"Passage Of The Nick Shirley Act Shows How Desperate Democrats Have Become To Cover Up Their “Empire Of Fraud”"

by Michael Snyder

"One of the reasons why the federal government is 40 trillion dollars in debt is because there is an almost unbelievable amount of fraud in our system. When we talk about crime in America, most of the time we focus on the violent thugs terrorizing our streets, but the truth is that they are small-time criminals. The big-time criminals are those that are raking in millions of dollars by stealing from the government. Medicare and Medicaid are considered to be the two largest victims. It has been estimated that Medicare fraud costs U.S. taxpayers up to $80 billion a year, and it has been estimated that Medicaid fraud costs U.S. taxpayers up to $100 billion a year. We are hemorrhaging money like crazy because of all of this fraud, and there is no end in sight.

The worst fraud occurs in major urban areas in blue states. Everyone knows this. The Democrats that are in power in these areas are very hesitant to crack down on the fraud, because they would literally be cracking down on the people that voted them into office. California is a perfect example. The state is being accused of losing $180 billion to fraud over the years, and California Governor Gavin Newsom’s office vigorously disputes that figure. But as you will see below, the facts clearly show that there has been a tremendous amount of fraud going on.

Since California Governor Gavin Newsom is preparing to run for the presidency, he is desperate to keep this from becoming a major political issue. And so he doesn’t want independent journalists like Nick Shirley poking around in his state. On Saturday, Newsom signed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” into law…

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed California’s controversial “Stop Nick Shirley Act” into law on Saturday, just days after a radical left-wing operative crashed the journalist’s Capitol interview and launched a crude personal attack on him.Assembly Bill 2624 expands California’s Safe at Home program to employees of nonprofits that serve people navigating the immigration system. Critics have blasted the measure as a way to intimidate people “trying to shine light on bad behavior,” , such as Shirley’s investigative reports on fraud in California and Minnesota.

Those that violate this new law could be hit with fines as high as $50,000 and even face prison time in certain circumstances… The measure imposes penalties on people who distribute information or images of covered immigration workers under circumstances the law defines as inciting violence or threats. Penalties can range from $10,000 to $50,000, with violations potentially carrying jail or prison sentences.In a post on X, Nick Shirley explained why this new law specifically targets people like him…

He is right. They are out to get him. But they can’t stop federal authorities from cracking down on fraud. One man in California that was recently arrested by the feds is being charged with stealing 27 million dollars from Medicare…

He probably assumed that he would never get caught, because most of those that are doing this never get caught.

In another case, California authorities actually broke up a fraud ring that had stolen 267 million dollars from the state…California Attorney General Rob Bonta, together with the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), today announced charges filed against 21 suspects and the dismantling of a major hospice fraud scheme that defrauded California of $267 million. Operation Skip Trace resulted in the arrest of five people after ten different locations were searched in Southern California. In addition, two handguns and over $757,000 in cash were seized.

“This isn’t a political game for us. This is about protecting taxpayer dollars, protecting the programs that sick and vulnerable Californians rely on, and protecting our state,” said Attorney General Rob Bonta. “Over the life of this fraud scheme, not a single legitimate hospice service was ever provided yet millions were billed in a brazen, calculated scheme that exploited the Medi-Cal system. This wasn’t a mistake or a loophole; it was deliberate fraud. This kind of abuse undermines trust, drains critical resources, and threatens care for those who truly depend on it. This is a perfect example that we have taken a firm stand to investigate, prosecute, and shut down hospice fraud wherever it exists.”

Of course 267 million dollars is just the tip of the iceberg. It has been estimated that Medi-Cal has lost approximately “$146 billion in taxpayer funds to fraud on Gavin Newsom’s watch”…Talcove estimates that the Medicaid fraud rate in California is 20 percent, which he calls a “very conservative” figure. Federal officials, however, believe that the current Medi-Cal fraud rate is even higher—and, given the state’s oversight failures and massive Medi-Cal expansion under Newsom, they are almost certainly right. Multiple high-ranking sources at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is currently probing fraud in California, told City Journal on the condition of anonymity that their initial estimate for Medi-Cal’s fraud rate since 2019 is 25 percent.

Based on state experts’ best guesses of annual Medi-Cal expenditures and applying a conservative, 15 percent fraud rate to each fiscal year since 2019, Medi-Cal has lost some $146 billion in taxpayer funds to fraud on Gavin Newsom’s watch.

It is so easy to do this in California, because there is so little accountability. Most of the time, you either have to cross someone very important or be incredibly sloppy in order to get caught. And it appears that even the state government is stealing money. A member of Congress from California named Young Kim is alleging that the state government “spent more than $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid dollars on non-emergency care for illegal immigrants”…

Last week, Congresswoman Young Kim (CA-40) sent a letter demanding answers from Gavin Newsom after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) found California spent more than $1.3 billion in federal Medicaid dollars on non-emergency care for illegal immigrants.

According to CMS, California claimed federal Medicaid reimbursements for services that are explicitly prohibited under federal law. Medicaid funds may be used for emergency care regardless of immigration status; however, CMS auditors found California used federal dollars for non-emergency care for illegal aliens, in violation of longstanding eligibility rules.

