Big Sandy, Texas, USA. Thanks for stopping by!
So, we rise from the rubble...
Friday, March 1, 2024
"This Is Your Life..."
“This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time.
Every breath is a choice.
Every minute is a choice.
To be or not to be.
Every time you don't throw yourself down the stairs, that's a choice.
Every time you don't crash your car, you re-enlist.
If death meant just leaving the stage long enough to change costume
and come back as a new character...Would you slow down? Or speed up?"
- Chuck Palahniuk
○
"If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make,
who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?"
- Stephen Levine
The Poet: Rolf Jacobsen, "When They Sleep"
"When They Sleep"
"All people are children when they sleep.
There's no war in them then.
They open their hands and breathe
in that quiet rhythm heaven has given them.
They pucker their lips like small children
and open their hands halfway,
soldiers and statesmen, servants and masters.
The stars stand guard
and a haze veils the sky,
a few hours when no one will do anybody harm.
If only we could speak to one another then
when our hearts are half-open flowers.
Words like golden bees
would drift in.
God, teach me the language of sleep."
- Rolf Jacobsen,
"The Roads Have Come to an End Now"
"We Owe that To Ourselves..."
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“In a nation ruled by swine, all pigs are upwardly mobile - and the rest of us are f****d until we can put our acts together: not necessarily to win, but mainly to keep from losing completely. We owe that to ourselves and our crippled self-image as something better than a nation of panicked sheep.”
- Hunter S. Thompson, “The Great Shark Hunt”
"Gerald Celente, Judge Napolitano, 3/1/24"
Gerald Celente, 3/1/24
"Colonel Douglas MacGregor,
Democracy Is a Sham, Our Republic Is In Ruins"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present Facts and Truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for What’s Next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 3/1/24
"Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Who Will Use Nukes First?"
Comments here:
"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
"Life Comes at You Fast, So You Better Be Ready"
by Ryan Holiday
"In 1880, Theodore Roosevelt wrote to his brother, “My happiness is so great that it makes me almost afraid.” In October of that year, life got even better. As he wrote in his diary the night of his wedding to Alice Hathaway Lee, “Our intense happiness is too sacred to be written about.” He would consider it to be one of the best years of his life: he got married, wrote a book, attended law school, and won his first election for public office.
The streak continued. In 1883, he wrote “I can imagine nothing more happy in life than an evening spent in the cozy little sitting room, before a bright fire of soft coal, my books all around me, and playing backgammon with my own dainty mistress.” And that’s how he and Alice spent that cold winter as it crawled into the new year. He wrote in late January that he felt he was fully coming into his own. “I feel now as though I have the reins in my hand.” On February 12th, 1884 his first daughter was born.
Two days later, his wife would be dead of Bright’s disease (now known as kidney failure). His mother had died only hours earlier in the same house, of typhoid fever. Roosevelt marked the day in his diary with a large “X.” Next to it, he wrote, “The light has gone out of my life.”
As they say, life comes at you fast. Has the stock market not been an example of that? In December, 2019 the Dow was at 28,701.66. Things were good enough that people were complaining about the “war on Christmas” and debating the skin color of Santa Claus. In January, the Dow was at 29,348.10 and people were outraged about the recent Oscar nominations. In February, when the Dow reached a staggering 29,568.57, Delta Airlines stock fell nearly 25% in less than a week, as people argued intensely over a message from Delta’s CEO about passengers reclining their seats. Even in early March, there were news stories about Wendy’s entering the “breakfast wars” and a free stock-trading app outage that caused people to miss a big market rally.
And that was just in the news. Think about what you busied yourself with at home during that same period. Maybe you and your wife were looking at plans to remodel your kitchen. Maybe you were finally going to pull the trigger on that Tesla Model S for yourself - the $150,000 one, with the ludicrous speed package. Maybe you were fuming that Amazon took an extra day to deliver a package. Maybe you were frustrated that your kid’s room was a mess.
And now? How quaint and stupid does that all seem? Depending on the day you look, years of market gains can now be taken back. 47 million people are projected to be added to the unemployment rolls in the US. The US death count from what was dismissed as a mere respiratory flu and the left’s latest hoax is now inching towards 1,000,000 and there are millions more confirmed cases worldwide. There have been runs on supplies. Store shelves are empty while prices skyrocket. The global economy has essentially ground to a halt.
Life comes at us fast, don’t it? It can change in an instant. Everything you built, everyone you hold dear, can be taken from you. For absolutely no reason. Just as easily, you can be taken from them. This is why the Stoics say we need to be prepared, constantly, for the twists and turns of Fortune. It’s why Seneca said that nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectation, because the wise man has considered every possibility - even the cruel and heartbreaking ones.
And yet even Seneca was blindsided by a health scare in his early twenties that forced him to spend nearly a decade in Egypt to recover. He lost his father less than a year before he lost his first-born son, and twenty days after burying his son he was exiled by the emperor Caligula. He lived through the destruction of one city by a fire and another by an earthquake, before being exiled two more times.
One needs only to read his letters and essays, written on a rock off the coast of Italy, to get a sense that even a philosopher can get knocked on their ass and feel sorry for themselves from time to time.
