Jeremiah Babe, 7/14/25
"Getting Ripped Off In America;
Trump Wants 1% Interest Rates, Prepare For Hyperinflation"
Comments here:
So, we rise from the rubble...
StatCounter
Monday, July 14, 2025
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Scanning the skies for galaxies, Canadian astronomer Paul Hickson and colleagues identified some 100 compact groups of galaxies, now appropriately called Hickson Compact Groups. The four prominent galaxies seen in this intriguing telescopic skyscape are one such group, Hickson 44, about 100 million light-years distant toward the constellation Leo. The two spiral galaxies in the center of the image are edge-on NGC 3190 with its distinctive, warped dust lanes, and S-shaped NGC 3187. Along with the bright elliptical, NGC 3193 at the right, they are also known as Arp 316.
The spiral in the upper left corner is NGC 3185, the 4th member of the Hickson group. Like other galaxies in Hickson groups, these show signs of distortion and enhanced star formation, evidence of a gravitational tug of war that will eventually result in galaxy mergers on a cosmic timescale. The merger process is now understood to be a normal part of the evolution of galaxies, including our own Milky Way. For scale, NGC 3190 is about 75,000 light-years across at the estimated distance of Hickson 44.”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110829.html
"A Cherokee Proverb"
"An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. “A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy. “It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.” He continued, “The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”
"A Cherokee Proverb"
Judge Napolitano, "Ryan Dawson: The Epstein Client List!"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 7/14/25
"Ryan Dawson: The Epstein Client List!"
Comments here:
"That's Why..."
"That's why crazy people are so dangerous.
You think they're nice until they're chaining you up in the garage."
- Michael Buckley
Judge Napolitano, "Col. Douglas Macgregor: How Close is World War III?"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 7/14/25
"Col. Douglas Macgregor: How Close is World War III?"
Comments here:
"More People Working Multiple Jobs As Financial Pressure Mounts"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/14/25
"More People Working Multiple Jobs
As Financial Pressure Mounts"
"42% of workers now say they need side gigs to survive - what’s really going on? In today’s video, I dive into the growing financial pressures people are facing, from juggling multiple jobs to make ends meet, to the instability of full-time employment. With 61% of workers doubting job stability and many choosing side gigs for flexibility, it’s clear things are changing fast. We also talk about layoffs, scams, the struggles of small business owners, and how younger generations are reshaping workplace dynamics."
Comments here:
"I'd Still Swim..."
"If I were dropped out of a plane into the ocean and told
the nearest land was a thousand miles away, I'd still swim.
And I'd despise the one who gave up. "
- Abraham Maslow
Bill Bonner, "A Week of Marvels"
"A Week of Marvels"
by Bill Bonner
"Last week brought more than the usual ration of surprise. It was a week of marvels, and the first miracle performed by a public figure since Moses parted the waters of the Red Sea. First the marvels. We had thought the trade wars were happily resting in their graves. But last week, they rose up again...ghoulish and ghastly.
After the ‘reciprocal’ tariff program was abandoned, the administration’s top quack economist, Peter Navarro, had promised ‘90 deals in 90 days.’ And so, the trade negotiators went to work. But after three months, there were only three deals done. One of them was with the UK, with which we had a trade surplus...and the other two - with China and Vietnam - are fishy and probably won’t stick.
Perhaps frustrated by the lack of progress, the US president first lashed out at Japan and Korea. The Irish Star: "Donald Trump renews global trade war with shocking 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea."
Then the trade war salvos came so hot and heavy, the press could barely keep up. USA Today: "President Donald Trump...threatened up to 200% tariffs on pharmaceuticals and slapped a 50% tariff on copper imports that sent copper prices soaring to an all-time high."
CBS took the next one: "Trump threatens 35% tariff against Canada."
And then NBC: "Trump says he will hit E.U. and Mexico with 30% tariff."
The oddest of the tariff threats had nothing to do with trade, but with Brazil’s internal politics. New to the annals of ‘trade war’ history, the US president is now using the threat of tariffs to influence internal politics in other sovereign nations. CNN: "Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Brazil if it doesn’t stop the Bolsonaro ‘witch hunt’ trial."
