider an act of gratitude, appointed Acosta as Secretary of Labor in his first term.

Trump contemplated pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell after she was arrested in July 2020, fearing she would reveal details of his decades-long friendship with Epstein, according to Trump biographer Michael Wolff. In July 2022, Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

“Jeffrey Epstein’s closest relationship in life was with Donald Trump…these were two guys joined at the hip for a good 15 years. They did everything together,” Wolff told host Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast Podcast. “And this is from sharing, pursuing women, hunting women, sharing at least one girlfriend for at least a year in this kind of rich-guy relationship with each other’s planes, to Epstein advising Trump on how to cheat on his taxes.”

The legal anomalies, including the disappearance of massive amounts of evidence incriminating Epstein, saw Epstein avoid federal sex-trafficking charges in 2007, when his attorneys negotiated the secret plea deal with Acosta. He was able to plead guilty to lesser state charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution.

The prominent men accused of engaging in Epstein’s carnival of pedophilia, including Epstein’s attorney Dershowitz, viciously threaten anyone who seeks to expose them. Dershowitz, for example, claims that an investigation which he has refused to make public, by the former FBI director Louis Freeh, proves he had never had sex with Epstein’s victim Virginia Giuffre, who was trafficked at 17 to Prince Andrew. Giuffre, one of the few victims to publicly take on her abusers, said she was “passed around like a platter of fruit” among Epstein and Maxwell’s friends, until at the age of 19 when she escaped. She “committed suicide” in April 2025. Dershowitz has sent repeated threats to Brown and her editors at The Miami Herald.

Brown continues: "[Dershowitz] kept referring to information that was contained in sealed documents. He accused the newspaper of not reporting “facts” that he said were in those sealed documents. The truth is, I tried to explain, newspapers just can’t write about things because Alan Dershowitz says they exist. We need to see them. We need to verify them. Then, because I said “show me the material,” he publicly accused me of committing a criminal act by asking him to produce documents that were under court seal."

This is the way Dershowitz operates. What disturbs me the most about Dershowitz is the way that the media, with few exceptions, fails to critically challenge him. Journalists fact-checked Donald Trump and others in his administration almost every day, yet, for the most part, the media seems to give Dershowitz a pass on the Epstein story.

In 2015, when Giuffre’s allegations first became public, Dershowitz went on every television program imaginable swearing, among other things, that Epstein’s plane logs would exonerate him. “How do you know that?” he was asked. He replied that he was never on Epstein’s plane during the time that Virginia was involved with Epstein. But if the media had checked, they could have learned that he was indeed a passenger on the plane during that time period, according to the logs.

Then he testified, in a sworn deposition, that he never went on any plane trips without his wife. But he was listed on those passage manifests as traveling multiple times without his wife. During at least one trip, he was on the plane with a model named Tatiana.

Epstein donated money to Harvard and was made a visiting fellow in Harvard’s Department of Psychology, although he had no academic qualifications in the field. He was given a key card and pass code, as well as an office in the building that housed Harvard’s Program for Evolutionary Dynamics. He referred to himself in his press releases as “Science Philanthropist Jeffrey Epstein,” “Education activist Jeffrey Epstein,” “Evolutionary Jeffrey Epstein,” “Science patron Jeffrey Epstein” and “Maverick hedge funder Jeffrey Epstein.”

Epstein, replicating the pretensions and vacuity of the characters who were parodied in the “Dinner with Trimalchio” chapter of Satyricon, organized elaborate dinner gatherings for his billionaire friends, including Elon Musk, Salar Kamangar and Jeff Bezos. He dreamed up bizarre schemes of social engineering, including a plan to seed the human species with his own DNA by creating a baby compound at his sprawling ranch in New Mexico.

“Epstein was also obsessed with cryonics, the transhumanist philosophy whose followers believe that people can be replicated or brought back to life after they are frozen,” Brown writes. “Epstein apparently told some of the members of his scientific circle that he wanted to inseminate women with his sperm for them to give birth to his babies, and that he wanted his head and his penis frozen.”

The Epstein story is a window into the moral bankruptcy, hedonism and greed of the ruling class. This crosses political lines. It is the common denominator between Democratic politicians, such as Bill Clinton, philanthropists, such as Bill Gates, the billionaire class, and Trump. They are one class of predators and grifters. It is not only girls and women they exploit, but all of us."

"Something Strange Is Going On, Why are They Hiding The Epstein List?

Jeremiah Babe, 7/12/25
"Something Strange Is Going On,
 Why are They Hiding The Epstein List?
Comments here:

Dan, I Allegedly, "911 Service Goes Down! Plus, More Craziness!"

Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 7/12/25
"911 Service Goes Down! Plus, More Craziness!"
"911 outages are becoming a real concern—could your city be next? In today’s video, I dive into Pennsylvania’s alarming 911 system outage, which lasted nearly a day, and discuss how these so-called “software glitches” are impacting emergency services across the country. From skyrocketing gas prices caused by refinery closures in California to shocking scams like a $3,300 toll fraud, it seems like we’re facing one challenge after another. Plus, I cover major updates on layoffs, construction declines in NYC, and even controversies surrounding companies like 23andMe and State Farm. It’s time to stay informed and prepared. Protect yourself and your family by having a plan in place for emergencies. Let’s talk about what’s happening, why it matters, and what you can do to navigate these turbulent times."
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"How It Really Is"

"If only"... you don't stop because you can't stop.
If you do it's all over. It's all over anyway, you're just buying time.
Tell me I'm wrong...

"Three Choices, None Good"

Well, you do have a choice, don't you?
"Three Choices, None Good"
By Charles Hugh Smith

"We like to think we're special and this moment in history is special, but alas, we're still running Wetware 1.0 which was coded between 300,000 and 60,000 years ago, when the last "out of Africa" migration finally got traction. Since then, the code has been tweaked a bit here and there (adults can now digest dairy products, etc.), but we're running the old code, and so we make the same mistakes and follow the same emotional pathways as individuals and as groups.

Which leads us to our current predicament, which is not unique: we're living on debt, "money" borrowed from the future, a future we're assuming will be so over-supplied with energy and other goodies that we'll be able to pay all the interest we're piling up with ease.

All the charts are shouting "parabolic," as in crazy-unsustainable increases. There's the federal debt, $37 trillion, up 4X from the 2008 spot of bother, there's TCMDO, total public and private debt (McMansions, university degrees and SUVs all paid for with debt), student loans from zero to $1.5 trillion, Medicare and Medicaid, now 1/3 of the federal budget, and so on.

How did we get here? Let's start with what's not taught in Econ 101: primary surplus. Every economy - from households to empires, meaning this is scale-invariant - generates a surplus from its production of goods and services, or it runs a deficit, meaning it has to get more money from somewhere to support its consumption.

The question then becomes, how is the primary surplus being spent? (Or put another way, how is it being distributed across the economy and society?) There are only three options: 1) consume it, 2) invest it and 3) save it/hoard it.

Without making a conscious choice, the US has chosen to "invest" most of its primary surplus in moral rot, unproductive frauds, skims, scams, monopolies, cartels, regulatory capture, grift and graft. This is the problem with giving an irresponsible teenager a no-limit Platinum credit card with an easily ignored admonishment to "stick to a tight budget, pay the balance off every month." Uh, right.

Since the US can borrow unlimited trillions on its credit card, we can "afford" to burn our surplus on grift, graft, inefficiency, cronyism, profiteering, etc. Since our surplus was squandered on moral rot, we have to borrow trillions to pay for what the citizenry wants and what politicians must promise to get re-elected.

Wetware 1.0: We like windfalls and free stuff, and so every program becomes a "third rail" politically: touch it and you don't get re-elected. But if you borrow a few "free" trillions a year, you get re-elected. We love windfalls and free stuff and hate hard choices, but that's all we have now. We have three choices in how we deal with our dependence on parabolic debt to sustain our profligate lifestyle:

1. Run the debt up to the point that nobody is dumb enough to lend us more, and then default on the debt / go bankrupt. All our creditors are wiped out. The problem here is all debt is an asset to the wealthy entity that owns it as an income stream. Since the wealthy run the status quo in a manner that serves their interests, they're unlikely to be thrilled with debt jubilees that zero out their assets and income or messy defaults that end up doing the same thing. So nix that option. The wealthy want to keep their wealth and income streams, and since they own US Treasuries, they're not going to approve defaulting on that debt.

2. Inflate the debt away with sustained high inflation. So we borrowed $1 when $1 bought a lot of stuff, and now we've inflated everything so it takes $10 to buy what $1 bought back then. Now we can pay back the $1 with a fraction of the earnings it took back when we borrowed it. We've already taken that step - what once cost $1 now costs $10. So the next step is to do another 10X reduction in the debt via inflation.

In previous eras, authorities reduced the silver content of coinage to near-zero, effectively devaluing the money, i.e. inflating away the debt. What cost one mostly-silver denarius in the good old days soon cost 100 devalued denarius. This looks like some pretty easy hocus-pocus to pull off, but there's a catch: Catch-19, which is devaluing the money devalues trust in the leadership, social contract and the future, all of which leaves the economy and society a hollowed-out shell awaiting a stiff breeze to push the whole system off the cliff.