What do we do? Well, first, knowing that life comes at us fast, we should be always prepared. Seneca wrote that the fighter who has “seen his own blood, who has felt his teeth rattle beneath his opponent’s fist… who has been downed in body but not in spirit…” - only they can go into the ring confident of their chances of winning. They know they can take getting bloodied and bruised. They know what the darkness before the proverbial dawn feels like. They have a true and accurate sense for the rhythms of a fight and what winning requires. That sense only comes from getting knocked around. That sense is only possible because of their training.
In his own life, Seneca bloodied and bruised himself through a practice called premeditatio malorum (“the premeditation of evils”). Rehearsing his plans, say to take a trip, he would go over the things that could go wrong or prevent the trip from happening - a storm could spring up, the captain could fall ill, the ship could be attacked by pirates, he could be banished to the island of Corsica the morning of the trip. By doing what he called a premeditatio malorum, Seneca was always prepared for disruption and always working that disruption into his plans. He was fitted for defeat or victory. He stepped into the ring confident he could take any blow. Nothing happened contrary to his expectations.
Second, we should always be careful not to tempt fate. In 2016 General Michael Flynn stood on the stage at the Republican National Convention and led some 20,000 people (and a good many more at home) in an impromptu chant of “Lock Her Up! Lock Her Up!” about his enemy Hillary Clinton. When Trump won, he was swept into office in a whirlwind of success and power. Then, just 24 days into his new job, Flynn was fired for lying to the Vice President about conversations he’d had with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador to the United States. He would be brought up on charges and convicted of lying to the FBI.
Life comes at us fast… but that doesn’t mean we should be stupid. We also shouldn’t be arrogant.
Third, we have to hang on. Remember, that in the depths of both of Seneca’s darkest moments, he was unexpectedly saved. From exile, he was suddenly recalled to be the emperor’s tutor. In the words of the historian Richard M. Gummere, “Fortune, whom Seneca as a Stoic often ridicules, came to his rescue.” But Churchill, as always, put it better: “Sometimes when Fortune scowls most spitefully, she is preparing her most dazzling gifts.”
Life is like this. It gives us bad breaks - heartbreakingly bad breaks - and it also gives us incredible lucky breaks. Sometimes the ball that should have gone in, bounces out. Sometimes the ball that had no business going in surprises both the athlete and the crowd when it eventually, after several bounces, somehow manages to pass through the net.
When we’re going through a bad break, we should never forget Fortune’s power to redeem us. When we’re walking through the roses, we should never forget how easily the thorns can tear us upon, how quickly we can be humbled. Sometimes life goes your way, sometimes it doesn’t.
This is what Theodore Roosevelt learned, too. Despite what he wrote in his diary that day in 1884, the light did not completely go out of Roosevelt’s life. Sure, it flickered. It looked like the flame might have been cruelly extinguished. But with time and incredible energy and force of will, he came back from those tragedies. He became a great father, a great husband, and a great leader. He came back and the world was better for it. He was better for it.
Life comes at us fast. Today. Tomorrow. When we least expect it. Be ready. Be strong. Don’t let your light be snuffed out."
Dan, I Allegedly, "Your DMV Data Sold for Pennies"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 3/1/24
"Your DMV Data Sold for Pennies"
"I am always amazed when I get story sent to me like this. In Florida it’s legal for them to take your DMV information and sell it for pennies to different groups. This includes your name your address phone numbers drivers license number. This is insanity."
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Adventures With Danno, "Dollar Tree 2024!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 3/1/24
"Dollar Tree 2024!"
"In today's vlog, I am at Dollar Tree and showing many grocery items that everyone should be buying in March of 2024! With a massive amount of food items going up in price around the country, we are seeking out more budget friendly options!"
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Gregory Mannarino, "US Striking New Targets In The Middle East, Crude Oil Prices Surge
Gregory Mannarino, AM 3/1/24
"US Striking New Targets In The Middle East,
Crude Oil Prices Surge; This Is What's Next!"
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Canadian Prepper, "Alert! Canada Sending Troops To Ukraine! Sec. Austin, "Russia NATO War Coming"; Leaked 4 Part Plan"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 3/1/24
"Alert! Canada Sending Troops To Ukraine!
Sec. Austin, "Russia NATO War Coming"; Leaked 4 Part Plan"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Vera Lynn, "We'll Meet Again"
Jim Kunstler, "The Blob Quivers"
"The Blob Quivers"
by Jim Kunstler
“Russian meddling will eventually outstrip ‘Saw X’
as America’s most exhaustively-mined sequel series.”
- Matt Taibbi
"Did the Blob get vaxxed and boosted? Does that explain the severe neurological damage it displays now as its hologram of lies about Ukraine and Russia Russia Russia flickers out in the blinding daylight of reality. First, there was the gigantic New York Times article published last Sunday blowing open the decade-long secret shadow war by the CIA in a sprawling network of underground bunkers on and around the Russian border.
The story was a direct feed from Blob Central in Langley, VA, to Times errand boys Adam Entous and Michael Schwirtz, longtime RussiaGate hoaxers, and obviously intended to get ahead of the real news that the neo-con project to turn Ukraine into a NATO forward base against Russia has collapsed. Read closely, the Times story appears to be an effort by current CIA chief William Burns to hang-out-to-dry his predecessors John Brennan, Mike Pompeo, and Gina Haspel for the failed eight-year-long operation. Why? Because it looks like Russia is fixing to shut down the war ASAP, before its March 15 presidential election.
