"Imagination Land"

"Imagination Land"

by The Zman

"All of us live in a silo of our own making to some degree. We read news sites we like and we like them because they tend to cover the stuff we think is important, in a way we hope is accurate. We admire opinions with which we agree. We hang out with people who share our interests. That’s normal. It’s also normal to know it and know others have different opinions and interests. Most normie conservatives get that Fox News is biased toward the Republicans, but they know all of the other stations are heavily biased to the Democrats.

This self-awareness has never applied to the Left. Every normal person has had a conversation with a Progressive friend where they claim the news is biased against them or is too easy on some conservative they currently hate. They will argue that Fox News is poisoning the minds of the public. When you point out that 90% of the mass media is run by hard left true believers, they scoff and say you’re nuts. The hive mind of Progressives has always allowed them to pretend they are surrounded by a sea of their enemies.

One point made by some on the Dissident Right is that this blinkered view of the world has infected the so-called conservatives. They are blind to the intellectual revolution going on over here, because they stare at Lefty all day. Like people looking directly into the sun, they are blind to everything else. As a result, the legacy conservatives carry on like it is 1984 and Dutch Reagan is riding high. Much of what so-called conservatism is these days is just a weird nostalgia trip, celebrating a fictional past with no connection to the present.

There are many reasons why so-called conservatives are becoming irrelevant, but the main reason is that their good friends on the Left are racing off into a fantasy land of their own creation. Listen to a modern Progressive talk and it is a weird combination of echolalic babbling and paranoia about dark forces that are imaginary. Replace “Russian hacking” with “work of the devil” and their howling makes more sense. Things like “foreign meddling” and “institutional racism” are just stand-ins for Old Scratch.

This increasingly weird disconnect between the Left and this place we call earth shows up in their main propaganda organs. Those old enough to remember reading English versions of communist newspapers can recognize the unintended humor on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post. This front page item is a good example. Everything in that “news” story describes a world that only exists in the fevered imaginations of the Left. It was a fictional account of present reality written for believers.

This Andrew Sullivan piece bumps up against this reality a little bit, but from a different angle. His argument is that the fantasy land of academia is casting a long shadow over American society, so it is imperative that the college campus be reformed to look something like reality. His framing of things is mostly wrong because he is just a slightly less berserk member of the hive he is trying analyze. His description of the dynamic on campus, though, is correct. It is a world untethered from reality.

The fact is, the college campus is the apotheosis of Progressive spiritualism. It has been dominated by the Left for as long as anyone has been a live. The constant flow of credit money into American higher education has removed all restraints on the people in charge. They are free to indulge whatever fantasies they have at the moment, as no one ever gets fired and the money spigot stays open. As a result, the American college campus is the full flowering of the Progressive imagination. It’s Wakanda for cat ladies.

This lurch into madness is the result of plenty. Up until recent, the threat of nuclear annihilation and the lack of universal prosperity has reined in the excesses of the Left. In order to win elections, Progressive politicians had to focus on better economics and expanding opportunity. Of course, the Cold War kept everyone focused on practical reality, as a mistake could have set off a nuclear exchange. That’s no longer the case, in human terms, and there are looming threats.

Progressivism has always been a spiritual movement. It is the quest for cosmic justice based on the notion that we are only as good as the weakest among us. That is a fine and noble sentiment, as long as it remains a sentiment. The reality of scarcity has always kept this spiritualism in check. As we enter into a post-abundance world, Progressives are free to explore the far reaches of their mysticism. The result is a ruling class that is looking more like eastern mystics, than pragmatic rulers.

It is why civic nationalism is a dead end street. You see it in the Andrew Sullivan piece about the campus culture. What he is arguing in favor of is the same things we hear from civic nationalists. They all agree with Progressives that we need a unifying religion. They just want a debate about the contours and end points of the religion. The fact that no one has ever pulled this off without ushering in a bloodbath never gets mentioned, Instead, all of these folks prefer to frolic in imagination land, where all their dreams come true.”

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

o

“Father, O father! what do we here
In this land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far,
Above the light of the morning star.”
- William Blake, “The Land of Dreams”

o

Full screen recommended.

Moody Blues, "Land of Make-Believe"

John Wilder, "More War Economics"

"More War Economics"

by John Wilder

“I had no idea that a study of nature could advance the art of naval warfare.”

– "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"

"Previously I had a post about the Economics of War. This is not exactly a follow up, more of an additional exploration on the topic from a slightly different perspective. And at one time I used to worry that one of my hairs are out of place, but now, with greater perspective, I don’t care if all six are out of place. So, perspective matters.

War is about stuff. In order to fight a war, there needs to be stuff to fight with and the stuff (and men) need to be in the right place at the right time, and General Nathan B. Forrest described his winning strategy for one battle, “I just got there first with the most men.”