In between the waves of tariff assaults, came another marvel. Back in May, the president was calling for a 1% cut in the Fed’s key lending rate. On Wednesday of last week, the demand got multiplied by three: “Our Fed Rate is AT LEAST 3 Points too high. “Too Late” is costing the U.S. 360 Billion Dollars a Point, PER YEAR, in refinancing costs. No Inflation, COMPANIES POURING INTO AMERICA. “The hottest Country in the World!” LOWER THE RATE!!!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
In other words, POTUS says a rate cut of ‘three points’ - or 3% - would save the US more than a trillion dollars in interest. Just like that. But if you cut the yield on T-bonds by 75%...who would buy them? Nobody. The Fed would have to ‘print’ the money...US bonds and the dollar would crash...sending the US into the long-awaited credit crisis, chaos and recession.
But the week was still not over. And as remarkable as it was to befoul the US economy with trade barriers and very fake interest rates, the most remarkable thing was still to come. We only bring it up because it suggests that the empire really has entered a dark, degenerate phase typical of a declining empire.
Pam Bondi is America’s top cop - the Attorney General. And just a couple weeks ago she had the most explosive criminal document in the nation’s history, “right on my desk,” she said. It was a ‘client list’ from a notorious pedophile whose friends (with whom he apparently shared his underaged girls) included some of the richest, most powerful people in the world - including Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Prince Andrew, and (his best friend for several years) Donald Trump.
We don’t know where she stands on flying saucers or the virgin birth, but when Ms. Bondi tells us that something that important was ‘on her desk,’ we assume she would guard it with her life. But at the close of last week, she swore didn’t have the ‘file’...and that she wasn’t going to look for it...because it never existed. It was a miracle; the whole thing just de-materialized. In logic, it’s called the ‘principle of noncontradiction (PNC).’ A proposition cannot be both true and not true at the same time. It couldn’t both be there and not be there.
What then had been ‘on her desk?’ Maybe it wasn’t really a document that incriminated some of America’s richest and most powerful citizens, who were now subject to blackmail. Maybe it was just her shopping list - two heads of lettuce and a six pack. Anyone could make that mistake - mixing up a document that could blow up dozens of illustrious careers and shake faith in the international elite - with a grocery list.
So, you can’t blame Ms. Bondi. And the press has decided that it doesn’t matter who was on that list anyway; it’s really just another inside politics story. Donald Trump: "What’s going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?’ They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB!”
But wait. Ms. Ghislaine Maxwell is presently walking around a track, behind a chain-link fence in a federal prison in Florida. Assuming she does her time as ordered, and she keeps up with her exercise program, she’ll go around the track approximately 6,500 more times before they let her out. Her crime was ‘sex trafficking of underage girls.’ And the question ‘the list’ was supposed to answer was: to whom were these girls trafficked? Who was on the other side of the trade?
The press doesn’t want to ask. And the Deep State - now garrisoned by Bondi, Patel, et al - won’t say. But if the customers never really existed, why is Ms. Maxwell (daughter of suspected Israeli spy, Robert Maxwell) doing laps in Tallahassee?"
Adventures With Danno, "Massive Deals At Walmart!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 7/14/25
"Massive Deals At Walmart!"
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Jim Kunstler, "Summer Storms"
"Summer Storms"
by Jim Kunstler
“It’s dark on the Left now. They’ve reached that predictable
moment where inflicting pain is all they have left.“
-Sasha Stone
"Theories on the Epstein mess fly around like a murmuration of starlings wheeling across an angry summer sky. The birds are just birds. They are not the storm clouds in the background. Mark the difference.
You can rightly say that Mr. Trump has handled this Epstein business rather awkwardly - especially last Wednesday’s little show of vexation in the cabinet meeting, barking, nothing to see... just move along. What? You’ve been watching the Epstein psychodrama unspool for nearly twenty years, so how can it possibly come to this?
Looks like Pam Bondi fumbled badly in those early days on the job, promising things she was less than fully informed about. The public was already convinced that the entire power structure of the nation - of all Western Civ, actually - was a convocation of perverts, and that a vast trove of evidence was sitting there waiting to be laid on them. And then Mr. Trump slammed the door shut. Mssers. Patel and Bongino at the FBI got caught flat-footed, and “Danny Boombatz” especially freaked, seeing his reputation as a truth-teller likely to shred all over cable TV. Most unfortunate, the whole appalling episode.