As it happened, Russian diplomats and Ukraine President Zelensky took turns visiting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) in Saudi Arabia this week, sparking rumors that these were peace talks with MBS playing mediator. The situation is delicate for all concerned. Ukraine itself verges on collapse with its army decimated, its ammo used up, and its coffers empty, awaiting the $60-plus-billion aid package that is stalled in Congress, meaning no salaries for Ukraine govt employees and no pensions.
It’s delicate for the US because “Joe Biden” has declared our country won’t negotiate over Ukraine, despite the fact that there is nothing else to do now, or the end of the war will be negotiated without us. And remember, not many days ago Mr. Putin told Tucker Carlson that he was ready to talk to anybody. What this will demonstrate is that America has neither the ability to continue its proxy war nor the will or sense to engage in peace talks — all due to “Joe Biden’s” abject intransigence, and not a good look for someone pretending to run for re-election.
It’s delicate for Russia because such a humiliating loss for America could provoke “JB” and his NATO allies to some reckless and foolish act, say, sending NATO members’ ground troops directly into battle or a missile strike on Russian territory, setting off nuclear war. At the very least, the situation has already prompted the US government propaganda machine to kick-start Russia Russia Russia 3.0, the threadbare narrative that has been the accelerant of Democratic Party hallucinations about Russia interfering in US elections since 2016 - when it has actually been US spooks collaborating with a motley assortment of Ukrainian stooges, plus Marc Elias’s lawfare corps, plus the Intel Blob coercing social media to work its will. The majority of the voters don’t seem receptive to a replay of this scam but the US government is at war with those voters, so anything goes in the struggle to retain power.
While we await news out of those peace talks, a political firestorm rages around illegal immigrants from all over the world swarming across the US border. Nothing about that seems even remotely comprehensible, let alone defensible, anymore, as women fall prey to rape and murder by mutts released on-purpose into the US population, and cities groan under the financial burden of housing and supporting them. And so, it looks like the person directly responsible, Alejandro Mayorkas, might be riding his House impeachment bill into a senate trial - another bad look for the Democratic Party (of Chaos) going into the heart of election season.
Speaking of bad looks, did you happen to read the transcript of Hunter Biden’s testimony to the conjoined House Committees yesterday on the matter of the Biden family’s global bribery business? It’s available at this link, all 229 pages of the hours-long session. I read over 120 pages of the dang thing in the wee hours overnight and it’s really a fabulous soap opera of First Son Hunter Biden copping a plea over his various addiction problems (boo-hoo), and repeating endlessly, against a blizzard of incriminating documentary evidence, that his “dad” had no knowledge of his business deals with Ukrainian, Chinese, Russian, Kazakh, and Romanian parties, and did not receive any money filtered through the network of Hunter’s many fake companies (multiple Rosemont Senecas and Hudson Wests) that had no other business except routing payments into Biden family bank accounts.
The DOJ arm of the Blob has worked double-overtime, of course, to keep the mighty paws of the law from mauling poor, addiction-victim Hunter, most recently last month trotting out veteran “trusted” FBI informant Alexander Smirnov, arrested as “a liar” for having purveyed info about multi-million dollar bribes to the Biden family from the Ukrainian Burisma natgas company where Hunter was a board member (at roughly a million dollars a year), supposedly to get then Veep Dad to grease the exit ramp for Ukraine Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin, who was famously investigating the company and its oligarch owner Mykola Zlochevsky.
One conclusion you can draw from all these matters is that they are not going away. Rather, they are leading to a set of gruesome showdowns not just for the ever more pathetic looking “Joe Biden,” but for his Party of Chaos heading toward a possible extinction event in November. The big question really is, will that party blow up the United States of America in the process?"
Greg Hunter, "Weekly News Wrap-Up 3/1/24
"Weekly News Wrap-Up 3/1/24
Putin Nuke Warning, CV19 Vax Inflation, Tanking Economy
by Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Russian President Putin warned NATO that sending troops to fight in Ukraine could cause a nuclear war. Putin pointed out that Russian nukes travel at hypersonic speeds, and the weapons of the west are no match. Putin also signaled that he was ready to talk about a peace deal to end the fighting. With 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers killed in action and even more dead civilians in this war, isn’t this a good time to stop the killing?
The CV19 vax is not only causing a growing number of victims to “die suddenly,” but it is also making a lot of people very sick? Turbo cancers, autoimmune diseases, blood clots and heart attacks are just a few of the CV19 health problems the vaxed are dealing with. Now, everyone must start dealing with CV19 inflation in the form of exploding healthcare insurance. My insurance sources are warning healthcare costs are going higher - much higher, and it is because of the bioweapon injections. Martin Armstrong says the peak in sick people will happen in 2026. We have a long way to go.
Everywhere you look the economy is tanking. Dozens of companies have laid off thousands of workers in the first two months of 2024. Companies are unloading commercial real estate for $1 in New York City. Home sales have tanked in January while inflation spiked. The only bright spots are gold is rising again while Bitcoin went up $13,000 this past week in just three days. It’s now around $60,000 per unit. What’s going on?" There is much more in the 56-minute newscast.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble for these stories
and more in the Weekly News Wrap-Up for 3/1/24:
"What Do You Do?"
What do you do with a ferociously vicious,
uncontrollable mad dog?
Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 3/1/24
"Israel Blamed For 112 Deaths In Gaza Aid 'Massacre,'
But Netanyahu Adamant; 'War Won't End...'"
"Despite the horrific incident in Gaza on Feb 29, where at least 112 Palestinians were killed, Benjamin Netanyahu remain adamant on continuing the war. Netanyahu said he won't cave in to global pressure and lashed out at Hamas for its 'delusional demands' over the release of hostages. Netanyahu also said he will pave the way for conscripting Ultra-Orthodox amid war. Hamas has blamed Israeli forces for opening fire and killing the aid seekers in Gaza yesterday, but Israeli Army has claimed that the casualties took place due to stampede."
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Thursday, February 29, 2024
"Chilling Videos of Gaza 'Massacre' That Killed Over 100 Palestinians Standing in Line for Food"
Horrifying full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 2/29/24
"Chilling Video of Gaza 'Massacre' That Killed
Over 100 Palestinians Standing in Line for Food"
"In a devastating turn of events, at least 104 Palestinians seeking food aid were ruthlessly killed, and 760 others suffered injuries in a barrage of gunfire unleashed by Israeli forces in Gaza. The grim scene continued to unfold as Israeli troops, according to Palestinian media reports, targeted civilians awaiting humanitarian aid. See this. Medical teams at al-Shifa Hospital struggled to cope with the overwhelming volume and severity of injuries from dozens of wounded people who arrived amid the chaos. The Israeli military initially denied any knowledge of shelling at the location, but later admitted that a significant number of people were injured due to pushing and trampling when aid trucks arrived in northern Gaza. This shocking incident has raised international concerns about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the escalating violence in the region."
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"Israel is Evil personified, Israel is Evil embodied."
- Scott Ritter
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Full screen recommended.
The Young Turks, 3/1/24
"100+ Dead After Israeli Troops Open Fire
On Desperate Palestinians In Food Lines"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Hindustan Times, 3/1/24
"Gaza Aid Horror: NATO & Muslim Nations
Come Down Heavily On Israel"
"For the first time since the Gaza war began in October last year, the world has united to condemn Israel. On Feb 29, at least 112 Palestinians, waiting for food, died when aid trucks arrived at the site in Gaza. Hamas claims Israeli forces opened indiscriminate fire at the civilians while Israel maintains that the casualties were a result of a stampede. Israel military said its troops did open fire but only at those Gazans who endangered soldiers. Widespread condemnation of Israel is taking place since. The UN, EU, Amnesty, NATO nations France, Spain, Italy and Turkey, Muslim nations like Qatar and Oman, Columbia have called on Israel to immediately stop its war and secure civilians. The U.S., on the other hand, called it a tragic incident but said that it stood with Israel while it launched an investigation."
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Hell is not hot enough,
and eternity is not long enough for these monsters...
Jeremiah Babe, "Organized Crime Wave Hitting My Neighborhood, Prepare For The Unexpected"
Full screen recommended.
Jeremiah Babe, 2/29/24
"Organized Crime Wave Hitting My Neighborhood,
Prepare For The Unexpected"
Comments here:
Gerald Celente, "Danger Ahead! We're Being Attacked For Peace!"
Strong language alert!
Gerald Celente, 2/29/24
"Danger Ahead! We're Being Attacked For Peace!"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Sprawling emission nebulae IC 1396 and Sh2-129 mix glowing interstellar gas and dark dust clouds in this 10 degree wide field of view toward the northern constellation Cepheus the King. Energized by its bluish central star IC 1396 (left) is hundreds of light-years across and some 3,000 light-years distant.
The Poet: William Stafford, ”Today”
”Today”
“The ordinary miracles begin. Somewhere
a signal arrives: “Now,” and the rays
come down. A tomorrow has come. Open
your hands, lift them: morning rings
all the doorbells; porches are cells for prayer.
Religion has touched your throat. Not the same now,
you could close your eyes and go on full of light.
And it is already begun, the chord
that will shiver glass, the song full of time
bending above us. Outside, a sign:
a bird intervenes; the wings tell the air,
“Be warm.” No one is out there, but a giant
has passed through town, widening streets, touching
the ground, shouldering away the stars.”
- William Stafford
"All Alone..."
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and – in spite of True Romance magazines – we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely – at least, not all the time – but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”
- Hunter S. Thompson,
“The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman”
"We May Know..."
“We may know that the work we continue to put off doing will be bad. Worse, however, is the work we never do. A work that’s finished is at least finished. It may be poor, but it exists, like the miserable plant in the lone flowerpot of my neighbor who’s crippled. That plant is her happiness, and sometimes it’s even mine. What I write, bad as it is, may provide some hurt or sad soul a few moments of distraction from something worse. That’s enough for me, or it isn’t enough, but it serves some purpose, and so it is with all of life.”
- Fernando Pessoa
Judge Napolitano, "Col. Douglas Macgregor: How Close Is WW III?"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 2/29/24
"Col. Douglas Macgregor: How Close Is WW III?"
Comments here:
Judge Napolitano, "Max Blumenthal: Evils Of the IDF"
Judge Napolitano, - Judging Freedom, 2/29/24
"Max Blumenthal: Evils Of the IDF"
Comments here:
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"Israel is the personification of Evil,
Israel is the embodiment of Evil..."