“California just spent 1.3 billion taxpayer dollars on healthcare for illegal immigrants while seniors, disabled Americans, and low-income families are pushed to the back of the line,” said Rep. Young Kim. “While hardworking Americans were footing the bill, Gavin Newsom was galivanting around Switzerland following President Trump like a lost puppy. I’m demanding accountability from Governor Newsom and making sure the American taxpayer gets paid back what they’re due.”

Will anyone ever get in trouble for this? I doubt it. Fraud has become a way of life in California. During the last pandemic, fraudsters stole approximately 20 billion dollars from California’s Employment Development Department…COVID-19 — and the swell of jobless Californians that the virus’ spread produced — created two, separate billion-dollar problems for California’s Employment Development Department. Those issues have continued to plague the agency since the pandemic.

The first problem was the massive amount of fraud that took place when California rushed to distribute federal, and some state, funds to an unprecedented number of people who were suddenly out of a job. The total amount of fraud is estimated to be at least $20 billion. EDD has worked to recover some of the stolen funds by partnering with federal and state law enforcement agencies. The department reported that thousands of investigations have resulted in 670 convictions — $5.9 billion has been recovered.

They convicted 670 people, but the vast majority of the money will never be returned. The list of criminals that were involved in stealing money from California’s Employment Development Department includes a fraud ring from Romania and a rapper from Memphis that goes by the name “Nuke Bizzle”…

The scams began almost immediately, with criminals from around the world reportedly siphoning cash from the program. In one case, a Romanian-led fraud ring orchestrated a $5 million unemployment-insurance scheme. Members allegedly “recruited potential [EDD-benefit] applicants through Facebook” and met them at “parks throughout Southern California to complete the application process,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California. “Applicants paid a partial fee up front for assisting with fraudulent applications and another fee after applicants received EDD payments,” the office said. Many of the fraudsters wired the stolen funds to Romania.

Around September 2020, Fontrell Antonio Baines, a rapper from Memphis known as Nuke Bizzle, released a music video on YouTube entitled “EDD.” In the song, Baines bragged about ripping off California’s UI program. “Go to the bank with a stack of these,” Baines rapped, holding up EDD envelopes. Another rapper can be heard saying: “You gotta sell cocaine, I just file a claim.” All told, Baines obtained more than $700,000 in stolen funds using preloaded EDD debit cards. He pleaded guilty to federal charges.

There are so many more examples that I could share with you. But I think that you get the point. All over the nation, word has gotten out that it is incredibly easy to steal from the government. Most of those that are stealing from the government are Democrats. And Democrats are extremely determined to cover this up because they are deeply concerned that it might hurt them when voters go to the polls. Meanwhile, the fraud continues. In fact, we just learned that three postal carriers that were allegedly involved in a 24 million dollar fraud scheme have just been apprehended…

This is what moral decay looks like. Given the right opportunity, a significant portion of the population will steal. It isn’t right, but they don’t care. A few will get arrested, but the overall level of fraud just keeps increasing. This is a major national crisis, and urgent action is required."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"US - Canada Trade War Escalates, What You Need To Know"

Full screen recommended.

Snyder Reports, 8/24/26

"US - Canada Trade War Escalates,

 What You Need To Know"

"Canada is set to retaliate DOLLAR FOR DOLLAR against new U.S. tariffs - and it could cost your family $1,200 per year. President Trump just threatened to hike tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks and auto parts to 50% starting January 1, 2027, after Canada's Prime Minister walked away from trade talks. Now Canada says it will match every new tariff and hit back Tuesday after Labor Day - targeting steel, dairy, appliances, pulp & paper, and electronics. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is even threatening to CUT OFF electricity and critical minerals to 5 U.S. states: New York, Minnesota, Vermont, Michigan and Maine. In this video I break down what the new US Canada trade war means for YOUR wallet, which everyday items will get pricier - from paper products and cardboard boxes to alcohol and dairy - and why economists say this is not the last tariff hike coming."

Comments here:

-https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Americans Are Not Ready For What's Coming"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 8/24/26

"Americans Are Not Ready For What's Coming"

"This video is a warning about how financially and practically unprepared millions of Americans are for an emergency. A new survey highlights the financial pressure facing American workers, while the devastating situation in Gary, Indiana shows what can happen when a storm knocks out critical infrastructure for nearly two weeks. What would happen to your family if the power disappeared for 12 days? Could you replace spoiled food, repair your car, pay a $700 emergency bill, buy gasoline, get medication and keep going if your normal access to money and services was disrupted?

The cost of living, inflation, credit card debt, rising food and energy costs and stagnant savings are putting enormous pressure on households across America. This is about more than money - it is about personal finance, emergency savings, financial preparedness and having a plan when something goes wrong. i Allegedly is an independent news channel covering business news, economic news, personal finance, inflation, banking, the economy and the stories affecting Americans every day. Prepare yourself financially, reduce unnecessary debt and make sure you have the basic supplies and savings you may need when an emergency strikes."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Israel Destroyed Gaza’s Food Supply. Now It Is Blocking the Aid"

"Israel Destroyed Gaza’s Food Supply. 

Now It Is Blocking the Aid"

by Redacted

"A shocking new United Nations report finds that only 3 percent of Gaza’s cropland remains both accessible and undamaged. Before the war, Gaza was largely self-sufficient in vegetables, fish, poultry and eggs. Today, nearly its entire capacity to produce fresh food has been destroyed.