But then, Sunday, the president suggested on his social media that the Epstein business had become a Democratic Party op. He did not elaborate. And maybe it sounds suspiciously spurious. But, is it not worth considering? Consider also: In all of Epstein’s dark activities there was surely a there there. He did run a concerted blackmail enterprise for some combo of Israel’s Mossad, the CIA, and the UK’s MI6 intel outfit. And, since blackmail requires documentation, there was a ton of it, eventually scooped out of his various domiciles by the FBI.
The key is: had become a Democratic Party op. Didn’t start out that way, but might have turned into one. Consider: The Democratic Party was up to its eyeballs in ops against Mr. Trump since he rode down that fabled escalator in 2015. The “intel community” was the chief player in these operations. The intel community ran rings around Mr. Trump with all manner of fabricated nonsense during the election campaign of 2016 and throughout his first term. You could say - and I believe the DOJ under Ms. Bondi will say in cases waiting to brought - that these many operations amounted to one continuous seditious conspiracy to overthrow a president. It ran from the Steele dossier, through the Mueller Investigation, through the Norm Eisen/Adam Schiff engineered impeachment No 1, through the gamed election of 2020, through the J-6 committee, and through all the nefarious lawfare gambits against Mr. Trump during the “Joe Biden” fake presidency.
Why wouldn’t the Epstein files now turn out to be an extension of these same operations? The DOJ first moved against Epstein in 2005. The case culminated in 2008 with a plea deal on some Mickey Mouse state prostitution charges and a non-prosecution agreement with the feds under US Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, Alex Acosta - who was reported later saying that Epstein “belonged to intelligence,” and that the case was therefore “beyond my pay-grade” to prosecute.
Between 2008 and 2019, Epstein returned to his international swashbuckling ways. Strangely, he was finally busted on June 6, 2019, by then-AG William Barr, whose father, Donald Barr had been headmaster of New York City’s Dalton prep school, where Jeffrey Epstein, age twenty-one, was hired to teach math and physics in 1974, though he lacked a college degree. All that may just be coincidental, of course.
A little more than a month after his arrest on sex trafficking charges in the summer of 2019, Epstein died in the Manhattan federal lockup under mysterious circumstances. The outstanding question even afterward was: trafficking with-and-to whom? And the general assumption among the public was: trafficking teenage girls to a long list of public officials, movie stars, financial bigshots, and miscellaneous celebs such as Prince Andrew of the British royal family.
Astoundingly little was learned from the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell in 2021-22, which was led by Maurene Comey, daughter of former FBI Director James Comey (fired in 2017). Small world. The case only covered Ms. Maxwell’s activities between 1994 and 2004. Why only that period? Never explained. Rumors of a “client list” being among the evidence have never been substantiated, and were repudiated last week by AG Pam Bondi and President Trump.
Okay, all very well, such as it is. But consider: all the evidence, in all the cases against Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, has been in the possession of the FBI and the DOJ since at least the first Epstein case in 2005-08. If there was any evidence of Donald Trump caught in some indecent act, why did it not get leaked during the campaign of 2016, or any time since then? His political adversaries tried virtually everything else to knock him out of the arena, up to even assassination - but not that?
The DOJ and FBI were arguably in their most roguish phase as weaponized agencies during the “Joe Biden” years. All the Epstein evidence resided in the New York City field office of the FBI. These were also the years when the apparatus of the Democratic Party - and its rank-and-file - fell into a fugue of vicious, psychotic animus against Mr. Trump and the populist movement he led, not just in the USA, but spreading throughout Western Civ.
Do you suppose that the FBI might have worked some hoodoo with those Epstein evidence files, especially to set the table for the 2026 mid-term elections, when knocking a few Republicans out of office might flip the House and Senate back to the Democratic Party? I would suppose it’s not just a thing; I think it’s the thing. I would imagine that this is exactly what Mr. Trump was hinting at the other day when he referred to this business as yet another Democratic Party op. He knows the mainstream media will never investigate it or report it. And the alt-media is too momentarily disconcerted to entertain the idea. So, he just slammed the door shut.