- Scott Ritter
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Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 2/29/24
"Israel War Minister's Shocking Confession:
'Destroying Hamas' Mission Backfired in Gaza"
"In a startling revelation, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant unveils the staggering casualties suffered by the regime's forces since the initiation of the genocidal war on Gaza. Gallant conceded a grim toll in a televised address on Wednesday. This disclosure comes amidst reports of progress on a potential hostage deal, signaling a significant shift in Israel's military dynamics. The Israeli military has proposed amendments to the army draft law, preparing for an extended conflict in the Gaza Strip. Plans include extending mandatory service, intensifying the duration for male and female soldiers engaged in combat and specialized roles. Currently, men serve for two years and eight months, while women serve for two years only."
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 2/29/24
"150 Killed in Gaza by Israeli Forces,
Furious Hamas' Big Warning To Israel After Death Reports"
"In a harrowing turn of events, reports suggest that Israeli troops reportedly attacked civilians waiting for humanitarian aid in Gaza City. Hamas claims that the IDF ground offensive resulted in the killing of 150 people within 24 hours. If these reports prove true, it would mark one of the biggest killings by Israel in a single day. Following this shocking Israeli attack, Hamas issued a grave warning to Prime Minister Netanyahu, threatening to completely withdraw from the ongoing hostage deal talks. While the Israeli military staunchly denied any ground operation in Gaza's northern part, the IDF later admitted that a substantial number of people sustained injuries during a chaotic surge when Gazans pushed and trampled each other as aid trucks arrived."
o
Full screen recommended.
USS Global. 2/29/24
"Israel Just Got Terrible News! Russia And Iran
Prepare To Intercept Israeli Jets In The Golan!"
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Stipendium peccati mors est, Israel...
"How, Then..."
"How, then, shall we face the future? When the sailor is out on the ocean, when everything is changing all around him, when the waves are born and die, he does not stare down into the waves, because they are changing. He looks up at the stars. Why? Because they are faithful..."
- Soren Kierkegaard
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Procol Harum, "A Salty Dog"
Dan, I Allegedly, "It’s All About Who You Know"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 2/29/24
"It’s All About Who You Know"
"How unfair is this? You have a governor who has passed a law that that raises the minimum wage to $20 per hour. Now we find out that there is a local restaurant that is going to be exempt from this because they are friends with the governor. This is outrageous. The governor also got a donation from this person. "
Comments here:
"Here's A Question..."
“Here’s a question every angry man and woman needs to consider: How long are you going to allow people you don’t even like – people who are no longer in your life, maybe even people who aren’t even alive anymore – to control your life? How long?”
- Andy Stanley
“That goes for old wounds, too, you know. I really wish we’d had the chance to talk before this,” he says, cracking the window so the smoke can escape. “There’s a Longfellow quote I have stuck on my bulletin board at the church office – ‘There is no grief like the grief that does not speak’ – and it’s true. I’ve found that keeping pain inside doesn’t give it a chance to heal, but bringing it out into the light, holding it right there in your hands and trusting that you’re strong enough to make it through, not hating the pain, not loving it, just seeing it for what it really is can change how you go on from there. Time alone doesn’t heal emotional wounds, and you don’t want to live the rest of your life bottled up with anger and guilt and bitterness. That’s how people self-destruct.”
- Laura Wiess
"From Trucker-Boycotts To Grid-Down – There’s Only One Way To Survive A Food Crisis"
"From Trucker-Boycotts To Grid-Down –
There’s Only One Way To Survive A Food Crisis"
by Brandon Smith
"If there is one reality that Americans need to accept, it’s that every system has a breaking point and there are no exceptions. Human beings are built to adapt and this has given us incredible resilience, but it also means we have a tendency to wait too long to fix the parts of our society that are broken. Instead, we let the problems build and fester until, sadly, the final straw falls and everything comes crashing down.
Sometimes this collapse is by chance and sometimes it’s by design. In either case the catalyst is the same – The public does not prepare and they don’t take action to correct the people creating the crisis until it’s too late.
In our modern era of invasive technology, economic weakness, nuclear weapons and biowarfare, this is an unsustainable model. We can no longer ignore threats on instability in the hopes that they will go away or that governments will defuse the danger, nor can we simply pick up the pieces over and over again after each calamity. There may come a time when the mess is so big we won’t be able to clean it up. People must plan ahead, and they must stop tolerating the notion of passive involvement in the mechanisms that influence their lives and future.
I write often about hypothetical trigger events and breakdown scenarios because a large number of people still need to be educated on how fragile the western world truly is right now. For example, any significant disruption to supply chains and logistics at this time would be devastating for a large number of Americans (or Europeans).
In the past couple weeks alone there has been a rising tide of political discontent among US truckers; the very people that handle over 70% of all freight in our country. They have threatened to boycott a number of Democrat controlled cities (primarily New York City) over a host of issues and complaints including the legal treatment of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. This boycott may not play out in the near term (watch for talk of boycotts to escalate in November around election time), but the potential is on the table and it’s an important learning moment. What would happen if the US freight system actually stopped?
US supply chains operate on a “just in time” freight schedule – meaning, all the grocery stores in your area will carry just enough backstock to serve normal business operations for about a week, when the next fleet of trucks arrive. The just-in-time structure is the lifeblood of the supply chain, and most American cities would fall into chaos after one week without it. Trains and railway networks handle around 28% of total freight and have struggled through a long state of decline. There is no realistic alternative to trucks.