Of course, that wins a battle, but not a war. Unless you’re fighting against France, in which case all you have to win is the one battle if you have sufficient supplies of cigarettes, baguettes, suffragettes, and raclettes. And a recent Rand® analysis says that’s probably all the United States can win, is a battle. To quote the study, “U.S. industrial production is grossly inadequate to provide the equipment, technology, and munitions needed today, let alone given the demands of a great power conflict.” Great power conflict means Russia, and it means China, and if we continue on this path, might even include France and Tahiti.

Let’s talk first about industrial production. At the beginning of World War II, the United States had a massive untapped labor market thanks to Democratic policies. We also had the knowhow to build factories capable of mass producing, well, anything, thanks to Henry Ford. We also had amazing resources, including more oil than Geraldo Rivera’s hair. Although car production isn’t tank production, you can see it from there. And airplanes? They’re just cars with wings, like racoons are pandas that eat trash, right?

Yeah, we can make those. And with that, the American weapons manufacturing industry was ramped up in 1939 and 1940 or so in order to sell (first) lots of stuff to the British. It worked. By the time the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and the war started, the industrial machine of the United States was just warming up, and soon enough farm girls from the Midwest would be welding on Liberty Ships in Alameda. In 1941, before Pearl Harbor, the United States had 9 aircraft carriers of all types. At the end of 1945, the United States had 99 aircraft carriers. That’s not a misprint. 99.

In 2026, however, the United States, as far as I can see, is primarily engaged in the production of accounting irregularities, debt, corn syrup, and pizza rolls. Oh, and worthless university degrees. Can’t have enough of those.

But is it really important in the time of missiles and drones to have aircraft carriers? Perhaps not, perhaps they’re as antiquated as bombers and useful mainly against adversaries that can’t “reach out and touch someone” like the Taliban or Iraq? Perhaps not. Maybe we should look at other components of weapons.

Let’s take just one technology that’s in everything now: LED displays. They’re in phones, but also in jet fighters, tanks, headsets, and any technology meant to share information across a battlespace. A cursory examination shows that no significant production of LED displays takes place in the United States, and the two companies that I could find that were listed as “American” that produce LEDs have been bought by China.

Sure, the Taiwanese and Japanese and Koreans make this tech, but those countries are (checks map) nowhere near the United States. If there was a protracted war, I’ll leave it as a class exercise to estimate the chances that shipping between those locations and the United States might be impacted. The extended supply chains required to make our most sophisticated weapons systems are long, complex, and vulnerable.

The F-35, for instance, requires parts manufactured all around the world, and even then, there have only been 1,000 made. Is 1,000 a lot? In billions of dollars, yes. In fighter planes, no. Yet, China claims to have created an automated factory that can make 1,000 cruise missiles a day. Is that a lot? Well, every day, yes, since the last data I have says that the United States has an inventory of 4,000 cruise missiles. If correct, China can produce the entire inventory of United States cruise missiles in less than a week.

Are they crappier than ours? Probably. But we’d still have to shoot down every single one if we didn’t want to get hit. How many days until we ran out of SAMs to take them down? If our production of SAMs is like our production of artillery, not long, and then it would be slingshots.

Okay, those are technologically complex systems. Surely on the old-style weapons we’re doing great, right? No. Russia is, by itself, producing three times the artillery munitions that can be produced by the United States. And by Europe. Combined. And that’s today after we’ve been attempting to ramp up production for three years.

So, there’s economic warfare, right? Many have argued in the past that China needs the markets of the United States, or they would collapse. That was a good argument, in the past. China now sells more to developing markets than to the West. When people keeping talking about China being a paper economic tiger that will soon collapse, I just have to point to that same phrase being trotted out every year for the last 30 years. China’s economy isn’t like that of the United States, and they’ve taken full advantage of the willingness of the United States to self-immolate its own manufacturing capacity.

China’s ship military ship production capacity exceeds that of the United States. Oh, strike that. Just a single Chinese shipyard exceeds the military ship production capacity of the United States. When we shipped the factories overseas, we not only lost the know-how to make many things. This is the stuff that the instruction manual doesn’t cover, the figuring out how to make the production line work, the solving of the myriad of glitches that come with a start-up. It’s almost like this unilateral deindustrialization was encouraged. Hmmm.

This isn’t to say that we’ve been defeated – far from it. But this is no longer 1990 when the United States could, with impunity, exercise military might anywhere around the world and be essentially as unchallenged as Kamala at a vodka-chugging contest. I like to think (and hope) that at least some military planners have realized the amazing hole that we’re in, and understand that the era of unilateral American military dominance somewhere between “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the formation of the 183rd Transexual Human Resources Division.

This, however, is not the end. It just means that the Russia/Ukraine war is a foreshadowing of what’s to come as Pax Americana fades into memory. We will see many more regional wars, and most of those wars will be wars we can’t impact in any meaningful way. This, of course, assumes that we don’t have a stockpile of wunderwaffe sitting around that can allow immediate battlefield dominance and intelligence. Hmmm. Not seeing that, but, again, I’m not on the list of folks that get those memos.