Nobody likes it, but it may be necessary. Other storms are brewing: financial gales, geopolitical thunderheads, and apparently - we are officially informed - the coming cases against John Brennan, James Comey, and other figures who initiated the coup, which is a much bigger deal than who might have been having sex with whom sixteen years ago."
"We Already Know The Solutions, We Only Lack The Will"
"We Already Know The Solutions,
We Only Lack The Will"
by John Wilder
"I’m stuck in a conference room that smells like stale donuts and broken dreams. Okay, that sounds like a detective novel that ends up with the hot dame double-crossing the private dick over the insurance money and a bottle of bourbon, but that’s not this post. Really, it’s just a business meeting and the meeting is done. But since everybody in the building knows each other, the meeting is in the lingering phase where we’re solving all the problems of the world.
Apropos of nothing, I say, “You know, 37% of the elderly have been taken advantage of by foreign scammers.” I have no idea if this is true, but it’s very specific. I pause. “That means that there are 63% who are still available to be scammed, so if we’re not millionaires, it’s our own fault.”
The reality though, really does piss me off. Americans lost $12.5 billion in 2024. These aren’t just Nigerian princes with emails littered with the comical spelling errors, no they are also slick Mumbai call centers with intense marketing campaigns. I had heard an estimate (that I can’t find) indicating that upwards of 80,000 Indians worked in these call centers, all laughing as they entice American grandmas to go to Target™ to get gift cards.
It actually does make me quite mad. I lean forward, fed up. “The solution is and always has been dead simple. The NSA has these call centers mapped down to their curry orders and can tell you the last time Gupta changed his underwear. They know where they are. Trump could launch a BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile carrying 1,000 pounds of high explosive tomorrow into a call center. Turn it into rubble. Get on TV and say, ‘Another missile is on the way. Shut down the scam call centers.’
“When they don’t, another missile hits. Trump gets back on the TV. ‘Another one tomorrow. And the day after? We shut India off of the Internet and satellite communications. We mine the harbors. Your choice.’ The world would be stunned. The calls would stop.”
One of my friends said, “Well, that escalated quickly.” No, it didn’t. It was and is the obvious solution. It could stop tomorrow if someone had the spine.
Since Trump took office, he’s shown what spine looks like (with the exception of the Epstein papers). His border policies, travel bans, and tariffs weren’t just talk he did what he promised and got a rare federal budget surplus in June due to them. This is unlike every other empty suit before him who campaigned on “tough on (drugs, crime, illegals)” then promptly developed amnesia on day one in the Oval Office.
Our problems: drugs, terror, illegals, scams, and more all have simple fixes. The only thing missing is the will to implement the solution. We’ve got a laundry list of messes, and the solutions are the first thing you’d think of if you weren’t a spineless bureaucrat.
Drug Trafficking: Cartels pump fentanyl across the border, killing 100,000 Americans yearly.
Solution: Deploy the military to the border, treat cartels as enemy combatants. Drone strikes with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles slamming into stash houses or cartel overlord’s haciendas, streamed live by the White House at the top of each and every hour for a week, and I imagine that getting drugs across the border will be the least of the concern of what remains of the cartels. Repeat as necessary.
Terrorism: A stronger immigration screening policy and 9/11 would never have occurred.
Solution: Denaturalize radical aliens and ship them home. Make Somalians in Minnesota Somalians in Somalia again, and then sink any boat leaving Somali. Deport or detain without apology.
Illegal Aliens: Millions of illegals cost taxpayers $150 billion annually—schools, hospitals, welfare. Their foreign culture and zero desire to assimilate pushes the country onto the path of Civil War.
Solution: Arrest the CEO of any company employing illegals. Sentence for the C-Suite? A year for each illegal employed. Create Wilder’s Square Mile: a square mile, fenced camp on the border with Mexico. Illegals found will be dropped off there until processed, like an AirBNB® with no Wi-Fi. The border with Mexico is open, so they can leave if they want to. If the illegals don’t leave? Seize all of their assets – bank accounts, sneakers, cars, houses, anything they own is forfeit. End sanctuary cities with federal troops. One mayor in custody for insurrection, others comply.