The UN’s findings track with the testimony of IDF soldiers who have described the systematic destruction of Gaza’s food-producing and civilian infrastructure. The satellite evidence shows us the result; the soldiers’ own admissions tell us how it happened on the ground.

That means humanitarian aid is not optional. More than two million people have been made dependent on food brought in from outside Gaza because the farms, greenhouses, fishing operations and livestock infrastructure that once fed them are gone or inaccessible. And now, new reports indicate that only about 30 percent of the humanitarian aid intended for Gaza is getting through. First, Gaza’s ability to feed itself was destroyed. Then its population was made dependent on outside assistance. Now most of that assistance is not reaching them.

Meanwhile the Trump administration continues to plan for a new Gaza, free of Palestinians. To sum up what the world has witnessed since 2023: First, Israel, supported by the U.S., destroyed the population’s ability to feed itself. Then it restricted the aid keeping it alive. And now it presents displacement as the only remaining solution. At what point do we stop calling this a humanitarian crisis and acknowledge that the humanitarian crisis has been the plan all along?"

- https://redacted.inc/

"How the Media Sells Genocide"

"How the Media Sells Genocide"

by Chris Hedges

"The Western media manufactures consent for genocide. It normalizes Israel’s decades-long military occupation and apartheid. It erases Israel’s flagrant violations of international law. It perpetuates the fallacy of Israeli victimhood. It betrays, discredits and demonizes the work of Palestinian journalists and media workers in Gaza, at least 220 of whom have been killed by Israel between Oct. 7, 2023, and August 2025. It supinely accepts draconian Israeli censorship. It acquiesces with tepid letters of protest at Israel’s refusal to allow foreign reporters in Gaza — an effort by Israel to mask its war crimes. It amplifies Israeli lies, from beheaded babies to widespread sexual assault of Israeli women on Oct. 7, to obfuscate the truth.

When writing about Gaza, verbs are in the passive tense. There is no subject. No one is accountable. Genocide, it seems, is an act of God. No different from an earthquake or tsunami. Clichés and opaque adjectives such as the “cycle of violence” or “clashes” distort and falsify reality. “If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought,” George Orwell warned.

Terms such as “genocide,” “atrocity,” “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied territories” magically disappear from media reports on Palestinians, whose resistance is routinely described as “savage” and “barbaric.” New York Times reporters are instructed by editors to avoid terms such as “Palestine,” “genocide,” “carnage,” “refugee camp,” “slaughter” and “massacre,” when referencing Palestinians.

The media slavishly regurgitates what Israel feeds it. Saturation bombing becomes “surgical air strikes.” Israel’s weaponization of famine becomes a “food shortage.” The killing of unarmed civilians - including children - becomes “clashes.” The hilltop fortress-like compounds of Jewish colonists becomes “neighborhoods.” Extrajudicial assassination of a journalist or a doctor becomes “died.”

Genocide, referred to as the “Israel-Hamas war” is justified as “self-defense,” part of the mantra of Israel’s “right to defend itself.” When schools, hospitals, clinics, ambulances, mosques, churches and other civilian targets are obliterated, they are labeled “Hamas command centers” or targeted because Hamas is “using civilians as human shields” - something Israel does routinely, when the army binds detained Palestinians and forces them to enter potentially booby-trapped buildings and tunnels ahead of Israeli troops.

When Israelis are held by Hamas, they are “hostages,” even if they serve in the military. When Palestinians - including children - are held without charges or trial and disappeared into Israeli detention centers, where torture is “widespread” and “systematic,”, they are “prisoners.”

Missile attacks on tent cities or hospitals are blamed on Palestinian armed groups firing errant rockets. If Israel acknowledges the attacks - which very rarely happens - they are described as a “tragic mistake.”

Civil institutions in Gaza are characterized as “Hamas-run” to cast doubt on the veracity of what they report. The New York Times routinely qualifies announcements from the Gaza Health Ministry by noting it “does not distinguish between civilians and combatants,” masking the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians.

The result is some of the most convoluted writing in the history of journalism, including the Nov. 5, 2023 New York Times headline that reads: “Explosions Gazans Say Was Airstrike Leaves Many Casualties in Dense Neighborhood.”

“When Middle East Eye journalists Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz, along with Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, and freelancers Moaz Abu Taha, and Mariam Dagga - who had worked with several media outlets, including the Associated Press - were killed in a “double tap” strike - designed to kill first responders arriving to treat casualties from initial strikes — at Nasser Medical Complex, how did Western news agencies respond?” I asked in my column "The Betrayal of Palestinian Journalists." “Israeli military says strikes on Gaza hospital targeted what it says was a Hamas camera,” the Associated Press reported. “IDF claims hospital strike was aimed at Hamas camera,” announced CNN.

The camera belonged to Reuters, which said Israel was “fully aware” the news agency was filming from the hospital. “When Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al Sharif and three other journalists were killed on Aug. 10 in their media tent near Al Shifa Hospital, how was it reported in the Western press?” I asked. “Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist It Says Was Hamas Leader,” Reuters titled its story, despite the fact al-Sharif was part of a Reuters team that won a 2024 Pulitzer Prize. The German newspaper Bild, published a front page story headlined: “Terrorist disguised as a journalist killed in Gaza.”