We can also use this time to ask ourselves what, exactly, we get out of having military bases all around the world when the single biggest threat is the open border at the south. Abraham Lincoln, more than 25 years before he was a theater enjoyer, said this at the age of 28: "Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth, our own excepted, in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years."

Yes. Neither the Russians nor the Chinese could ever take this country by force, but yet we’re bringing in millions of military age men into the country so they can eat all the ducks that swim in the Ohio. I wonder if we’ll regret letting the illegals get there first, with the most men?"

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

"Wars And Rumors of War: The Middle East"

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/23/26

"Scott Ritter: What War With Iran Will Look Like"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Dialogue Works, 2/23/26

"Larry C. Johnson: Existential Fight: The 'Hell' 

Iran Has Prepared for a War w/ US And It's Happening"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

Dan, I Allegedly, "$600 Is the New Red Flag - Banks Are Locking Accounts"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 2/23/26

"$600 Is the New Red Flag - 

Banks Are Locking Accounts"

"Banks are increasing AI monitoring in 2026, and even small transfers - including $600 payments - are triggering account freezes and suspicious activity reviews. Automated transaction monitoring systems now flag rapid transfers, structuring, new payees, crypto activity, international transactions, and unusual deposit patterns. If your bank detects behavior outside your normal spending history, your debit card, bill pay, and transfers can be blocked without warning. In this video, Dan breaks down what actually triggers bank account flags, how anti-money laundering (AML) rules work, why banks won’t explain the freeze, and most importantly - how to protect yourself. Learn the dos and don’ts of moving money in 2026 so you don’t lose access to your checking account when you need it most."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Changes At Dollar Tree"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 2/23/26

"Massive Changes At Dollar Tree"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Full screen recommended.

Across The States, 2/23/26

"11 Foods Disappearing Fast From 

Stores Before March - Stock Up Now!"

"11 foods disappearing from stores are raising eyebrows right now, and if your grocery bill feels unpredictable, you’re not imagining it. Quiet supply shifts, production cuts, and global shipping delays are already changing what shows up on shelves. Here’s the thing: many staple items people rely on every day - from grains and cooking oils to shelf-stable proteins and sweeteners - are being packaged smaller, priced higher, or stocked less frequently. Retail buyers are adjusting orders while manufacturers trim output, creating gaps shoppers only notice when favorite items suddenly vanish. What most people miss is how these changes ripple outward. Restaurant demand, crop yields, fuel costs, and international trade policies all influence availability. Smart households aren’t panic buying - they’re building practical reserves, rotating stock, and choosing long-lasting foods that stretch budgets and reduce waste. This video breaks down what’s tightening in supply, why it’s happening now, and how to build a realistic 90-day pantry without overspending or hoarding."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

John Wilder, "How To Break A Society, Part I"

"How To Break A Society, Part I"

by John Wilder

“Half measures are the curse of it. A rational society

 would either kill me or put me to some use.” 

– Red Dragon

"Picture this: I leave my keys in the truck overnight. Windows down. Wallet on the dash. Next morning? Still there. Nothing missing, though a cat might have explored an empty burger wrapper. No viral TikTok™ of some “youth” doing donuts in my F-150®.

Absurd? No.And not because Big Brother has cameras up the backside of every squirrel, but because back in the day people just didn’t do that crap. The neighbors would have known who did it. Moms would have heard about it at church, and the father of the kid would have heard about it from his boss.

Shame, accountability, and consequences work better than ankle monitors. That was the power of societal norms. Invisible fences made of “What will people think?” And the Founding Fathers knew it. They told us so. Benjamin Franklin walked out of the Constitutional Convention and some lady asked what they’d given us. “A republic,” he said, “if you can keep it.” Not “if the government keeps it for you.” Not “if we pass enough laws.” If you can keep it. John Adams was even blunter in 1798: “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

They weren’t kidding. Just like the Constitution, the libertarian dream only works when people self-circumscribe their own behavior. An 85,000-page federal code of regulations telling me not to steal if my conscience (and the fear of my neighbors shunning me like a rabid raccoon with diarrhea at a picnic) already does the job. The Constitution assumed a pretty genetically homogeneous people who spoke the same language, mostly went to the same church, read the same Bible, and agreed that punching your neighbor over a fence line was a last resort, not the premise of a YouTube™ video.

Some people broke the rules. Always have, always will no matter the civilization. But back then the system didn’t turn justice into a CBS® series lasting twenty years. The mean time from sentence to rope? Often weeks or a few months, not the decades-long death-row vacation with three hots, cable, and taxpayer-funded lawyers we enjoy today. Were innocents sometimes executed? Almost certainly.

But swift, mostly impartial justice beat the hell out of vigilante posses or letting killers out on technicalities to murder yet again. A society that can’t punish the guilty quickly loses the ability to protect the innocent at all.

Fast-forward to post-World War II America. Streets were so safe kids rode bikes until the streetlights came on. Doors stayed unlocked. Factories hummed, wages rose, and the biggest scandal in most towns was somebody skipping the church potluck. Prosperity wasn’t just money: it was a stable and predictable life.