Is all of this Constitutional? Well, most of it, probably. Thomas Jefferson set the precedent in 1801. Barbary Pirates, Muslim slavers and pirates from North Africa raided U.S. ships, enslaved sailors, and demanded tribute from our new nation. Jefferson, fresh in office, said “Enough, bitches.” Or something like that. But he had a secret weapon: Article II, Section 2 makes the president commander-in-chief to protect American interests.
Jefferson sent the USS Constitution to blast Tripoli’s ports, no Congress needed, and the Marines get a line in their song. By 1805, the pirates begged for peace, “Please, just don’t send more of those Marines!” All of the above echo Jefferson: act fast, hit hard, protect the Actual Americans. The Constitution’s fine with it; only spineless elites disagree.
Why then, do these problems persist? Here’s the dirty secret: the elites don’t really want to solve these problems. The solutions aren’t hard, literally your first instinct, the first thing you think of is the thing that will work. Drugs? Blow up a cartel. Terror? Sink a boat. Illegals? Deport ‘em, jail anyone who employs them. Scams? Missiles to Mumbai.
So, why aren’t these problems solved? In some cases, it’s because politicians are gutless and don’t want to anger India. I don’t care much about what India thinks, but that’s another post.
In other cases, there’s a collusion of the darkest motives of our political system. Illegals? The Chamber of Commerce crowd wants cheap labor to pluck chickens and make beds, wanting the TradRight to not take action. The GloboLeft love that the illegals swarm to states that vote Blue, and increase the number of members of Congress that come from, say, California.
The dame walks into my office – she’s got a pair of thirty-eights, and a pistol, too. I could smell perfume that cost more than I made in a month as she walked in. “John Wilder, I hear you’re a P.I. who . . . solves problems.” “I sure am, sweetheart.” I mean, I’ve found that you can solve almost any problem in the world with only three BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile carrying 1,000 pounds of high explosive."
"Warning: Something Horrifying Is Coming"
Noam Chomsky Thoughts, 7/13/25
"Warning: Something Horrifying Is Coming"
"You're about to watch a 48-minute motivational and eye-opening speech in the voice and spirit of Noam Chomsky, exploring the dangerous crossroads America is facing today. This video will challenge your understanding, awaken your conscience, and empower you to rise against injustice. This isn’t just a speech - it’s a warning and a moral awakening. Through piercing insight and profound inspiration, the video explores the looming collapse of American systems, the media’s manipulation, the rise of repression, and the path toward spiritual and societal renewal. If you care about justice, truth, and collective action - you need to hear this."
Comments here:
Gregory Mannarino, "Expect Anything! Trump To Make 'Major' Announcement"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 7/14/25
"Expect Anything!
Trump To Make 'Major' Announcement"
Comments here:
"Yesterday, in my click- Markets a Look Ahead Video we covered A LOT. Well, it just got bigger. President Trump is about to make a MAJOR announcement after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky finished his meeting with US special envoy Keith Kellogg. Trump says that the US will be sending “very sophisticated” weapons to Ukraine.
Multiple other factors developing… We are in convergence territory. We now have this major announcement from President Trump on Ukraine, compounded by trade was escalation. Trump’s looming 30–50% tariffs on EU, Mexico, Brazil and Canada are set to begin August 1st, if no deals are made. Markets are already wobbling on this. Expect volatility across industrials, autos, and consumer goods.
Banks (JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo) report earnings this week. Also Netflix, Johnson & Johnson, ASML, Tesla. I fully expect expect heavily massaged numbers and forward guidance spin. Any weak reports may be blamed on “supply chains” or “uncertainty over tariffs.” We are being gaslighted and psychologically tested at every level. They will continue to try to confuse the real picture.
The Epstein files meltdown… Expect a major distraction. The pressure to bury this is immense and with that, be ready for anything. This is not just about Trump… the Epstein network involves global elites, other politicians, royalty, corporate giants, judges, military brass. Expect more lies, and be mentally and spiritually ready for a shock event. Be ready for anything…"
- GM
"Epstein Was An Israeli Agent"
George Galloway, 7/13/25
"Epstein Was An Israeli Agent"
Comments here:
o
Excerpt: "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."
