I've always believed you can handle the truth, given the chance...It may not be what you want to hear, but it is the truth to the best of my ability to determine. What you do with it is of course up to you... - CP
So, we rise from the rubble...
Thursday, October 10, 2024
"Debt to the Penny"
"Debt to the Penny"
"Total debt of the U.S. government reported daily. Contains information on intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public. The Debt to the Penny dataset provides information about the total outstanding public debt and is reported each day. Debt to the Penny is made up of intragovernmental holdings and debt held by the public, including securities issued by the U.S. Treasury. Total public debt outstanding is composed of Treasury Bills, Notes, Bonds, Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), Floating Rate Notes (FRNs), and Federal Financing Bank (FFB) securities, as well as Domestic Series, Foreign Series, State and Local Government Series (SLGS), U.S. Savings Securities, and Government Account Series (GAS) securities. Debt to the Penny is updated at 3:00 PM EST each business day with data from the previous business day."
An official website of the U.S. government.
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Related:
o
"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under
the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
– Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Taylor,” May 28, 1816
Judge Napolitano, "INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern: Weekly Wrap Up"
Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 10/10/24
"INTEL Roundtable w/Johnson & McGovern:
Weekly Wrap Up"
Comments here:
"What Might Have Been..."
“Space I can recover. Time, never.”
- Napoleon Bonaparte
“Lands can be reconquered, indeed in the course of a battle, a hill or a certain plain might trade hands several times. But missed opportunities? These can never be regained. Moments in time, in culture? They can never be re-made. One can never go back in time to prepare for what they should have prepared for, no one can ever get back critical seconds that were wasted out of fear or ego. Napoleon was brilliant at trading space for time: Sure, you can make these moves, provided you are giving me the time I need to drill my troops, or move them to where I want them to be. Yet in life, most of us are terrible at this. We trade an hour of our life here or afternoon there like it can be bought back with the few dollars we were paid for it. And it is only much, much later, as they are on their deathbeds or when they are looking back on what might have been, that many people realize the awful truth of this quote. Don’t do that. Embrace it now.”
- Ryan Holiday
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And in secret moments of despair,
Too late, too late...We think what might have been,
should have been, and we let it slip away...
Chris De Burgh,
"Carry Me (Like A Fire In Your Heart)"
The Poet: David Whyte, "Sometimes"
“‘Sometimes’: Poet and Philosopher David Whyte’s
Stunning Meditation on Walking into the Questions of Our Becoming”
by Maria Popova
“The role of the artist, James Baldwin believed, is “to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” This, too, is the role of the forest, it occurs to me as I walk the ferned, mossed woods daily to lose my self and find myself between the trees; to “live the questions,” in Rilke’s lovely phrase – to let the rustling of the leaves beckon forth the stirrings and murmurings on the edge of the psyche, which we so often brush away in order to go on being the smaller version of ourselves we have grown accustomed to being out of the unfaced fear that the grandeur of life, the grandeur of our own untrammeled nature, might require of us more than we are ready to give.
Those disquieting, transformative stirrings are what the poet and philosopher David Whyte explores with surefooted subtlety in his poem “Sometimes,” found in his altogether life-enlarging collection “Everything Is Waiting for You” and read here by the poet himself as part of a wonderful short course of poem-driven practices for neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris’s “Waking Up” meditation toolkit (which I can’t recommend enough and which operates under an inspired, honorable model of granting free subscriptions to those who need this invaluable mental health aid but don’t have the means).
“Sometimes”
“Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest,
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories,
who could cross
a shimmering bed of leaves
without a sound,
you come to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests,
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.”
- David Whyte
"When We Have Time..."
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come.
We have only today. Let us begin.”
- Mother Theresa
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“Life’s funny, chucklehead. You only get one and you don’t want to throw it away. But you can’t really live it at all unless you’re willing to give it up for the things you love. If you’re not at least willing to die for something – something that really matters – in the end you die for nothing.”
- Andrew Klavan
“What Mark Will You Leave On The World?”