That bored the revolutionaries of the 1960s half to death. They looked at this overwhelmingly safe, secure, prosperous society made of families in traditional family roles and said, “Nah, too square.” The GloboLeftist project kicked into high gear with the Great Society. Lyndon Johnson and his crew didn’t just want to help the poor. No. They wanted to remake society. The guardrails of conformity had to go. Why? Because the norms of self-restraint, local reputation, and actual community stood in the way of central control.

Take lending, for example. Let’s say I wanted a home loan in 1955. My local banker didn’t just run a credit score, because they didn’t exist. He would have called my pastor: “Does Wilder show up on Sundays,? He does? Any rumors about his behavior? PEZ®, eh? That’s a bit odd.”

Local money stayed local. My mortgage would have literally been made from the savings of the people I saw at the grocery store. Or, rather that The Mrs. saw at the grocery store, since why would a married man go to the store? Good families got a break if junior was speeding? Sure. Outsiders had to prove themselves? Absolutely. But it worked because everyone was playing the same cultural game. Then came the 1960s and beyond.

Mass migration became deliberate policy. Civil rights were the noble public excuse, but the real play was splintering the old society so it could be replaced with something more compliant. Free association? Gone. You can’t choose who you hire or rent to without risking a lawsuit. Schools? Prayer out, social engineering in. Education standards? Lowered faster than a politician’s principles. Family? Oh, boy.

Women used to save themselves for marriage. Even when I was a kid, that was still the norm in most places and led to more than one frustrating Saturday night. Body count back in the 1950s? Usually one, and it came with a ring and a white dress. Fast-forward one lifetime from the Great Society: sophomore year of college and some girls are racking up body count numbers higher than a Call of Duty™ leaderboard.

No-fault divorce, welfare that paid better for single moms than married couples, and a nonstop cultural drumbeat that “settling down” was oppression led not to the Great Society but the Great Breakdown. The nuclear family, once our bedrock, got nuked. Fatherless homes exploded. The Great Society didn’t cure poverty: it subsidized it while making dads optional and government mandatory.

Every facet of life got the treatment. Religion was pushed out of the public square. “Under God” became hate speech. Local norms replaced by federal mandates. You couldn’t even form a private club without worrying about quotas. The explicit goal? Fragment the connections that made America 1960 a powerhouse. Replace them with government strings. Make people dependent on D.C. instead of their neighbors, their church, or their own character. And it worked.

One generation. That’s all it took. We went from “mind your own business but don’t be a jerk” to needing sensitivity training to say “good morning” without committing a microaggression. We went from “your reputation follows you” to “my truth” where accountability is optional and consequences are for white men. The absurdity peaks when you realize the same people who tore down the norms now act shocked at the results.

“Why is crime up? Why are families falling apart? Why can’t we have nice things?” Because they spent 60 years telling people the guardrails were bigotry. They replaced “don’t do that, people will talk” with “do whatever feels good, you slay, queen.” They swapped local bankers who knew your grandma for algorithms that approve loans based on your zip code, skin tone, and whether your social media likes the right causes.

A fragmented society built on ephemeral values: “my feelings, my identity, my government check” cannot magically produce the disciplined, self-restrained people who built the 1960 powerhouse. We can’t have a republic of free men when half the population thinks “freedom” means no consequences and the other half thinks the Constitution constrains the government too much.

The fall wasn’t accidental. It was engineered during a time of plenty, when people were fat and happy enough to believe the sales pitch. “Break the old norms, they’re oppressive!” Turns out the oppression was mostly keeping humans from doing what humans do when they’re not in a civilization and are left unchecked.

I don’t think we can keep the republic Franklin talked about from where we are. Adams knew the reason: paper and ink don’t enforce morality. People do. Or they don’t. And when they don’t, the government is happy to step in with a smile and a 10,000-page regulation. The norms are gone. The absurdity remains. And the bill? It’s due, with interest."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

Jim Kunstler, "A Campaign of Bad Faith and Ill Will"

"A Campaign of Bad Faith and Ill Will"

by Jim Kunstler

"Lunacy proceeds from crime. In case you wonder why half the country has gone crazy, seek no further than Susan Rice’s stark warning to the other half of the country that is not crazy. Ms. Rice was Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor and then “Joe Biden’s” Domestic Policy Advisor. She did a podcast last week with Preet Bharaha, former US Attorney in the SDNY, now a private lawyer with the Beltway law firm WilmerHale. Her message to Trump supporters: We’re coming after you when we’re back in power. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

It was an important signal and it got a lot of people’s attention. It telegraphed the fear running through the Lefty-left that their crimes against the country are being tallied, carefully catalogued, and presented to a grand jury in Florida. The crimes are bundled as a multifaceted conspiracy to overthrow the US government. Pretty serious. Sedition and Treason. Susan Rice knows what she (and others) did.