FEMA and the National Guard could try to field drivers to fill the void, but consider this: There are currently 3.5 million freight drivers in the US today, and that number is at least 80,000 drivers short of what is needed. Do you think the government or the military is going to be able to come up with enough scabs to undermine a trucker strike against blue cities? There’s no chance.
I have to say, I’m not opposed the concept of a trucker boycott; its a peaceful redress of grievances and all peaceful measures should be exhausted first. All they have to do is refuse to take on shipments to places like NYC or Washington DC – Many of them are subcontractors that can pick and choose whatever jobs they want.
However, we need to keep in mind how terrified the Canadian government was during their trucker protests; so terrified that they labeled the truckers as terrorists and started freezing the bank accounts of anyone supporting them. This action was against their own constitutional laws; that’s how effectively frightening a freight shutdown is to politicians.
Even so, if the US government responded in the same way as Canada, it still wouldn’t do much to stop a boycott. Tensions are extremely high and it’s only a matter of time before conflict erupts in one form or another. The political left (and their globalist handlers) have offered no indication whatsoever that they intend to back away from their current destructive path. Something has to give. Why not a trucker protest or red state protest cutting off blue regions from vital resources?
Unfortunately, there are still a number of conservatives and independents living in these cities that could be negatively affected by a freight shutdown along with their progressive neighbors. Maybe this strike never comes to fruition and everything will continue on as “normal.” Maybe not. The point is, anything can happen and the way our economy and supply chains currently function is not going to pass muster for much longer.
The average American has around one week’s worth of food in their pantry at any given time. With FEMA response in place a rationing system would be instituted over the course of several weeks, probably using a digital tracking method much like an EBT card. And make no mistake, there will be strings attached to any government rationing program: “Do you have the latest covid booster? No ration card until your shots are up to date. We see that you have registered firearms…you need to turn those in before you can get rations. We see that you’ve made problematic comments in your social media history, you may not be eligible.”
It takes around 7-10 days of zero food supply for panic to set into a population (when people finally realize things are not going back to normal). It takes two weeks for starvation to take a physical toll and three weeks for people to start dying. Riots and looting are inevitable, but that won’t solve the problem if there’s no food to loot.
Some people will argue that they only need to not be where the shortages are, but there’s no way to predict this. In the case of conservative trucker boycotts, the targeted areas are obvious, but that is only one scenario. There are a host of events that could cause a crippled supply chain in both rural and urban areas, including a mass immigration crisis or a nationwide grid down scenario.
The only viable solutions is to secure a long term food storage plan, and don’t forget the protein because western governments have become increasingly hostile against animal agriculture these days. Food storage for each family for at least a year is essential. It doesn’t have to start there; even one month of food will give you an edge over most of the population and will ensure you don’t have to go begging to FEMA. But eventually a year’s supply or more is necessary (along with community organization for mutual security). This will give you time to establish a more permanent and sustainable food plan after the worst has happened.
You can see the storm that a logistical breakdown would cause. In 30 days or less a city like New York could be brought to its knees even with government intervention. On a national scale, regardless of the cause, the result would be about the same. Ultimately there are two kinds of people in the wake of these kinds of events – The people that planned ahead, and everyone else. It’s my hope that through education and encouragement we can convince enough of the populace to prepare so that this large percentage of Americans acts as a redundancy against catastrophe (leftists won’t listen, but maybe the rest of the public will). In other words, the goal is to give the public a natural immunity against supply chain collapse, so that when the crisis does strike the effects will be greatly diminished."
o
"Shoplifting In America Is Wildly Out Of Control"
"Shoplifting In America Is Wildly Out Of Control"
by Michael Snyder
"Shoplifters are going hog wild all over America, and our politicians seem powerless to stop this crisis. When I was growing up, shoplifting was something that was pretty rare. Once in a while some irresponsible idiot would slip a candy bar into his pocket, but it wasn’t something that retailers were too stressed out about. But now everything has changed. Retail “shrink” broke the 100 billion dollar barrier in 2022, and the final number for 2023 is expected to be even higher. Stuff is being stolen from our major retailers on an industrial scale, and this is having very serious consequences.
From coast to coast, retail locations are being permanently shut down because there is no end in sight to this madness. This is particularly true in our largest urban areas. In San Francisco, a Macy’s store that had been open for 77 years is being closed down, and employees are telling the press that shoplifting was the primary factor behind the decision…"Employees at Macy’s flagship San Francisco store in Union Square have blamed its planned closure on shoplifting – despite mayor London Breed claiming crime was not a factor. The Union Square store announced earlier this week it will be closing its doors after 77 years as part of a plan to close 150 locations across the nation over the next three years."
It isn’t just a few things that are going missing at that Macy’s store. According to one employee, the men’s department is being systematically looted on a daily basis…“It happens every day,” employee Steve Dalisay said. Hanging up blazers in the Macy’s sixth-floor men’s department, Dalisay said blazers, wallets and boxer briefs are the items most frequently stolen from his department. He said thieves take at least four blazers every day, adding that he typically sees about 10 wallets and 20 briefs stolen daily."