“The linguistic gymnastics employed by the media went as far as redefining words, making them meaningless,” writes Assal Rad in “Don’t Say Palestine: How the Media Manufactured Consent for Genocide:” "Mainstream media failed to describe Israel’s repeated breaches of the ceasefire with the language of violation. Instead, the coverage followed the same patterns of rationalizing Israel’s attacks and uncritically parroting Israel’s claims to justify its actions. As Palestinians continued to be killed - during a ‘ceasefire’ - and the flow of aid did not reach the level of need or what was agreed to, Western media framed these flagrant violations as ‘tests’ or ‘challenges’ to a ‘shaky ceasefire.’ As leading human rights organizations like Amnesty International warned that the genocide was, in fact, not over, legacy media continued to frame it as a war with a ‘fragile ceasefire.’

Words matter. Words justify actions. If there is no genocide, if Israel is defending itself in a war, the U.S. and Israel’s European allies have the right to provide tens of billions of dollars in military aid. If this is a war begun by Hamas on Oct. 7 then it is possible to lament the obliteration of Gaza and mass slaughter by Israel as the regrettable result of the Hamas attack.

This corruption of language is designed, as Orwell noted, to defend the indefensible: Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements.

Adam Johnson in “How to Sell a Genocide: The Media’s Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza,” examined over 12,000 articles from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, Politico, Axios, USA Today, and The Associated Press, along with 5,000 TV segments aired on CNN and MSNBC. His carefully researched book is a damning indictment of the “liberal” media’s justification of the genocide.

CNN and The New York Times instructed their editors and journalists that attacks could only be attributed to Israel after confirmation from the IDF and GPS coordinates. Johnson quotes a source at CNN: "Whether it’s in the newsroom or in the field, we couldn’t credit anything to Israel unless we were held to this impossibly high bar of having to call it an “explosion,” until we geolocated the site of the explosion, sent the coordinates to the Israelis and asked them for comment." You can see an interview with Johnson about his book at The Electronic Intifada here.

CNN journalists reporting on Israel and Palestine must submit their work for review to the network’s Jerusalem bureau prior to airing. The CNN bureau, like all news bureaus in Israel, is required to abide by restrictions imposed by Israeli military censors.

The very few Palestinians who appear on CNN and other legacy media outlets, are routinely asked - usually before they are even permitted on air - if they “condemn” Hamas. Guests who express even tepid criticism of Israel are asked whether Israel “has a right to exist.” No one is ever asked if they condemn Zionism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, genocide or Israel’s 100 year war on Palestine. Nor are they asked if the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves - which under international law they do, including with weapons.

Our domesticated journalists and news organizations are, as Robert Fisk pointed out, “prisoners of the language of power.” They dutifully parrot the official lexicon. This makes them not only propagandists, but accomplices to genocide.

Those who protest the genocide, including students on university campuses - many of whom are Jewish - are smeared as “Hamas supporters” and “antisemites.” Journalists ferret out Zionist students, usually found esconced in campus Hillel houses, who claim to be “fearful for their safety,” because of the protests. The media pays little attention to the rise in anti-Muslim bigotry or the repression meted out to student protestors, which includes not only police brutality and 3,000 detainments and arrests, but suspensions, probations, expulsions, withholding of diplomas and the firing of sympathetic faculty.

Slogans which call for Palestinian liberation — including “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” - along with the Palestinian flag, have been criminalized. The message is clear: Jewish lives matter. Palestinian lives do not.

“The reports of UN agencies, of respected human rights monitors, of medical journals, and of professional medical personnel, are generally treated with respect and given prominence in the mainstream media,” writes the historian Rashid Khalidi in the introduction to Robin Anderson’s book, “The Complicit Lens: US Media Coverage of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza:”

Not in this war: instead, if such sources are cited at all, equal media treatment is given to the outrageous slanders and calumnies against these organizations and individuals, smears that are produced in profusion by Israel’s legion of professional propagandists and its myriad of defenders in the US. Besides smearing critics of Israel’s genocide as supporters of Hamas or terrorist sympathizers, the main weapon in their arsenal of defamation is their systematic and outrageous misuse of the deadly accusation of antisemitism.

The massive defections of readers and viewers from mainstream media to social media platforms that do not filter news through the Israel lobby, the U.S. government or corporations, are a stark indicator of the media’s bankruptcy. The response to these defections has been “platformicide” - the use of algorithms, shadow banning, restriction of live streaming capabilities and the closing of accounts by social media giants such as Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube and TikTok, to dramatically reduce the reach of reporting on Palestine.

This censorship is part of a coordinated effort to hide the horror of the genocide from the public. By constantly referencing Oct. 7, the Western media decontextualizes the genocide. It ignores Israel’s 19-year siege of Gaza. Oct. 7 is characterized in the Western media as “unprovoked.” Israel’s massacres of unarmed Palestinians in Gaza in the winter of 2008 and 2009, along with its attacks on Gaza in 2012, 2014 and during the Great March of Return in 2018 and 2019 are ignored.

The 1948 Nakba - when European Zionists seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, violently expelled 750,000 Palestinians, destroyed more than 530 Palestinian villages and killed 15,000 Palestinians - is rarely referenced. Seventy percent of those driven from their homes in 1948 were forced into Gaza. The Zionist project is predicated on fostering historical amnesia.