First, in the frantic days between Nov. 3, 2016 and January 20, 2017, Barack Obama’s White House cooked up the Russia collusion hoax with John Brennan’s CIA, James Comey’s FBI, and Loretta Lynch’s DOJ. Ms. Rice, who was in on it, notoriously wrote a CYA memo memorializing the meetings and planted it in her office desk to be easily discovered by the new Trump admin. The memo stated that “every aspect of this issue is handled by the intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book’.” Of course, that was exactly the opposite of what really happened. The mischief emanating from it has run for ten years, crime upon crime upon crime.

Secondly, and surely less-known to the American public, was Ms. Rice’s role as Domestic Policy Advisor under “Joe Biden.” Her actual job from 2021 to 2023 was to serve as a conduit for Barack Obama to run “Joe Biden’s” White House, along with Jake Sullivan and Tony Blinken. During those years, the public rarely (if ever) saw Susan Rice. She avoided the news media and did not make public statements or appearances at White House events. The news media were happy to ignore her. They knew exactly what she was up to.

The prime concerns of this cabal were to protect the image (cover up the crimes) of Barack Obama and his associates, to cover up the criminal degeneracy of the Biden family, and to get the Democrat Party back in power by utterly destroying Donald Trump and the populist revolt he headed.

Everything done in “Joe Biden’s” name during those years was to guarantee his party’s return to power, especially the deluge of illegal aliens across the border to pad the census for congressional districts and provide millions of future voters indebted to the party for letting them in (and giving them tons of freebies when they got here... phones, housing, food, walking-around money).

Meanwhile, the Democrats erected an immense scaffold of NGOs to funnel taxpayer money into salaries for their corps of political activists - outfits such as Stacey Abrams’ empire of grift in Georgia, the national networks of Antifa and BLM street-fighters, and the matrix of Somali social service fraud in Minnesota and Maine. This created a huge parasitical patronage class, basically a national racketeering operation. Eventually all the NGO grift became an end in itself - the Democrats animating principle: grift for grift’s sake, power to just keep it all going and continue to cover up the crime behind it.

The vital component to all this was weapons-grade mind-f*ckery to produce a fog of war that would keep the American public utterly bamboozled, unable to comprehend what was happening amid gales of hoaxes, ops, and scams. The Covid-19 caper was the doozy. We still don’t know definitively if the mRNA vaccine program was a deliberate depopulation project, but it kind of looked like it, while plenty of messaging from global institutions - from the Gates Foundation to the WEF to the UN - was pretty explicit about getting rid of useless eaters. On top of all that, throw in the trashing of Western Civ’s industrial economies with “green” trickery, adding another layer of anxiety onto a sore-beset citizenry.

Of course, despite their best efforts - and it was a mighty crusade of bad faith and ill will - the Democrats failed to vanquish Mr. Trump, a strange miracle itself suggesting some sort of divine intervention. The question now is, will Mr. Trump be able to vanquish them? It begins to look like he might, with plenty of help from the Democrats themselves, who have reached a pitch of madness rarely seen in human societies.

Their latest prank: a boycott of the State of the Union speech to Congress. So far, seven senators and nine congresspersons have promised to bail on the speech, led ostensibly by Senator Adam Schiff of California, a liar so prodigious and fertile that it can be truly said he never uttered an honest word including “yes,” “no,” and “maybe.” This faction will gather on the mall instead and hurl objurgations at the Capitol rotunda.

All that’s needed to finish them off, really, is passage of the SAVE Act so that voters will be required to prove their identity and citizenship, and absentee ballots will be restricted to the old rules about being too sick to get to the poling place, or else out of the country. Last week, staffers behind the walking mummy, Mitch McConnell, prevented the bill from reaching the Senate floor with some procedural rigmarole. Mr. Trump must call them out, and call out Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), too, for dragging his feet on whatever’s necessary to pass the SAVE Act. The country demands honest elections, and one way or another they’ll get them."

- https://www.kunstler.com/

Bill Bonner, "Supreme Smackdown"

"Supreme Smackdown"

by Bill Bonner

Paris, France - "Investors fidgeted early Friday morning...waiting for the Supreme Court to clarify its position on tariffs. At issue was not whether they are a good idea or a bad one, but whether POTUS has the power to impose them.

Then, at 10am...the Supreme Court gave the nation....and its president...a much-needed gift. You’ll recall that the two most powerful lobbies in Washington - firepower and Israel - almost completely control the White House, Congress, and soon, the Fed. What they don’t control is the Supreme Court. And Friday, SCOTUS snarled. Reuters: "US Supreme Court strikes down Trump’s global tariffs. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs that he pursued under a law meant for use in national emergencies, handing the Republican president a stinging defeat in a landmark ruling on Friday with major implications for the global economy."

In the way thing are s’posed to work, this is a gift to the nation. The White House was doing something unlawful; the court said it lacked the authority to do it. The feds might also have to disgorge the unlawful revenues they’ve already received. How that is to work will be determined by lower courts.