Another employee says that most of the shoplifting is being done by drug users and groups of teens… "Shoplifters, he said, tend to be in two categories: drug users going after specific items for fences or teens entering the store in teams on brazen shoplifting blitzes. “I’m not in charge of making the estimates of how much we lose in a day, but last year we were told the losses were in the millions,” the employee said. “It’s a big thing,” he added. “What we have learned is a lot of drug users have deals with the fencers. They’ll give the drug users a list of stuff from the store, and they’ll go try to execute the list.”
Our national shoplifting crisis and our national drug crisis are very closely related. Drug users need money to fund their habits, and shoplifting is one of the easiest ways to obtain things to sell. At this point, it would be difficult to overstate the severity of the drug crisis in the state of California. According to Governor Gavin Newsom, authorities in his state seized enough fentanyl last year “to potentially kill the global population nearly twice over”…
"Roughly 62,000 pounds of fentanyl smuggled into California was confiscated by authorities in 2023. The total amount of the potent synthetic opioid seized last year “is enough to potentially kill the global population nearly twice over,” Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced Tuesday.
In 2023, the California National Guard supported other law enforcement agencies in counter-drug operations across the state, seizing a record 62,000 pounds of fentanyl at ports of entry, according to a news release from Newsom’s office."
That is certainly a lot of fentanyl. If you can believe it, the amount of fentanyl that was seized in the state in 2023 was more than 10 times greater than the amount that was seized in 2021…"Compared with just a few years ago, the amount of fentanyl seized by authorities has dramatically surged. In 2021, California authorities seized more than 5,300 pounds of the drug, with a street value of $64 million. In 2022 that rose to 28,000 pounds, with a street value of $230 million, based on the U.S. Department of Justice evaluation of illegal-drug values in the Los Angeles region."
We have never seen anything like this before. A lot of that fentanyl comes from Mexico, but a lot of it also comes from China. The streets of California cities are flooded with addicts, and they are going to do whatever they have to do to feed their addictions. So this shoplifting crisis is not going away.
At one hardware store in San Francisco, employees are now escorting customers around the store in a desperate attempt to reduce the level of shoplifting…"A longtime San Francisco business is trying something new to curb what it says has been “rampant shoplifting.” Fredericksen’s Hardware and Paint in Cow Hollow is now offering a one-on-one shopping experience. The idea is to separate actual customers from those looking to steal from the store.
During certain hours, Fredericksen’s blocks off part of the store’s entrance and has people wait for an employee to help them instead of allowing people to just roam the store. The store’s longtime manager says it’s a move that was worth trying for the sake of the business, their employees, and their customers." I think that we will soon see many more retailers offer “one-on-one shopping experiences” to their customers.
UNREAL. This store in San Francisco now has a barrier when you walk in and shoppers need to be accompanied by staff as they shop through the store because crime has got so bad.
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 25, 2024
Major retailers just can’t keep losing inventory like they have been. The amount of retail “shrink” in the United States has more than doubled in recent years, and it just continues to explode higher…Shrink is the industry term for inventory loss often attributed to theft, damage, or errors. Once simply considered a cost of doing business, shrink resulted in retail profit losses exceeding a staggering $100 billion in 2022.
What’s more problematic, the trend of shrink appears to be far from reversing course, with losses more than doubling over the past five years. In an industry where margins and profitability are already under significant pressure, the rise in retail shrink is capturing the attention of all levels within retail organizations.
Sadly, there are some parts of the country where the looting of retailers has essentially become a way of life. In fact, this has even been happening in our nation’s capital…"A Washington D.C. CVS store is shutting its doors after being repeatedly ransacked by thieves, the chain has confirmed. The pharmacy, located in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, went viral last October when videos emerged of it totally stripped of all its products after being targeted by a teen gang."
Staff claim more than 45 schoolkids would go into the store and steal chips and drinks in the morning, after their classes and late at night. It will close on February 29, according to WTTG-TV. Those kids wouldn’t have been able to loot that store multiple times per day if they had been put in prison the first time they did it. But our politicians don’t want such harsh laws. They want to coddle the criminals, and as a result much of the rest of the population is living in fear. This is just another example of how upside down our society has become. The solutions to our national shoplifting crisis are simple enough, but I doubt that we will see things turn around any time soon."
Gregory Mannarino, "Hyper-Alert! Ignore The Propaganda! The FED Is On A Fixed Path To Destroy You!"
Gregory Mannarino, AM 2/29/24
"Hyper-Alert! Ignore The Propaganda!
The FED Is On A Fixed Path To Destroy You!"
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Adventures With Danno, "Massive Sale At Kroger Right Now!"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 2/29/24
"Massive Sale At Kroger Right Now!"
"In today's vlog, we are at Kroger and are noticing they are having a massive sale on many different items. I take you shopping with me as we check out some of these great bargains. So get your notepad ready, as you will definitely want to take advantage of some of these great deals!
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o
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Jeremiah Babe, "Your Money Can Disappear With The Press Of A Button; WW3 Is Closer Than You Think"
Jeremiah Babe, 2/28/24
"Your Money Can Disappear With The Press Of A Button;
WW3 Is Closer Than You Think"
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Gerald Celente, "America: It's A Criminal Organization, Sickness in Front Of Everyone's Eyes"
Gerald Celente, 2/28/24
"America: It's A Criminal Organization,
Sickness in Front Of Everyone's Eyes"
"The Trends Journal is a weekly magazine analyzing global current events forming future trends. Our mission is to present facts and truth over fear and propaganda to help subscribers prepare for what’s next in these increasingly turbulent times."