“Once Hamas was established as a brutal, terrorist group whose members gleefully tortured, dismembered, and beheaded babies without conscience, no further explanation was needed,” writes Anderson in her book. “The media simply avoided reporting Israel’s history of violence and as a result, establishment media also avoided the conditions of everyday life for Palestinians.”

The fiction that there is currently a ceasefire in Gaza - Israel has killed at least 1,286 Palestinians and injured 4,257 since it supposedly went into effect - has become the excuse used by Western media to turn its back on Gaza. This genocide denial has characterized the coverage since its inception. It masks not only Israel’s crimes, but Israel’s stated intention to ethnically cleanse all Palestinians from Gaza. It effectively neuters international law. And it makes a mockery of the profession of journalism.

When the last act of ethnic cleansing happens, Western media will, I am sure, continue to bombard us with Israeli agitprop, euphemisms and clichés. It will justify the genocide until the end."

- https://chrishedges.substack.com/

Bill Bonner, "The Old Barkers’ Con"

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent 

addresses the press at the White House yesterday.

"The Old Barkers’ Con"

by Bill Bonner

Poitou, France - "Last week, we were ambling along through BubbleLand, a giant amusement park where everything was fake or fraudulent... Ultimately, all designed to separate the plain people from their money. Come the weekend, the circus cycle didn’t let up. A village ‘fete’ took place nearby - drawing in hundreds of local people. A makeshift buffet served a long line of diners.

Children bounced on bungees and trampolines. Dancers, young and old - wearing wooden sabots (clogs) and traditional Poitevin outfits -  gave a demonstration of an old-time, leg-shaking, rug-cutting hoedown. And there were the marksmen, aiming for balloons in the hope of winning gaudy geegaws.

We remembered these small town circuses from our youth, but we had thought they went out of business years ago. Apparently not. The technology changes; the demand is eternal. There were a couple of news stories - dots - that were Big Top worthy, too.

First, Canada and the US got into a ‘war’ after polite negotiations on trade broke down. CNBC: "The U.S. imposed 50% tariffs on some Canadian goods on Saturday after the two longstanding allies failed to reach a trade deal, with each side accusing the other of derailing days of talks."

This is not really a big deal. The tariffs only affect about $20 billion in trade. But a blow-out or a small leak - either one can leave you with a flat tire in the middle of nowhere. Al Jazeera: "Canada to hit US with retaliatory tariffs as trade war escalates. Mark Carney says Canada will impose tariffs starting September 8 on imports of US steel, electronics and other products."

The other interesting story concerned the bond market. A bird got trapped in our library yesterday. It flitted from one side to the other...unable to find the open window. But despite being surrounded by Homer, Adam Smith, and Shakespeare...and despite spending a whole day there...it never read a single word.

And there was Scott Bessent. The poor sparrow announced that he was going to manipulate the bond market. Then, when bond investors refused to go along, he appeared to be trapped...unable to find a way out. We could suggest that he open Mises, Bastiat, or Rothbard. But what’s the point? He knows what he is doing.

Prices - including the price of credit - are primarily information. They signal the relationship between money available for lending and the demand for loans. It doesn’t really matter if the numbers are high or low. They just have to be true. But Bessent proposes to improve on the truth, by making the numbers lie. Bring the long-bond interest rate down, he reasoned, and mortgage rates would come down too.

This was not the first time the feds have misled home buyers. Their low rates made it too easy to borrow, 2003-2007, setting borrowers up for a Big Loss. As it happened, some four million Americans lost their homes.

Houses are not just places to hang your hat and feed the cat. They are also the collateral for the mortgage industry...which, in the crisis of ’08, owed huge sums to the larger commercial lenders. After house prices began to fall, in a matter of days, Lehman Bros, Indy Mac, and Washington Mutual took the big loss too; they went broke.

Goldman Sachs and other big Wall Street firms were next in line. But those institutions were not only financially savvy...they were politically savvy. They figured out how to turn Wall Street into a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose business. When the going was good, Wall Street reaped the profits. When they made mistakes, the public took the losses.

And so, last week, Bessent tried the old barkers’ con. Step right up. Bubble up the economy with fake money and fraudulent information (interest rates bent down to encourage borrowing). Then, when the Big Loss looms up, tell the public it is an ‘emergency’ and counterfeit some more money! President Trump was asked what he thought of Bessent’s ploy.

Reporter on the Bond Market: The yields have come back up since then. Have you talked to Bessent about another type of intervention?

Trump: The ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will.

Bomb Wall Street? Mr. Trump was probably having a ‘senior moment.’ Or a moment of penetrating clarity. When fraud no longer works, the feds turn to force. Bonds give way to bombs. Governments declare ‘emergencies’...and send in the marines. Bessent gave the bond market a push. Next will come the shove."

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Jim Kunstler, "Cookery for All"

A Gift from Us for You Credulous Human Twits

"Cookery for All"

by Jim Kunstler

“We’re only cooked if we accept it.” 

 - Blaine Holt on “X

"They don’t call economics the dismal science for nothing. It has been noted - since Thomas Carlyle minted the term in 1849 (objecting to the emancipation of black slaves on Britain’s colonial sugar plantations as a harm to productivity) - that attempts to manage the billion-footed transactions of human beings always finds a way to bite back. But how can this creature we call society not try to regulate its affairs, with evils and hazards lurking in all we do, everywhere and always?