“What Mark Will You Leave On The World?”
by Maria Rodale
“As some of you know, this time of year is my favorite time to truly reflect on the past and the future. Things seem to slow down enough that there’s finally time to ponder and think and plan and dream. The questions and thoughts change as I get older. When I was younger, it was more about what I wanted to accomplish (although I still have a VERY ambitious list for that). Now, it’s a little bit more of what do I want to leave behind?
The thing about life and reality is that it is so fleeting. Things that seem huge and vastly important can become footnotes to history or, like handprints in the sand – here today, gone tomorrow – washed away by wind or a wave. But I firmly believe that if we don’t think about it – and aren’t awake about it – we simply drift through life asleep and miss the best of it. In fact, I kind of believe that part of our purpose here in life is to create it, create change, push evolution forward, and improve things. To me, leaving a mark isn’t about getting credit or recognition, but making sure that the things we do have a positive impact rather than a negative one, and I think that starts in our heads and our hearts.
So I urge you to take some time for yourself this week, carve out an hour or, better yet, a day when you can really open your heart and calm your head enough to dream about what you truly desire. If you can dream it, you can create it. And then your life will leave a wake of happiness and joy.”
“Yet now, as he roared across the night sky toward an unknown destiny, he found himself facing that bleak and ultimate question which so few men can answer to their satisfaction. What have I done with my life, he asked himself, that the world will be poorer if I leave it?”
- Arthur C. Clarke, “Glide Path”
Greg Hunter, "Chaos is Coming – John Rubino"
"Chaos is Coming – John Rubino"
By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com
"Analyst and financial writer John Rubino has long warned of a massive financial crisis. With unstoppable wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, Rubino says one thing is for sure, “Chaos is coming.” Rubino explains, “This does not get fixed easily, and to the extent this gets fixed at all, this gets fixed via chaos. Prepare for a really interesting decade. This is going to be unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. Not since the Great Depression, nothing like this has happened.”
This all feeds into what Rubino calls the “shrinking trust horizon.” Rubino points out, “When everybody is lying to you, you reach a point where you only trust your city councilman, or your mayor and your local farmers. So, you just don’t put any stock in what your doctor tells you. You stop taking the vaccinations they tell you to take. You stop doing the statins for high blood pressure and cholesterol. You stop doing that because you don’t trust those people anymore. Starting with the “weapons of mass destruction,” which the government lied to us to get us into a multi-trillion dollar war in Iraq, it’s been one big lie after another. In 2016, there was Trump/Russia collusion...It turned out to be Hillary Clinton opposition research. With the CV19 pandemic, it was just lie, after lie, after lie. Now, you have what is going on in North Carolina and Tennessee after Hurricane Helene. People are figuring out they are being lied to one issue at a time. You’ve got a whole new set of people watching the government screw up and behave incompetently or corruptly, and they are learning they cannot trust the guys in charge anymore. So, the trust horizon is shrinking everywhere you look.”
There are so many parts of the economy that are quietly facing huge trouble and big losses. Nothing could start a total all-sector market crash faster than an attack by Israel on Iran’s nuclear sites. Rubino says, “There you go. That could be the thing that sets everything off. Bombing nuclear weapons facilities or a nuclear power plants is one of those things that has so many unintended consequences. Iran would have to respond to that in a serious way. It’s possible that China and Russia would step in on the side of Iran. Then you get something much bigger. I think the financial markets would respond to that. Oil would go to $150 a barrel. That would crash the stock market. Then you get all the other dominos falling: commercial real estate, residential real estate, government bonds, derivatives and everything starts blowing up. That could be the catalyst for a market crash much bigger than 2008 and 2009. This would be something we have not seen since the Great Depression. We are not far from that. I think Trump said he thinks Israel should bomb Iran’s nuclear facility. Biden is the demented figurehead for the neocons who want WWIII because they think they can win it. Chaos is definitely coming, but I am hoping it is survivable chaos, and I am not sure that it will be.” There is much more in the 48-minute interview.