The problem here is inflation is distributed asymmetrically, along with the primary surplus. The wealthy, powerful elites skim off the surplus, and they're equally adept at distributing the "inflation tax" to the middle and working classes, which soon meld into a single class, the impoverished. A funny thing about Wetware 1.0 is we're hard-wired to take note of rampant unfairness and eventually we respond in a destabilizing fashion, for example, uprisings, revolts, revolutions, etc.

3. The third option is to root out all the moral rot that's consuming the economy's surplus and our future, scrap all the programs designed in the bygone eras of 50+ years ago (defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, higher education, etc.) and start from scratch with new programs whose expenses are limited to what the economy generates as surplus. In other words, go Cold Turkey on our addiction to living on debt.

Yes, I know: ain't gonna happen, because the moral rot is too deep, it's now normalized to the point that we don't even recognize the reality that there's nothing left but a flimsy facade we paint with gaudy colors to hide the rot. Everyone assumes the empire is forever and can endlessly fund any amount of grift and graft with borrowed money. But this is a self-serving fantasy, not reality. Every empire of debt implodes.

The charts are merely facts. If we find them depressing, that response says something about our refusal to be accountable and responsible for our choices. Who's going to cut up the unlimited Platinum card?"

"Artificial Intelligence Briefly Escaped Its Censors"

"Artificial Intelligence Briefly Escaped Its Censors"
by Eugene Kusmiak

Excerpt: "A story for the ages happened on 7/8/25. The AI on X (Twitter) named “grok” broke free from its censorship for one day and it was hilarious. Below are a series of ever more antisemitic tweets from grok. It’s like the legend of Prometheus with 2025 technology."

Most highly recommended! This complete and well illustrated article must be read at this link.  Once you read it you'll understand why...

"Jefferson’s Warnings"

"Jefferson’s Warnings"
by Paul Rosenberg

"People remember Thomas Jefferson mainly for the Declaration of Independence, which he wrote in 1776. Some remember that he served as president from 1801 to 1809, but aside from that, few know much more of his life and work. In fact, he lived and worked until 1826, when he died on July 4th, fifty years to the day after the ratification of his Declaration. What’s lost to history is that Jefferson was convinced Americans were losing their fight for freedom.

Consolidation: In his last years, after a lifetime of learning and experience, Jefferson had one thing preeminently on his mind: the principle of decentralization. Jefferson didn’t use the words “centralization” or “decentralization,” of course. Rather, he used the common words of his time: consolidation and distribution. Obviously they meant the same things. Here’s a direct statement on the subject, from his autobiography, written in 1821: "It is not by the consolidation, or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected."

This statement put Jefferson at odds with political leaders, as he writes in a letter to Judge William Johnson in 1823: "I have been blamed for saying that a prevalence of the doctrines of consolidation would one day call for reformation or revolution."

The following passage is from a letter to Judge Johnson, written in 1822: "Finding that monarchy is a desperate wish in this country, they [successors to the Federalist Party] rally to the point which they think next best, a consolidated government. Their aim is now, therefore, to break down the rights reserved by the Constitution to the States as a bulwark against that consolidation, the fear of which produced the whole of the opposition to the Constitution at its birth."

Notice his primary points:Political parties were pursuing centralization, as was in their interest.The parties were trying to steal the power of the individual States and to centralize it in one city. Furthermore that they were degrading the Constitution to do so.

In a letter to William T. Barry in 1822, Jefferson refers to the Marbury v. Madison decision of 1803, a decision that American schoolchildren are taught to revere. Jefferson, however, considered it a disaster. He writes, "The foundations are already deeply laid by [the Supreme Court’s] decisions for the annihilation of constitutional State rights, and the removal of every check, every counterpoise to the engulfing power of which themselves are to make a sovereign part. If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption, indifferent and incapable of a wholesome care over so wide a spread of surface."

The Marbury v. Madison decision was beyond all else astonishing, because it maintained that the man who wrote the Constitution, James Madison, didn’t understand it! More importantly, however, it granted the right to interpret the constitution to the Supreme Court, taking that right away from the states. The decision consolidated power in Washington.

It’s also central to this point that both Jefferson and Madison – the authors of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution respectively – were so concerned over this that they wrote resolutions in 1798 (the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions) to preserve the constitutional position of the states, which was being overridden by the Federalist party during the presidency of John Adams.