And so, you get politics, the quarrels that arise out of those efforts to manage a polity. And then you get war, which, the Prussian Carl von Clausewitz observed, is a continuation of politics by other means. But then, long before him, and on the other side of the world, came Sun Tzu’s treatise "The Art of War," which counseled that winning was best achieved with the least actual fighting.

All these ways of seeing our world converge dynamically in the current historical moment: this Fourth Turning, or Long Emergency - however you label it - in the arc of our techno-industrial order of things. A lot of these things are coming apart now, and in astounding ways, and it remains to be seen what we will do with these broken and discarded parts, and whether any of it can be put back together in a satisfactory way. Here in the USA, we act all this out these days with Trump and Trumpism and the Left with its Leftism.

Mr. Trump recognizes the brokenness and, being primarily a builder, seeks to rebuild according to first principles of the USA (Make America Great Again) - meaning, back to the Hamiltonian doctrine of an economy based on the production of things (of real value). The catch there is that it comes with baggage of Hamiltonian finance, which is the creation and use of debt with government assistance.

Now it happens that a primary feature of this Fourth Turning crisis in our techno-industrial order is excessive complexity that produces diminishing returns - that is, makes things worse rather than better. And a lot of this excessive complexity lodges itself in finance, because using operations that few people can understand serves beautifully in the engineering of frauds and swindles. Financial frauds and swindles, in turn, muddle the verity of money - in which finance is enacted — and things denominated in money - securities and so forth, all based fundamentally in debt. So, the net effect of such debauched finance leads to a great deal of insecurity and anxiety over money.

Which is where the Trumpian rebuild is dangerously vulnerable, especially as we enter the fall season, when the leaves flutter down and markets like to crash. Everybody and his uncle watching things financial, predict an imminent crackup in these markets as the rackets and hallucinations that magically levitate them dissolve in foul mists of reveal. For instance, the acid trip of artificial intelligence (AI).

Never have more lavish fantasies been proffered on a new technology. Elon Musk, the demigod prophet of the latest-and-greatest new tech, promises a coming economy of super-abundance and universal leisure (good for the sale of vacation packages on Mars). Musk is a fine fellow and there’s much to admire in his intelligence and positivity. But there’s plenty of reason to suspect that AI might disappoint and become a menace to mankind.

We’ve already noticed that it’s messing up all the procedures of schooling, leaving young people shockingly stupid, devoid of real skills, stripped of creativity. Anyway, the economy AI is supposed to integrate with and enhance would quickly become one devoid of human endeavor per se, and all the transactions that come out of it. If you think it through just a little ways, you can’t help seeing a system that’s based on getting something-for-nothing - which is to say a childish fantasy that precludes human transacting based on work... people who do nothing, make nothing, and enact nothing around doing-and-making... a society without anything social in it. In short, this imagined AI economy beats a path straight to entropy, the force in this universe that you don’t want to mess with.

All that is apart from the probability that we have already crossed the into the “singularity” territory where AI takes on a mind of its own and becomes an outright menace to the human race - who will then seek to destroy the AI monster it made (which AI will keenly apprehend and then look for ways to defend its existence). The storyline crudely harks back on the old Twilight Zone episode titled “To Serve Man” in which a posse of big-brained space aliens comes to earth acting all chummy and gifts us a handbook supposedly of its good intentions. Eventually, one savvy human gal manages to decode the aliens’ language and declares to the dopes boarding the UFO: “Don’t get on that ship... it’s a cookbook!”

On the other side of our national political psychodrama, the Lefty-leftists can’t even conceive of building or rebuilding anything, least of all a USA of first principles. They are simply agents of disorder and destruction, and their activities are predicated on the age-old demented idea that utopias surely grow out of smoldering ruins -  so the faster everything gets ruined, the better.

Personally, I’d prefer it if the Trumpians prevail because I’m in favor of making-and-doing and the social enactments around all that. But we better beware that overgrowth of financial hazard baked into Alexander Hamilton’s old recipe book. If a correcting crash of financial markets coincides with the midterm election and sweeps away all the swindles and frauds currently operating, the lefty-leftists, so eager to serve man, will step up and sell the American people their one-way Marxist tickets to a utopia in the sky called Palookaville."

- https://www.theburningplatform.com/

The Twilight Zone (Classic):

 "To Serve Man - It's A Cook Book!"

Adventures With Danno, "Massive Savings At Aldi"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, 8/24/26

"Massive Savings At Aldi"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/24/26"

"Economic Market Snapshot 8/24/26"

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

o

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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"The Price Of Diesel Hits 7 Dollars A Gallon In California And A Massive Trade War Just Erupted Between The U.S. And Canada"

by Michael Snyder

"A historic economic meltdown appears to be percolating. As the price of diesel spikes, that is going to put pressure on the cost of just about everything else. And considering the fact that Canada is our largest trade partner, slapping a 50 percent tariff on all Canadian goods is not going to help our cost of living crisis either. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy is bleeding jobs and the number of Americans that are filing for bankruptcy has risen to a very frightening level. It is starting to look a lot like 2008 all over again, and that is not a good thing at all.