Join Greg Hunter on Rumble as he goes One-on-One with financial writer
John Rubino and his new enterprise called Rubino.Substack.com.
Dan, I Allegedly, "Is This the End of Black Friday?"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, AM 10/10/24
"Is This the End of Black Friday?"
"Is Black Friday's Doomsday upon us? With Amazon's extra Prime Day potentially taking the spotlight, are we witnessing the end of the iconic shopping frenzy? Hi, I'm Dan from IAllegedly, and today we're diving into whether this is the ultimate threat to Black Friday. We'll also explore how the shifting economy and consumer habits are changing the game. From killer deals to economic realities, I've got the scoop."
Comments here:
Adventures With Danno, "Stocking Up At Kroger & Buying What We Can Afford"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, AM 10/10/24
"Stocking Up At Kroger & Buying What We Can Afford"
Comments here:
"Middle East Geopolitics: War""
Danny Haiphong, 10/9/24
"Israel Crushed: Iran & Hezbollah Humiliate IDF,
Netanyahu Out Of Options"
'Geopolitical analyst and journalist Ben Norton analyzes the aftermath of Iran's retaliation to Israel and how current geopolitical dynamics in West Asia spell doom for the Israeli regime and its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel is losing the war and this video breaks down exactly how."
Comments here:
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Douglas Macgregor, 10/9/24
"Netanyahu's Grave Mistakes And Long War
Pushed Israel Into Danger Of Destruction"
Comments here:
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Full screen recommended.
Times Of India, 10/10/24
"Iran To Attack Israel's Ben-Gurion Airport, Oil & Gas Fields?
New Operation Announced By IRGC"
"Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has unveiled potential targets in Israel as part of its "True Promise III" operation. Targets include critical infrastructure like power plants, gas fields, and airports. The threat follows Iran's October 1 missile strikes on Israel and warnings of further attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to retaliate, while the U.S. has urged caution to prevent a wider regional war."
Comments here:
"Iran vs Israel: Game, Set, Match Iran"
"Iran vs Israel: Game, Set, Match Iran"
by Bob Moriarty
"The eighty-year Zionist experiment may have just ended over the past weekend. Bibi Netanyahu has been whining for almost thirty years about how Iran was on the verge of obtaining a nuclear weapon and when it did, it would bring chaos to the world. Iran may well have detonated one over the weekend in a remote area of the country just to send Israel and the US a wakeup message.
The Middle East has gone through eighty years of terror and constant wars on behalf of a bunch of European Jews who think god worships them and their fingernails are worth the lives of a thousand non-Jews. Rabbi Ovadia Yosef said, “The sole purpose of non-Jews is to serve Jews.” From the FBI report on the “Dancing Israelis” who were arrested on 9/11 we learn that one of the Israeli employees once said, “Give us twenty years (20) and we’ll take over your media and destroy your country.” Israel respects the US about as much as a hooker views a used rubber.
This weekend changed things it appears. Perhaps we can have peace in the Middle East after so many years of clear genocide and mass murder.
Americans have been lied to by the media for years. Common knowledge shows Washington D.C. is literally occupied territory. Israel through AIPAC buys Congress and the Senate. In the rare case where some elected official deviates from the party line, AIPAC will provide unlimited funds for someone to run against them. The degree to which the governments of the US are controlled can be seen with the fact that thirty-two states effectively require an oath of allegiance to Israel for anyone wanting to hold public office or bidding on a contract. You cannot boycott Israel. You can boycott the Pope, you can boycott Trump, you can boycott Biden, you can boycott Teddy Bears, you just cannot boycott Israel. Now that is power.
A year ago, Hamas soldiers broke out of the open-air prison they were trapped in. Israel knew about a planned attack and had a detailed plan a year in advance. A group of female IDF intelligence soldiers had been pounding the table for months about a pending attack and were ignored. Hamas broke out. And everything we know and have been told ever since has been a lie.