Full article is here:
o
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 7/10/25
"Was Jeffrey Epstein a Mossad Asset?"
"What dark secrets lie beneath Jeffrey Epstein's web of influence? From intelligence connections to political protection, this episode peels back layers of one of America's most disturbing scandals.
When Florida prosecutor Alex Acosta stated that Epstein "belonged to intelligence," it opened a Pandora's box of questions. We explore the compelling evidence connecting Epstein to intelligence operations – from his Saudi passport to his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of confirmed Mossad agent Robert Maxwell. The interconnected world of Epstein extends to surprising places, including ties to then current Secretary of State Tony Blinken's stepfather.
The political manipulation surrounding the Epstein case reveals troubling patterns across party lines. Trump supporters were promised explosive revelations about an "Epstein client list" that would expose corrupt elites. Instead, the administration has retreated, with Trump himself dismissing questions about Epstein while clear evidence of their relationship exists – including NBC footage of them partying together at Mar-a-Lago. Meanwhile, Democrats consistently avoided highlighting these Trump-Epstein connections during campaigns, suggesting neither party wanted full exposure of this network.
Most revealing is how figures like Pam Bondi and Dan Bongino, who once claimed the Epstein files would "take down Democrats," now occupy powerful positions in an administration that shows more interest in immigration enforcement partnerships with private prison contractors than in exposing elite corruption. The episode ultimately challenges listeners to question a political system where accountability stops where powerful interests begin. What secrets remain buried in the Epstein case, and what does it reveal about the true priorities of those in power? Listen now and decide for yourself."
Comments here:
o
o
“We know they are lying.
They know they are lying.
They know we know they are lying.
We know they know we know they are lying.
But they are still lying.”
- Alexander Solzhenitsyn
"Economic Market Snapshot 7/14/25"
"Economic Market Snapshot 7/14/25"
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Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...
Only the consequences are real - to you!
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"It's a Big Club, and you ain't in it.
You and I are not in the Big Club."
- George Carlin
o
Market Data Center, Live Updates:
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Financial Stress Index
"The OFR Financial Stress Index (OFR FSI) is a daily market-based snapshot of stress in global financial markets. It is constructed from 33 financial market variables, such as yield spreads, valuation measures, and interest rates. The OFR FSI is positive when stress levels are above average, and negative when stress levels are below average. The OFR FSI incorporates five categories of indicators: credit, equity valuation, funding, safe assets and volatility. The FSI shows stress contributions by three regions: United States, other advanced economies, and emerging markets."
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Job cuts and much more.
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Commentary, highly recommended:
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"The more I see of the monied classes,
the better I understand the guillotine."
- George Bernard Shaw
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Oh yeah... beyond words. Any I know anyway...
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And now... The End Game...
o
Sunday, July 13, 2025
"Why Are Stores Closing In This Wealthy City? Retail Apocalypse Is Back"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 7/13/25
"Why Are Stores Closing In This Wealthy City?
Retail Apocalypse Is Back"
Comments here:
"Alert: 24 Hours to Major Trump Announcement; 'NATO Missiles Will Rain on Moscow in August'"
Prepper News, 7/13/25
"Alert: 24 Hours to Major Trump Announcement;
'NATO Missiles Will Rain on Moscow in August'"
Comments here:
Musical Interlude: Peder B. Helland, "A Dream"
Full screen recommended.
Peder B. Helland, "A Dream"
"Beautiful Relaxing Music •
Norwegian Nature & Violin, Flute, Piano & Harp Music"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Cosmic dust clouds cross a rich field of stars in this telescopic vista near the northern boundary of Corona Australis, the Southern Crown. Less than 500 light-years away the dust clouds effectively block light from more distant background stars in the Milky Way. Top to bottom the frame spans about 2 degrees or over 15 light-years at the clouds' estimated distance. At top right is a group of lovely reflection nebulae cataloged as NGC 6726, 6727, 6729, and IC 4812.