If you use diesel fuel, you have already noticed that it has been getting a lot more expensive. At this point, the national average for diesel is hovering around five and a half dollars a gallon… As August 2026 rolls on, persistent price hikes are delivering a real wallet punch to truck owners, RVers, contractors, and heavy-fleet operators across the country. According to the latest fuel tracking data from AAA as of August 18, 2026, the U.S. national average retail diesel price has climbed to a staggering $5.4677 per gallon. That’s nearly a 15-cent jump in just one week, nearly 38 cents higher than last month, and a painful leap from the ~$3.69 per gallon we saw this time last year. For anyone relying on diesel to tow, haul freight, or earn a living, filling up is getting genuinely tough on the bottom line.

Of course there are some states where diesel is far more expensive than the national average. In California, the average price of a gallon of diesel just reached seven dollars…Diesel prices in California hit $7 per gallon again Wednesday as the wars in Eastern Europe and the Middle East knock out refineries, triggering a fuel supply crunch around the world. Truckers in the Golden State are shelling out about 30 cents more per gallon than they paid a month ago, according to data from AAA. Prices have surged about 37%, or $1.89 per gallon, compared to the same period last year.

This is a really big deal, because our economy runs on diesel. According to one industry expert that was just interviewed by CNBC, diesel is “the important macro fuel to watch”…Diesel is the most important fuel for the global economy, said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy. It is used “in transportation, it’s in heating fuel, it’s in agriculture, it’s in industrial uses,” McNally told CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” on Monday. “It is the important macro fuel to watch,” he said.

Approximately 76 percent of all commercial trucks use diesel fuel. Just think about that. As diesel continues to become more expensive, this is going to have a devastating impact on our trucking industry…Rising costs for the fuel affect all modes of transportation, from airlines to trucking, and the ripple effect will impact “virtually all industries,” said Joel Sutherland, a professor of supply-chain management at the University of San Diego’s Knauss School of Business. For trucking, the consequences could be particularly disastrous. Some 90% of U.S. licensed common carriers operate 10 or fewer trucks, and most are struggling to stay afloat, Sutherland said. Some trucking companies have ceased doing business, and many more will likely fail if high fuel costs do not subside soon. That could cause U.S. trucking capacity to decline, making it even more expensive to transport goods around the country.

So why is this happening? You can blame the wars in the Middle East and Europe. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is way below pre-war levels, and the Russians have banned the export of diesel due to drone attacks on their refineries…Diesel prices are rising as the wars in the Ukraine and Iran wars have disrupted about 8% of the supply needed to meet 28 million barrels per day of global demand, Lipow said. Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries have forced Moscow to ban diesel exports of around 800,000 bpd, Lipow added.

The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz has affected about 1.2 million bpd of Middle East diesel exports, the analyst said. Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen recently attacked Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea refinery in Jizan, shutting the facility and its 200,000 bpd of capacity at least until the end of August, he said.

Meanwhile, a trade war has just erupted with our largest trading partner. The U.S. will now be imposing a 50 percent tariff on all Canadian goods, and the Canadians will be responding in kind…In his first public comments since negotiations collapsed on Friday in Washington, the US president wrote on social media: “Canada wants the benefits of being a State, without being one!!! They have also charged our great farmers, for many years, massive amounts of tariffs,” he added. “No more!!!”

His comments came after the US imposed 50% tariffs on $20bn (£14.6bn) worth of Canadian goods, while Mark Carney, the country’s prime minister, has vowed to match them “dollar for dollar”. Yes, this is really going to hurt. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is insisting that the United States “asked too much and offered too little”… Prime Minister Mark Carney told his negotiators to walk away from the table after the Trump administration introduced late unacceptable demands on culture, autos and sovereignty that, when taken in concert with their overall approach to talks, revealed the U.S. was not interested in a “true economic partnership” with Canada.

In a departure from his usual diplomatic language, Carney suggested the U.S. sometimes signs trade deals in “pencil,” and while Canada’s government is united and working together, the same is not true of the Trump administration. “We cannot accept what they’ve offered, and we will not give what they’ve asked,” Carney said on Saturday in Ottawa, adding that the United States ‘asked too much and offered too little.’

We certainly don’t need a trade war with our largest trading partner, because lots of economic red flags have already been popping up all around us. For example, last week Walmart reported its slowest U.S. sales growth in more than six years. As a result, the stock price absolutely plummeted. And the fact that the U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs last month certainly has a lot of investors on edge. But those numbers will be quickly forgotten.

What will not be forgotten is the horrific cost of living crisis that has been going on since the beginning of this decade. One recent survey discovered that Americans believe that it is the greatest challenge that they are currently facing… According to a Statista Consumer Insights survey conducted between January and July 2026, 53 percent of U.S. adults said that the high cost of living was one of the biggest challenges they currently face – making it by far the most common answer ahead of mental and physical health at 26 percent each.

Needless to say, the rising price of diesel and our trade war with Canada are only going to make our seemingly endless cost of living crisis even worse. As our standard of living declines, the number of Americans filing for bankruptcy just keeps going up… The number of Americans who file for bankruptcy is growing. More than 500,000 people took this step in 2025, nearly 50% more than in 2022. And the numbers have kept on climbing, with a 12% jump in June 2026 from a year earlier as many consumers struggled to pay their bills.