The totally controlled media (and you cannot speculate as to what group controls the media lest you be accused of being an antisemite) calls them Hamas terrorists. But Hamas was founded by Israel to offset the influence of the PA. As recently as 2019 Netanyahu told the Knesset to support Hamas as a way of thwarting the two-state solution. Nobody in the media is going to tell you but Hamas is and was the democratically elected government of Gaza. Israel claims to be the only democratically elected country in the Middle East but like everything else they say, they lied.
Israel holds 7,000 Muslims and Christians as hostages. They have been charged with or convicted of no crime. They have not been tried in any court of law. They are just hostages tortured and beaten because they exist in a territory the Zionists have been stealing for over eighty years. I call it a territory because Israel is not a country. Countries have borders. Israel has none and is constantly seeking to increase the land under their control. Recently the Jerusalem Post was good enough to define the goal posts for us. See below. (Click on images to enlarge)
We are told that god gave them Greater Israel so Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Jordan and Egypt can look forward to their turn in the barrel. Countries more or less obey international law. Israel flaunts all international law.
According to international law, Hamas had all the right in the world to escape their prison. They had the right under the Geneva Convention to conduct warfare against their captors. Since Israel feels an unlimited right to hold hostages, Hamas thought taking hostages was a great idea to exchange for the thousands held illegally by Israel. Hamas wasn’t in the murder business as Israel is every day, they were in the hostage business. They were no better off by murdering innocent people.
Douglas Macgregor reports that only 1139 Jews died in the events of October 7th 2023. Of those about 350 were either IDF or security forces which made them perfectly legal military targets for Hamas. So, we are left with just 789 civilian and presumably innocent Jews who died. We have no idea of how many Muslims and Christians died that day because Israel is doing the counting and non-Jews are worth nothing at all.
We know the IDF embraced the Hannibal Directive that day and destroyed over 1,000 vehicles around and headed back to Gaza. We know there were tanks firing on civilian Jewish homes with hostages inside. We know there were many helicopter gunship attacks. We don’t know exactly how many innocent Jews died at the bloodstained hands of the IDF but it’s entirely possible that the majority of the 789 innocent civilians died from the IDF, not Hamas. But of course, that is never mentioned in the controlled media only the free press.
We were never told that Hamas as the legally elected government of Gaza had an absolute right of self-defense under the Geneva Convention. We are never told that in fact the ICC determined ten years ago that as an occupying power Israel does not have a right of self-defense. We know the stories of the 40 beheaded babies or the rapes or the baby cooked in a microwave were all lies coming from Israel. We watched with horror the IDF commander claim that Hamas blew up the building behind him when in fact it was his tank that blew it up and he knew it. But the Zionists always lie.
The Jewish religion actually has a prayer spoken at Yom Kippur that seems to allow lying. “When, on the Day of Atonement, you walk into a synagogue, the very first prayer that you recite, you stand -- and it's the only prayer for which you stand - and you repeat three times a short prayer. The Kol Nidre. In that prayer, you enter into an agreement with God Almighty that any oath, vow, or pledge that you may make during the next twelve months - any oath, vow or pledge that you may take during the next twelve months shall be null and void."
The oath shall not be an oath; the vow shall not be a vow; the pledge shall not be a pledge. They shall have no force and effect, and so forth and so on. And further than that, the Talmud teaches: "Don't forget - whenever you take an oath, vow, and pledge - remember the Kol Nidre prayer that you recited on the Day of Atonement, and that exempts you from fulfilling that."
We know Israel has murdered at least 42,000 people in Gaza even though Lancet says over 200,000 but there are so many bodies buried under the rubble of the 60% of homes in Gaza being destroyed that the real number will never be known. We know that Israel is deliberately starving as many people as possible with the permission of the Jewish American Secretary of State. He lied to Congress but as occupied territory Congress doesn’t object to being lied to by Jews. Netanyahu was given over fifty ovations when he demanded access to a joint secession of Congress and the Senate. He’s the biggest liar in a country filled with countless liars.