A characteristic blue color is produced as light from hot stars is reflected by the cosmic dust. The dust also obscures from view stars in the region still in the process of formation. Just above the bluish reflection nebulae a smaller NGC 6729 surrounds young variable star R Coronae Australis. To its right are telltale reddish arcs and loops identified as Herbig Haro objects associated with energetic newborn stars. Magnificent globular star cluster NGC 6723 is at bottom left in the frame. Though NGC 6723 appears to be part of the group, its ancient stars actually lie nearly 30,000 light-years away, far beyond the young stars of the Corona Australis dust clouds."
"The Heart of Humanity"
"The Heart of Humanity"
by Madisyn Taylor, The DailyOM
"Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and we will come out the other side. The last thing most of us want to hear or think about when we are dealing with profound feelings of sadness is that deep learning can be found in this place. In the midst of our pain, we often feel picked on by life, or overwhelmed by the enormity of some loss, or simply too exhausted to try and examine the situation. We may feel far too disappointed and angry to look for anything resembling a bright side to our suffering. Still, somewhere in our hearts, we know that we will eventually emerge from the depths into the light of greater awareness. Remembering this truth, no matter how elusive it seems, can help.
The other thing we often would rather not hear when we are dealing with intense sadness is that the only way out of it is through it. Sitting with our sadness takes the courage to believe that we can bear the pain and the faith that we will come out the other side. With courage, we can allow ourselves to cycle through the grieving process with full inner permission to experience it. This is a powerful teaching that sadness has to offer us - the ability to surrender and the acceptance of change go hand in hand.
Another teaching of sadness is compassion for others who are in pain, because it is only in feeling our own pain that we can really understand and allow for someone else’s. Sadness is something we all go through, and we all learn from it and are deepened by its presence in our lives. While our own individual experiences of sadness carry with them unique lessons, the implications of what we learn are universal. The wisdom we gain from going through the process of feeling loss, heartbreak, or deep disappointment gives us access to the heart of humanity."
"In A Nation Ruled By Swine..."
"In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile - and the rest of us are f****d until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep. "
- Hunter S. Thompson, "The Great Shark Hunt"
"Each Must For Himself Alone Decide..."
“Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country – hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
- Mark Twain
"Meredith's Letter To God"
"Meredith's Letter To God"
Posted on Quora
"Our 14-year-old dog, Abbey, passed away last month. The day after she died, my 4-year-old daughter, Meredith, was crying and talking about how much she missed Abbey. She asked if we could write a letter to God so He would know Abbey when she got to heaven. I told her we could, and she told me what to write:
"Dear God,
Will you please take care of my dog? She died yesterday and is with you in heaven. I miss her a lot. I’m glad you let her be my dog even though she got sick. I hope you will play with her. She likes to swim and chase balls. I’m sending you a picture of her so you’ll know she is my dog. I really miss her.
Love, Meredith"
We put the letter in an envelope with a picture of Abbey and Meredith. We wrote, “To God in Heaven” on the envelope and added our return address. Meredith stuck several stamps on it, saying it would take many stamps to reach heaven. That afternoon, she dropped it in the mailbox at the post office. A few days later, she asked if God had received the letter. I told her I believed He had.
Yesterday, we found a package wrapped in shiny gold paper on our front porch. It was addressed to "Meredith" in handwriting we didn’t recognize. Meredith opened it. Inside was a book by Mr. Rogers called "When a Pet Dies." Taped to the inside cover was the letter we had sent to God, still in its envelope. On the opposite page was the picture of Abbey and Meredith and this note:
"Dear Meredith,
"Abbey got to heaven safely. The picture helped, and I knew right away who she was. Abbey is not sick anymore. Her spirit is here with me, just like she stays in your heart. She loved being your dog. Since we don’t have pockets in heaven, I can’t keep your picture with me, so I’m sending it back in this book for you to keep and remember Abbey. Thank you for your lovely letter, and thank your mom for helping you write and send it. You have a very special mother. I chose her just for you. I send you my blessings every day, and I want you to remember that I love you very much. And by the way, I’m easy to find - I’m wherever there is love.
Love, God"
"This beautiful story is true."