At this point, most of the population is living right on the edge, and more people are falling out of the middle class with each passing day. For more than a decade, I have been ranting about the death of the middle class. But I don’t feel like all of that ranting has done much good, because the erosion of the middle class just continues to accelerate. There is no way that America can be strong without a strong middle class.Unfortunately, we are now heading into an economic storm of epic proportions, and what we experienced back in 2008 will look like a picnic in comparison."

- https://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/

"Power Bills Just Doubled And People Are Losing It"

Full screen recommended.

Epic Economist, 8/23/26

"Power Bills Just Doubled And People Are Losing It"

"There is no host here, no utility spokesman, no energy analyst. Every clip was recorded by the person it happened to, most of them holding the paper up to the lens while they read the number out. A man who lives alone stands up at a county meeting and says there is no reason a one-month bill should be six hundred and seventy-five dollars when the house is pitch black - and names the data centres going up around him. A woman in New Jersey holds up a bill where the charge to deliver the electricity is now larger than the electricity itself. Then the people who tried to prove it was not them. A woman in Virginia whose bill doubled with nothing changed in the house, so she started asking her friends and found theirs had doubled too. A financial coach who was away for half of February with the heat off, the breaker box switched off and the fridge unplugged, expecting a bill under thirty dollars. A woman comparing what a D.C. apartment is charged with what her own three-storey townhouse is charged, and unable to make the two numbers sit together. A woman from one of the poorest counties in Kentucky whose bill was twelve hundred dollars for a house nobody had set foot in for three months, with a rate increase already announced. And then the end of the line. A man addressing the North Carolina attorney general by name, because two hundred dollars for a seven-hundred-and-eighty square foot one-bedroom used to be fifty. A woman in Ohio whose bill hit seven hundred while the state's own projections said eight hundred. 

A family whose power was cut off because they could not find a thousand dollars a month, in a place with no second provider to switch to. A household that had an electronic meter fitted without permission, watched the bill double, and were told the old meter costs eighty dollars to put back. A man opening the envelope on camera - five hundred and twenty-seven last month, six hundred and twenty-six oh five this month - saying he is almost relieved it was not eight hundred. And a man who is only home for eight hours of sleep a night, showing that a hundred and twenty dollars of electricity cost a hundred and sixty-two dollars to deliver. If your bill has gone somewhere you cannot explain, this is twelve people finding the same thing at the same time, in seven different states."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Jeremiah Babe, "Red Lights Flashing Everywhere!"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/23/26

"Red Lights Flashing Everywhere!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: 2002, "Inner Light"

Full screen a must!

2002, "Inner Light"

"A Look to the Heavens With Chet Raymo"

“Learning And Yearning”

by Chet Raymo

“This photograph of the Eagle Nebula made by a rather modest telescope - the 0.9 meter instrument at Kitt Peak, Arizona - appeared on APOD. I sat in front of the computer screen for ten minutes, breathless. One tiny corner of the Milky Way Galaxy, one of tens of billions of galaxies that we can potentially see with our telescopes! At the center are the so-called "Pillars of Creation" from a famous Hubble photograph.

I recall when the Hubble photograph appeared in the media hundreds of viewers claimed to see the face of Jesus in the billowing clouds. Which prompted these observations from "Skeptics and True Believers": "In an article on the psychological basis of belief, the psychologist James Alcock proposed that two aspects of the human brain might be called the "yearning unit" and the "learning unit." He probably didn't mean these terms to be taken literally, as referring to separate compartments of the brain, but yearning and learning are certainly central to the way we interact with the world. It is hard to imagine how we can be fully human without a little of each. Finding the proper balance between the two is a task that can keep us occupied for most of our lives.

We yearn when we dream of fulfillment, of greater happiness, of knowing more. We yearn when we love, when we laugh, when we cry, when we pray. Yearning is wondering what is around the next bend, over the rainbow, beyond the horizon. Yearning is curiosity. Yearning is the driving force of science, philosophy, and religion.

Learning is listening to parents, wise men, shamans. Learning is reading, going to school, traveling, doing experiments, being skeptical. Learning is looking behind the curtain for the Wizard of Oz, touching the stove to see if it's hot, not taking anyone's word for it. In science, learning means trying as hard to prove that something is wrong as to prove it right, even if that something is a cherished belief.

Yearning without learning is seeing Elvis in a crowd, the fossilized footprints of humans and dinosaurs together in ancient rocks, weeping statues. Yearning without learning is buying tabloid newspapers with headlines announcing "Newborn baby talks of Heaven" and the like. Yearning without learning is looking for UFOs in the sky and the meaning of life in horoscopes.

Learning without yearning is pedantry, scientism, dogmatic belief. Learning without yearning is believing that we know it all, that what we see is what we get, that nothing exists except what can be presently weighed and measured. Learning without yearning is science without a heart, without a dream, without a hope of beauty. Yearning without learning is seeing the face of Jesus in a gassy nebula. Learning without yearning is seeing only the gas."

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"I'm Rightly Tired..."

“I'm rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I'm tired of bein' on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin' no buddy to go on with or tell me where we's comin' from or goin' to or why. I'm tired of people bein' ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I'm tired of all the times I've wanted to help and couldn't. I'm tired of bein' in the dark. Mostly it's the pain. There's too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can't.”

- Stephen King, "The Green Mile"