But all things change. In mid-April Iran hit Israel with over three hundred drones, missiles and rockets in response to the April 1 assassination of General Mohammad Reza Zahedei in the Iranian embassy in Damascus Syria. The western press immediately labeled the attack a failure due to the fact that over 90% of the attacking devices were shot down. As usual, they lied. There were two slight problems with that narrative. Iran attacked two airfields and a spy station in the Golan Heights. All three targets were hit. That’s a success in any military conflict.
The majority of the air power were suicide devices designed to force Israel to defend. They were supposed to be shot down. That’s why they were used. Iran attacked three targets and hit all three. But of far more importance was the estimate from a number of sources counting the cost of the operation. The best numbers I saw said it cost Iran $100 million for the operation and the forces of the US, UK, France, Jordan, Saudia Arabia and Israel $5 billion for the defense. That would be a pyrrhic victory if you were stupid enough to believe it was any victory at all.
After the murder of Hamas’s chief Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and IRGC commander Abbas Nilforoushan the incoming President of Iran went from being a supporter of tamping down the fires in the Middle East to lighting a fuse. Haniyeh was the negoatior representing Hamas with Israel for release of the hostages. He was assassinated by Israel. Nasrallah signed an agreement with Israel for a ceasefire in Lebanon only days before his murder. He was assassinated by Israel. Nilforoushan was merely collateral damage as far as the Zionists were concerned.
So, on October 2nd Iran responded in what is a perfectly legal response to an act of war by firing 400 missiles and rockets according to the Jerusalem Post. The attack targeted two IDF airfields where the F-35s were based, Mossad headquarters and the Arrow anti-aircraft radar stations. As usual the IDF, Netanyahu and the MSM lied and claimed most of the incoming missiles were shot down and no damage was done. But anyone with a computer or cell phone could go to YouTube and watch over thirty of the attacking devices hit a single airfield. Serious damage showed and certainly a few billion US taxpayer dollars invested in F-35 aircraft flew off to money heaven.
Naturally the IDF and Netanyahu demanded an immediate and serious attack against Iran for daring to defend its interests. The US has numerous fighter squadrons and refueling aircraft stationed nearby and no doubt there was all the intentions of a giant attack on Iran possibly including the use of nuclear weapons. Israel has been itching to nuke Iran for a long long time and this could have been their chance. Iran f**ked up their plans.
Major military operations are too big in size to hide. Iran knew Israel was about to hit back and on Saturday night closed their airspace from 9:00 PM local time in anticipation of the IDF attack. Then magically a seismic event took place in the Iranian desert that has all the aspects of an underground nuclear explosion.
Israel recalled their aircraft; the operation was canceled and Iran reopened their airspace. Peace followed. Netanyahu, Blinken, Biden, Harris, Austin, Brown and everyone in the IDF and US military of higher rank than Lance Corporal are still busy cleaning the sh*t out of their pants. They got the message loud and clear. “Israel, f*ck with us and we will clean your clock,” Iran said.
You see the IDF and US military only attack countries that cannot defend themselves. Led by cowards, liars and fools they are at least smart enough to know what checkmate means. The guys who invented chess just taught them.
We are led by stupid people but the dynamics in the Middle East just inverted. Israel is a tiny country easy to attack. Iran is a far larger country with seventy-four times the land mass and ten times the population. Israel couldn’t possibly destroy Iran unless nukes were used. As soon as Iran actually possessed nukes it was game over for the criminal state of Israel. Iran vs Israel: Game, Set, Match Iran
After eighty years of evil directed by Satan we may finally see peace in the Middle East."
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
"Alert! US Centcom Hit! Russian Nukes Armed On Duty! Iran Readies For 'All-Out War'; Israel Attacks"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 10/9/24
"Alert! US Centcom Hit! Russian Nukes Armed On Duty!
Iran Readies For 'All-Out War'; Israel Attacks"
Comments here:
"The American Empire Is Breaking - How Are You Going To Pay For This?"
Jeremiah Babe, 10/9/24
"The American Empire Is Breaking -
How Are You Going To Pay For This?"