This may not be the end of tariffs, however. On Friday, Mr. Trump vowed to use other legislation to impose a 10% tariff on almost all imports. By Saturday, it had gone up to 15%. But SCOTUS has definitely blasted the rigging of the tariff ship. It now floats, aimless and helpless. Trump can no longer use tariffs as his personal, Art of the Deal, leverage.

It’s a gift for American consumers, who will be spared the additional tariff taxes. But in the curious way History works, the decision is even a bigger gift for POTUS. Now, the coming economic slowdown won’t be ‘his fault.’ Deficits, debt, inflation, recession, job loss, cooties — all will be blamed on SCOTUS; it derailed his brilliant program.

The real problem for Team Trump was that it had tied itself to the mast of a leaky ship. The tariffs were always a preposterously bad idea. Left in place, they would weaken the nation, its consumers, and its industries. And yet, tariffs were supposed to bring the ‘Golden Age’ Mr. Trump promised.

But it was always a delusion. The more money the tariffs brought in, the more they weren’t working. Each dollar collected signaled an import into the US market that the consumer preferred to buy, rather than the competing domestic product (if there were one). And if the tariff revenue went down, it would leave the feds with less revenue to pay down debt or (more likely) spend.

And the early signs were bad. MarketWatch: "US trade deficit is tariff-proof. Imports jump to record high in 2025." High tariffs were supposed to slash chronically large U.S. trade deficits. Turns out they really didn’t. Imports actually rose almost 5% last year and hit a record high. What’s more, the trade deficit in 2025 was still the third-largest ever.

Inflation? Barrons: "Headline inflation ended the final month of last year on a high note, according to data published Friday, with pressures rising close to the 3% threshold and well ahead of Wall Street forecasts. Beef prices, for example, have been rising steadily since the pandemic, and were last pegged 15% higher to last year’s levels. Ground beef is up 72% over the past five years, with FDA data suggesting cumulative 28% gains in chicken prices and a 22% rise in pork costs. And with cattle herds at the lowest levels since the early 1950s, no amount of Fed easing is going to make steaks or burgers any cheaper over the coming year."

Oil is up 20% over the last 60 days. Electricity has been rising at 7% per year. And Barron’s adds that ‘higher education’ has been doubling every 12 years for the last 43 years...with no end in sight.

And growth! There was supposed to be a huge tsunami of investment coming into US manufacturing...and ‘growth like we’ve never seen before,’ said Trump. But what’s this? Forbes: "The U.S. economy grew at a rate of 1.4% in the last quarter of 2025, new government data showed Friday, significantly slower than the two previous quarters, with President Trump pointing to October’s government shutdown as the culprit."

Tariffs never made any sense to us. Civilized prosperity is built on trade, not autonomy. The man who makes his own shoes, grows his own food, and builds his own automobile (he has to find oil, pump it up and refine it too)...is a very busy (and very poor) man.

But now the Trump administration has been freed from its worst economic policy. And if ‘The Donald’ is smarter than he looks, he will take advantage of this gift, avoid re-imposing tariffs, and quietly welcome the inevitable decline that his policies helped create. He can blame SCOTUS for everything. And maybe he’ll have a more plausible crisis in which to unleash his emergency measures. Remember, Trump is doing the mischievous gods’ work. He can’t let the courts stop him. ‘SCOTUS destroyed the most beautiful economy America ever had,’ he will tell people. ‘Only I can fix it!’

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 2/23/26"

"Economic Market Snapshot 2/23/26"

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

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Market Data Center, Live Updates:

- https://www.marketwatch.com/market-data 

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- https://www.asktraders.com/analysis/

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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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- https://www.dailyjobcuts.com/

Job cuts and much more.

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- https://www.zerohedge.com/

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- https://www.investmentwatchblog.com/

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- https://wallstreetonparade.com/

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- https://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

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- https://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

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Commentary, highly recommended:

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

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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...

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"War With Iran on Hold… But for How Long?"

"War With Iran on Hold… But for How Long?"

by Larry C. Johnson

"Trying to figure out what Trump and Netanyahu are going to do vis-a-vis Iran is like trying to read tea leaves in a monster hurricane. Let me start with the facts, i.e., what we know to be true:

1.The United States has moved a massive amount of combat air assets into the region, along with support aircraft and maintenance technicians… This is on a scale last seen in 2003 prior to the invasion of Iraq.

2. The logistics and air bridges are still in full swing, with no sign of slowing down.

3. Air Force planners prefer to conduct air operations (a nice euphemism for starting a war) when there is no or very little moonlight (I know, I know… With modern avionics a moonless night no longer provides the guaranteed protection that was the case 30 years ago). The next cycle of no moonlight falls in mid-March. If planners get their way, there will be no attack until mid-March.

4. Oman announced today that the US and Russian mediators will meet this Friday to continue indirect talks with Oman playing the role of mediator.