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Bill Bonner, "A Predictable, Avoidable Disaster"
"A Predictable, Avoidable Disaster"
Stolen Russian loot, forever foreign wars
and the Fed's funny money...
by Bill Bonner
“If it is easy for us to go anywhere and do anything,
we will always be going somewhere and doing something.”
~ U.S. Sen. Richard B. Russell,
then chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee
Youghal, Ireland - "Sin on top of crime. Scam riding on a flimflam. Mistake hard on the heels of an error. And all of it part of a pattern.
We summarize last week’s cogitation… It is not that we know anything more than you do…but we aim to avoid the Big Loss, and here is where we think it may come from. That is, it will come from the world of megapolitics…the deeper, hidden forces behind the headlines.
Donald Trump has warned Europe that it better pay more for its own defense. But, defense against what? After three years of war, Russia has shown that it can barely capture an area, right on its flank, of Russian speakers who want to be part of the Russian federation, and used to call their country New Russia. The idea that Russia, with a GDP less than the value of Nvidia, poses a threat to Germany and France, with a GDP thrice as large, is a fantasy. Why then should Europeans waste money on more weapons?
Stolen Loot: In yesterday’s news, America’s Secretary of the Treasury suggests stealing money from Russia. Why? So the Ukraine can buy more weapons. AP is on the story: "Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday offered her strongest public support yet for the idea of liquidating roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian Central Bank assets and using them for Ukraine's long-term reconstruction. “It is necessary and urgent for our coalition to find a way to unlock the value of these immobilized assets to support Ukraine’s continued resistance and long-term reconstruction,” Yellen said in remarks in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors are meeting this week.
The US is headed towards a predictable, avoidable disaster – a classic denouement for a great empire. It is spending too much money and trying to bully too many people in too many places; this will probably lead to the end of the empire. But that is still far into the future. More immediate…and inevitable…is a debt crisis. Defaults. Depression. Inflation. Whining…wailing…teeth grinding – the yoush.
Why then, do the deciders not do something about it…something so obvious and easy as cutting spending now? Why? Because this is megapolitical problem, not a political problem. The interests of the deciders – of both parties – and the interests of The People are at odds. Cutting back on US deficits would require cutbacks in the one and only area of discretionary spending that might actually make a difference. But it is also the area that cannot be controlled. The dogs of war have slipped their leash. The firepower industry – including the whole ‘empire budget’ of foreign aid, spooks, university and think tank grants, contracts to ‘defense’ suppliers, and overseas bases – is the biggest, richest, most powerful single business in the empire. It is so big and so rich that it can no longer be brought to heel. The federal government, academia, media, Wall Street – all have been captured.
The Firepower Industry - When Europeans spend more on ‘defense,’ they buy weapons from the US firepower industry. When the Ukraine gets more money, its corrupt leaders skim a portion; the rest buys supplies from America’s firepower industry…and lobbyists to argue for more. Is this ‘Russian propaganda?’ Maybe. More likely, it is the megapolitical reality of a late, degenerate empire.
The empire budget is the biggest ‘discretionary’ item of US federal spending. If the feds can’t cut there they can’t make meaningful cuts anywhere. And if they don’t make very substantial cuts, the US will continue to run deficits…bigger deficits…until the whole system blows up.
That is not a prediction. It is just math. Already, the interest on the federal debt is about $1 trillion. Much of the debt was contracted, however, at some of the lowest interest rates in history. As those bonds are rolled over, they will be refinanced at higher rates (barring a freakish return to ultra-low interest rates).
At the current pace, the debt will soon reach $40 trillion. At 5% interest, that would be annual payments not of $1 trillion but of $2 trillion. Tax receipts last year were about $4.5 trillion. Assume they rise to $5 trillion (with no recession). That will mean that 40% of all tax receipts must be earmarked for debt service.
Cometh the Gunslingers: How could the feds do that? Will they just stop sending out Social Security checks? Will they just stiff creditors and default on the debt? Will they turn out the lights in the Capitol…serve only cold sandwiches in the Senate dining room? What they won’t do is cut back on ‘military’ spending.
Typically, the armed forces are controlled by using the power of the purse. The firepower industry relies on civilian funding – either from private lenders (such as Nathan Rothschild, who funded Wellington in the Napoleonic wars) or from tax revenue. Such funding was always limited…thus keeping the gunslingers in check.
But now, the Military-Industrial complex controls the purse. The US invited its military to ‘cross the Rubicon’ when it fudged its money system. Post-1971 Congress could run deficits and appropriate more and more money for its enforcers without raising taxes. And they could use their billions to support think tanks that explain why we need to spend more money on ‘defense,’ and lobbyists who tell Members of Congress that they may face some stiff competition if they don’t vote for the next military appropriations bill, and ‘journalists’ to whoop for more war in the newspapers.
Stephen Walt in ‘Foreign Policy Magazine,” sums up the situation: "The United States Couldn’t Stop Being Stupid if It Wanted To." There’s too much money in being stupid. And now, with more money than ever before, it is the Military/Industrial Complex that calls the shots, not the elected government. And since what it wants more than anything else is more power and more money…spending on firepower cannot be cut, the budget can’t be balanced, and disaster can’t be avoided."
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