Comments here:
"A Look to the Heavens"
“Few butterflies have a wingspan this big. The bright clusters and nebulae of planet Earth's night sky are often named for flowers or insects, and NGC 6302 is no exception. With an estimated surface temperature of about 250,000 degrees C, the central star of this particular planetary nebula is exceptionally hot though - shining brightly in ultraviolet light but hidden from direct view by a dense torus of dust.
Click image for larger size.
This dramatically detailed close-up of the dying star's nebula was recorded by the Hubble Space Telescope soon after it was upgraded in 2009. Cutting across a bright cavity of ionized gas, the dust torus surrounding the central star is near the center of this view, almost edge-on to the line-of-sight. Molecular hydrogen has been detected in the hot star's dusty cosmic shroud. NGC 6302 lies about 4,000 light-years away in the arachnologically correct constellation of the Scorpion (Scorpius).”
- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111113.html
"I Can't Convince Myself..."
“I can’t convince myself that it does much good to try to challenge the everyday political delusions and dementias of Americans at large. Their contained and confined mentalities by far prefer the petty and parochial prisons of the kind of sense they have been trained and rewarded for making out of their lives (and are punished for deviating from them). What it costs them ultimately to be such slaves and infants and ideological zombies is a thought too monstrous and rending and spiky for them even to want to glance at.”
- Kenneth Smith
“If you want to tell people the truth,
make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.”
- Oscar Wilde
"I Am An Enemy..."
“Our laws make law impossible; our liberties destroy all freedom; our property is organized robbery; our morality an impudent hypocrisy; our wisdom is administered by inexperienced or mal-experienced dupes; our power wielded by cowards and weaklings; and our honor false in all its points. I am an enemy of the existing order for good reasons.”
- George Bernard Shaw
"Doug Casey on Potential 'October Surprises' Before the Election"
"Doug Casey on Potential
'October Surprises' Before the Election"
by International Man
"International Man: The 2024 US presidential election is a short time away. What types of surprises or twists could we expect?
Doug Casey: It’s long been said that there’s usually an October surprise. So what might happen between now and then?
All things considered, I expect the Democrats to win. Despite the fact that voting for a pair of hard-core leftists is clinically insane on the part of the average American, I think that they’ll win. The capite censi support leftist views on almost all major issues; the collectivists and statists have long since captured the moral high ground. Plus, the Dems control the apparatus of the State, and they’ll use it in any and every way possible. And, very importantly, 20 or 30 million illegal migrants realize that if Trump wins, there’s an excellent chance they’ll be evicted; they’ll find some way to vote against him. On top of that, the Democrats are notoriously better at cheating than Republicans, who tend to favor traditional Boy Scout values.
However, anything could happen between now and November 5. If a serious scandal, real or fabricated, is promoted against either Trump or Harris, that could sway the undecided. A big October surprise might involve the US in an actual war because once a war starts, people don’t like to change horses in the middle of the stream. Anything could happen because we’re living in a chaotic environment.
"Our democracy" is nothing more than a degenerate collapsing empire that’s falling apart at the seams in every way possible. Anything can happen, including the old standbys—money, sex, and treason. I am forced, regrettably, to put my money on the bad guys. If only because the media will emphasize any Trump peccadillos while minimizing any Harris felonies.
International Man: The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are raging as China eyes Taiwan. Could we see a significant geopolitical development ahead of the election?
Doug Casey: I wouldn’t worry too much about China and Taiwan. The Chiang Kai-shek government essentially conquered the island after World War II; Taiwan has never been part of China itself. Legally speaking, China has no more right to it than they do to Tibet or Xinchiang. But that’s irrelevant in the world of realpolitik.
The relevant question is: Will Beijing try to conquer it? That makes no sense to me because the Taiwanese government is in a position to resist mightily, and even if the Chinese won, they’d destroy most of Taiwan’s economic value. So, thinking long-term, as the Chinese do, they’ll threaten and parade around Taiwan but won’t start a real war.