5. Donald Trump is under enormous pressure from Israel, as well as Christian and Jewish Zionists, to launch the attack as soon as possible, and from military leaders who fear that an extended deployment will degrade US capabilities to carry out a successful operation against Iran unless action is taken as soon as possible.

6. At the same time, President Trump is getting a strong push back from Arab and Muslim leaders in the region to avoid using military force against Iran and to secure a negotiated agreement.

7. Donald Trump’s proposed attack on Iran is strongly opposed by more than 70% of US voters.

8. Iran remains willing to make a deal that will guarantee it is not building a nuclear weapon and will limit enrichment of uranium to levels that cannot produce fissile material needed to construct a bomb.

9. Russia and China have provided Iran with an unprecedented level of military equipment and intelligence. Did that fact compel the US to step on the brakes and work out a deal with Iran?

Rumors are flying around social media that Trump is going to order the attack as soon as Monday, February 23. But is he willing to do that on the even of his State of the Union address, which is scheduled for Tuesday?

I know that Trump is supposed to meet with an influential supporter on Monday and that person is going to warn the President that his entire agenda will be sabotaged if he goes to war with Iran.

This entire affair is shaping up like a season of Game of Thrones, except there are no dragons and no nudity. Did Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s outrageous comment to Tucker Carlson - i.e., that Israel has the divine right to occupy all land from the Nile to the Euphrates River - create such a firestorm of outrage among the Arab and Muslim nations in the region that the planned attack had to be called off?

I believe Trump will not order an attack on Iran until he is given assurances that the attack will be quick and effective… Getting bogged down in a war of attrition carries an enormous risk for Trump and the US military because of the weak supply chain for producing essential weapons, such as air defense missiles, and the fact that China is withholding key minerals, such as palladium, which are needed to produce key weapons like the Tomahawk cruise missile.

So I leave it to you… What do you think is going to happen?"

-https://larrycjohnson.substack.com/

"Breaking: Iran's Hypersonic Missiles Target US Carriers - Hormuz Shutdown Locks Oil at $100!"

Full screen recommended.

System Within, 2/222/26

"Breaking: Iran's Hypersonic Missiles Target US Carriers 

- Hormuz Shutdown Locks Oil at $100!"

"After 18 months of secret negotiations, the United States just walked away from backchannel talks with Iran- and immediately deployed its most advanced stealth bombers within striking range of Tehran's nuclear facilities. Iran responded by militarizing the Strait of Hormuz with swarm tactics and hypersonic missiles, threatening 20% of the world's oil supply and pushing crude to $100 per barrel. With two carrier strike groups converging in the Persian Gulf, regional allies mobilizing for war, and insurance markets in shock, the only remaining lifeline is an Omani Sultan flying to Tehran with Washington's final terms. This is no longer a diplomatic dispute - this is a countdown to kinetic action that could reshape the entire Middle East and devastate the global economy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

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Full screen recommended.

Shipline, 2/22/29

"What Happens If 1,000 Drones Swarm A US Carrier"

"This video breaks down the layered defense systems of a modern carrier strike group covering the “outer defense” (escorts) and the “inner defense” (point-defense). We explain how SM-2 missiles and the Phalanx CIWS work within the Aegis Combat System, and how these layers combine into a robust maritime defense strategy used by the U.S. Navy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Growing Crisis of Car Homelessness in America - Millions of Families Without a Home"

Full screen recommended.

Across The States, 2/22/26

"The Growing Crisis of Car Homelessness in America - 

Millions of Families Without a Home"

"Car homelessness in America is no longer rare - it’s becoming a survival strategy for people priced out of housing in major cities. Here’s the thing: rising rent, limited affordable housing, and the escalating cost of living are pushing working individuals into their vehicles just to stay employed and safe. What looks temporary often stretches into months as housing shortages tighten and wages fail to keep pace.

What most people miss is how this trend reflects broader economic inequality. Urban poverty, financial instability, and job insecurity are colliding, leaving more middle-income earners one setback away from losing stable shelter. Parking lots, side streets, and safe-sleep programs are becoming improvised lifelines. The reality is that communities are experimenting with solutions - from housing assistance and nonprofit partnerships to policy reforms and workforce support - in an effort to prevent vehicle living from becoming a permanent condition. This video offers an educational overview of housing pressures and policy responses. Viewers should explore multiple sources and perspectives for a fuller understanding."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Douglas Macgregor, "To All Americans: We Were Sold Out!"

Douglas Macgregor, 2/22/26

"To All Americans: We Were Sold Out!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Vehicles Are Now Rental Properties, Grinding The Middle Class To Dust"

Jeremiah Babe, 2/22/26

"Vehicles Are Now Rental Properties, 

Grinding The Middle Class To Dust"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: The Moody Blues, "The Voice"

The Moody Blues, "The Voice"

"A Look to the Heavens"

"Colorful NGC 1579 resembles the better known Trifid Nebula, but lies much farther north in planet Earth's sky, in the heroic constellation Perseus. About 2,100 light-years away and 3 light-years across, NGC 1579 is, like the Trifid, a study in contrasting blue and red colors, with dark dust lanes prominent in the nebula's central regions.