"Uncoding Creativity in the Age of AI: What Makes a Great Poem, What Makes a Great Storyteller, and What Makes Us Human"
"Uncoding Creativity in the Age of AI: What Makes a Great Poem,
What Makes a Great Storyteller, and What Makes Us Human"
By Maria Popova
"I once asked ChatGPT to write a poem about a total solar eclipse in the style of Walt Whitman. It returned a dozen couplets of cliches that touched nothing, changed nothing in me. The AI had the whole of the English language at its disposal - a lexicon surely manyfold the poet’s - and yet Whitman could conjure up cosmoses of feeling with a single line, could sculpt from the commonest words an image so dazzlingly original it stops you up short, spins you around, leaves the path of your thought transformed.
An AI may never be able to write a great poem - a truly original poem - because a poem is made not of language but of experience, and the defining aspect of human experience is the constant collision between our wishes and reality, the sharp violation of our expectations, the demolition of our plans. We call this suffering.
Suffering is the price we pay for a consciousness capable of love and the loss of love, of hope and the devastation of hope. Because suffering, like consciousness itself, is a full-body phenomenon - glands secreting fear, nerves conducting loneliness, neurotransmitters recoiling with regret - a disembodied pseudo-consciousness is fundamentally incapable of suffering and that transmutation of suffering into meaning we call art: An algorithm will never know anything beyond the execution of its programmed plan; it is fundamentally spared the failure of its aims because failure can never be the successful execution of the command to fail.
We create - poems and paintings, stories and songs - to find a language for the bewilderment of being alive, the failure of it, the fulness of it, and to have lived fully is not to have spared yourself.
In his exquisite reckoning with what makes life worth living, Nobel laureate Elias Canetti captures this in a diary entry from the late spring of 1942. Under the headline “very necessary qualifications for a good Persian storyteller,” he copies out a passage from an unidentified book he is reading: "In addition to having read all the known books on love and heroism, the teller of stories must have suffered greatly for love, have lost his beloved, drunk much good wine, wept with many in their sorrow, have looked often upon death and have learned much about birds and beasts. He must also be able to change himself into a beggar or a caliph in the twinkling of an eye."
A generation before Canetti, the philosopher-poet Rainer Maria Rilke articulated the same essential condition for creativity in his only novel, reflecting on what it takes to compose a great poem, but speaking to what it takes to create anything of beauty and substance, anything drawn from one life to touch another:
"For the sake of a few lines one must see many cities, men and things. One must know the animals, one must feel how the birds fly and know the gesture with which the small flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back to roads in unknown regions, to unexpected meetings and to partings which one has long seen coming; to days of childhood that are still unexplained, to parents that one had to hurt when they brought one some joy and one did not grasp it (it was a joy for someone else); to childhood illness that so strangely began with a number of profound and grave transformations, to days in rooms withdrawn and quiet and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along on high and flew with all the stars - and it is not yet enough if one may think of all of this. One must have memories of many nights of love, none of which was like the others, of the screams of women in labor, and of light, white, sleeping women in childbed, closing again. But one must also have been beside the dying, one must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the fitful noises."
Couple with Carl Jung on the relationship between suffering and creativity, then revisit Annie Dillard on creativity and what it takes to be a great writer and Oliver Sacks, writing thirty years before ChatGPT, on consciousness, AI, and our search for meaning."
Dan, I Allegedly, "None of Us are Safe! Shocking Danger on Our Roads"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/13/25
"None of Us are Safe!
Shocking Danger on Our Roads"
"Shocking revelations about the foreign truck crisis are putting all of us at risk! In today’s video, we’re tackling pressing issues affecting road safety, American truckers, and how recent decisions are making our highways more dangerous. With over 876,000 foreign trucks allowed into the U.S., many without meeting proper driving standards, the consequences are staggering. From unsafe practices to skyrocketing costs for everyday goods, this crisis impacts everyone. I also dive into stories of fraud, rising unsold home numbers, and even a wild "speed roommating" trend. It's a jam-packed episode you don’t want to miss. "
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"Most Ignorance..."
"Most ignorance is vincible ignorance.
We don’t know because we don’t want to know."
- Aldous Huxley
"Arizona’s Homeless Crisis 2025: Skyrocketing Numbers & System Collapse"
Full screen recommended.
Street Stories Homeless, 7/13/25
"Arizona’s Homeless Crisis 2025:
Skyrocketing Numbers & System Collapse"
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