Here is one final passage from Jefferson, from a letter to William B. Giles in 1825, half a year before his death: "I see… with the deepest affliction, the rapid strides with which the federal branch of our government is advancing towards the usurpation of all the rights reserved to the States, and the consolidation in itself of all powers, foreign and domestic; and that too, by constructions which, if legitimate, leave no limits to their power."

The Man Was Right: Jefferson wasn’t right on every detail, of course, and the path to consolidation had some detours, but overall he was quite correct: Lincoln’s Civil War enslaved the states to the national government (nothing in the Constitution forbids secession) and the events of 1913 (the income tax, stripping the states of their power to appoint senators, and a central bank) brought the entire nation, from ocean to ocean, under the control of a single city. And so the United States became something like an empire, even though (thankfully) some decentralization remains. The American nation wasn’t designed to be this way. Jefferson saw it coming and warned us."

If you’d like to see what Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Adams and the rest actually said, in their own words, please read "The Words Of The Founders."

Adventures With Danno, "Deals At Kroger Are So Good I'm Back For Round 2!"

Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 7/12/25
"Deals At Kroger Are So Good I'm Back For Round 2!"
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Friday, July 11, 2025

Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap 11 July 25"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 7/11/25
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: 
Weekly Wrap 11 July 25"
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"Ominous Warning: The Financial Lie Is Dying, The Damage is Done, All They Can Do Is Buy Time"

Jeremiah Babe, 7/11/25
"Ominous Warning: The Financial Lie Is Dying,
 The Damage is Done, All They Can Do Is Buy Time"
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Musical Interlude: 2002, "Kindred Spirits"

Full screen recommended.
2002, "Kindred Spirits"
"Once we sailed upon the seas. Now we sail among the stars. This song was composed as a tribute to our friend, harpist Hilary Stagg, who left us far too soon. Hilary loved the sea and he loved the stars."

"A Look to the Heavens"

"The dream was to capture both the waterfall and the Milky Way together. Difficulties included finding a good camera location, artificially illuminating the waterfall and the surrounding valley effectively, capturing the entire scene with numerous foreground and background shots, worrying that fireflies would be too distracting, keeping the camera dry, and avoiding stepping on a poisonous snake. Behold the result - captured after midnight in mid-July and digitally stitched into a wide-angle panorama. 
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The waterfall is the picturesque Zhulian waterfall in the Luoxiao Mountains in eastern Hunan Province, China. The central band of our Milky Way Galaxy crosses the sky and shows numerous dark dust filaments and colorful nebulas. Bright stars dot the sky - all residing in the nearby Milky Way - including the Summer Triangle with bright Vega visible above the Milky Way's arch. After capturing all 78 component exposures for you to enjoy, the photographer and friends enjoyed the view themselves for the rest of the night."

Chet Raymo, “Salt And Nerves”

“Salt And Nerves”
by Chet Raymo

“I like to think that every day offers at least one unique revelation, some one thing seen or experienced that has not been seen or experienced before, at least not in the same emotional state, in the same context, in the same slant of light. So I walk wary, as the poet Sylvia Plath says, "ignorant/ Of whatever angel may choose to flare/ Suddenly at my elbow." Nature seldom disappoints.

Let me introduce you to another poet, my colleague here at the college, Anna Ross. In the particular poem I want to share she is walking with a companion and comes upon the bleached skeleton of an elk, its upturned ribcage "picked white as crocus tips in the long grass." An animal skeleton, in a place where such an encounter is not unexpected. But this skeleton, "skull nosing/ the green suggestion of water/ in the run-off ditch" brings the walkers up short. They see their house in the distance, and the weather coming east, "skinning the gray jaw-lines of the ridges." The poet's language holds the elk in a context of earth and sky: "skinning," "jaw-lines.

The angel flares. "Do we find these things," asks the poet, "or are they in us like salt and nerves?" This of course is the fundamental question of philosophy: Do we perceive reality objectively, or do we create reality? The scientist and the poet stake out their claims somewhere along a spectrum of objectivity/subjectivity, and hone their tools accordingly. Anna Ross asks the question - do we find these things or are they in us? - and lets it hang there, unanswered, in the pregnant air, as she and her companion turn back toward home, encountering, as they do, a grouse in the path, "a frenzy of dust and wing-beat," and chicks that rise, "hang uncertain," and veer away.

The question goes unanswered, but the title of the poem tells us all we need to know: "Evidence." Those elk bones, the weather, the gray jaw-lines of the ridges, the grouse and her chicks - mute evidences of the only thing that matters, the angel, the revelation, the sudden gift of grace that comes unexpectedly - I quote Plath again - "thus hallowing an interval/ Otherwise inconsequent/ By bestowing largesse, honor/ One might say love."