In both, dust reflects starlight to produce beautiful blue reflection nebulae. But unlike the Trifid, in NGC 1579 the reddish glow is not emission from clouds of glowing hydrogen gas excited by ultraviolet light from a nearby hot star. Instead, the dust in NGC 1579 drastically diminishes, reddens, and scatters the light from an embedded, extremely young, massive star, itself a strong emitter of the characteristic red hydrogen alpha light."

- http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap090130.html

"The Ironic, The Tragic Thing..."

“One can fight evil but against stupidity one is helpless… I have accepted the fact, hard as it may be, that human beings are inclined to behave in ways that would make animals blush. The ironic, the tragic thing is that we often behave in ignoble fashion from what we consider the highest motives. The animal makes no excuse for killing his prey; the human animal, on the other hand, can invoke God’s blessing when massacring his fellow men. He forgets that God is not on his side but at his side.”

“There is no salvation in becoming adapted to a world which is crazy.”

- Henry Miller

"Delusions of Grandeur… Or Cloak of Modesty?"

"Delusions of Grandeur… Or Cloak of Modesty?"

By Bill Bonner

"A dear reader objects to our use of the royal "we”:

“Hello Bill, for the most part, I enjoy reading your Diary. However, I do find your use of the ‘royal we’ in all your writings very off-putting. Even though I’m Canadian, I despise the monarchy, and I’m sure that many in your great republic to the south share my feelings on this. Am I missing something? Has it already been explained, perhaps? If not, what is the rationale for this?”

The Queen uses the “royal we” to signify that she is not speaking for herself, but for the Crown… an institution that was around for hundreds of years before she was born and will, presumably, outlast her by hundreds more.

Here at the Diary, we do not use the “royal” we. We use the “common” we… a plebian, down-market, gutter kind of we, with no pretension to grandeur, nor even mediocrity. For here we are, writing from a house we didn’t build… in a country that is not ours… wearing clothes we didn’t design… looking out on rain we didn’t cause… and passing along ideas that are not original. Even when we think we have had a new idea, we discover later that someone had the same idea 2,000 years ago.

Not one molecule in our body, thought in our brain, or feeling in our heart is of our own making. It would be vanity to use first-person singular; there is nothing singular about who we are or what we do. No, we have neither scepter nor orb; all we have is a laptop computer. We wear no royal purple. We favor brown and grey. We dress in dull colors so we may think in vivid ones. We have no throne, no influence, no privilege, no position, and no armed guards to protect us.

We speak not for the Crown, but for all those common people who try to put two and two together… And we use “we” to recognize all those real thinkers whose ideas we have dragooned into our service… all those tortured poets whose songs we have misunderstood and misused…  all those clever people whose insights we have purloined and presented as if they were our own… all those scientists, statisticians, and economists whose numbers we have hijacked and abused… and all those generations that have come before us and – by bad luck, bad manners, and bad judgment – learned painful lessons so we might be spared from learning them again… “We” speak for them all – as best as we can.

Time and Love: As time passes, the conceits of youth… the illusion of timelessness… the passions and competitions – to have the biggest bank account, the biggest car, the biggest house, the biggest muscles, and the biggest you-know-what – all get dropped along the way, like discarded pianos on the Oregon Trail. All that is left is the shriveled up, naked reality… of time, love… and death.

And “I”? Does it matter what “I” do? What “I” want? “I” am too small… too nothing… too ephemeral. “I” am here, but “I” will be gone soon… in a flash, vanished, like a lost civilization or a forgotten language. Not even I care what “I” think.

So let us at least speak for a group… not of royals, but of commoners… and use “we” in sympathy with all those sinners, geniuses, half-wits, saints, and jackasses that came before and will come after us… Those who will delight in Heaven for reasons we will never understand… or cry in Hell for all eternity because they forgot to fill out their census form. Yes, let us speak for all those who feel most intensely and horribly the vacant truth… They are as meaningless as we are."

- www.rogueeconomics.com

Walt Whitman, "Animals"

"Animals"

"I think I could turn and live with animals, they

are so placid and self contain’d;

I stand and look at them long and long,

They do not sweat and whine about their condition;

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God;

Not one is dissatisfied - not one is demented with

the mania of owning things;

Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that

lived thousands of years ago;

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth."

- Walt Whitman

The Poet: Mary Oliver, "Mysteries, Yes"

"Mysteries, Yes"

"Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous

to be understood.

How grass can be nourishing in the

mouths of the lambs.

How rivers and stones are forever

in allegiance with gravity

while we ourselves dream of rising.

How two hands touch and the bonds

will never be broken.

How people come, from delight or the

scars of damage,

to the comfort of a poem.

Let me keep my distance, always, from those

who think they have the answers.

Let me keep company always with those who say

"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,

and bow their heads."

~ Mary Oliver