A greater danger is the idiotic US policy of defending the island while probing and threatening China, even though it’s exactly on the other side of the world. US neocons have clearly learned absolutely nothing from their catastrophic misadventures in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, among other places in Asia.
The wars in the Ukraine and the Middle East are bigger problems. There’s no question that the Ukraine will lose and NATO will be embarrassed. The real question is whether the war spins out of control. Some idiot in NATO, perhaps at the prompting of that degraded little clown in Kiev who likes dressing up in faux military T-shirts, could launch a serious missile attack on the interior of Russia. At that point, the Russians would feel obligated to strike back.
The odds of a catastrophe in the Middle East are much greater. The Israelis seem to feel striking at Iran’s oil and developing nuclear facilities will put off the inevitable for another decade or so. Perhaps they feel now’s the time to help keep the Dems in office, with the US acting as their trained attack dog. But that’s a whole different discussion…
International Man: Inflation, mass migration, and a deepening cultural divide are some of the most pressing issues domestically. How do you see these issues evolving before the election?
Doug Casey: It bears repeating that inflation is a process. People think of retail price rises as inflation. They’re not. They’re the effect of inflation. And inflation is caused by money printing. Money printing is going to continue because the US government is running a $2 trillion deficit annually; most of it is being financed by the Federal Reserve.
Various factors determine how much, how quickly, and where that new super money comes down to a retail level to increase prices. But I don’t think anything new will happen on this front in the next 30 days because the cause of inflation is always months or years in advance of the effect of inflation.
On the other hand, mass migration continues apace, with thousands of people entering or being actively imported daily into the US. Even the average brain-dead American is starting to recognize that these people are being recruited, subsidized, and housed at their expense. It’s not just Springfield, Ohio. There’s also a place called Charleroi, Pennsylvania. Charleroi is a town of only 4,000 people that’s already been inundated with over 2,000 Haitians. It’s totally overrun and a template for many more towns across the US. Mass migration is going to be a big thing in the months and years to come. But the next 30 days aren’t enough to create a real backlash.
No matter who wins this election, the other side is going to be bitterly unhappy. The red people and the blue people really hate each other. So, we’re looking at the early stage of an actual civil war in the US. I’ve been saying this for about the last decade. It won’t be like the War Between the States of 1861 to 1865. There will be lots of talk of local secession movements, and there’s bound to be violence no matter who wins. And we haven’t really touched on the consequences of a financial meltdown, an economic meltdown, or the potential for US wars coming home.
International Man: Donald Trump has had two attempts on his life in the past few months. It seems there are elements of the Deep State that want to take him out. What do you think will happen?
Doug Casey: The Jacobins are fully in control in Washington, DC. Trump may not be a prize, but at least he’s a cultural conservative; at least he doesn’t want to overturn American culture and traditions. He doesn’t like the Jacobins, and they actively hate him. Of course he’s going to try to root them out if he’s elected—and they don’t want to be rooted out.
They want to cement themselves more deeply into power. Although the Democrats will likely win, elements of the Deep State may believe it’s better to be safe than sorry. They might figure that the third time is the charm in getting rid of him. These two attempts were highly suspicious in many ways. It’s especially fishy the way the trial of the most recent attempt by Ryan Routh is being slow-walked. Perhaps he’ll be "Epsteined."
As the US increasingly resembles ancient Rome, being President is more and more dangerous. Something around 35 emperors met violent deaths, most from people in and around their courts. In other words, members of the Roman Deep State. An ugly situation is brewing in and around Washington DC.
International Man: What do you expect to happen in the financial markets ahead of the election? How are you positioned to profit?
Doug Casey: Money makes the horse run, and the gigantic US deficits are creating super money, courtesy of the Fed. Most of it flows into the stock market. It’s a bubble that will eventually burst with a 1929-style ferocity because of the scores of trillions of debt created by the Fed, and fractional reserve banking. Will it happen between now and the election?
Nobody can predict that, and the economy is going to go deeper and deeper into the Greater Depression. But what will happen in the financial markets? Stocks and bonds are both egregiously overpriced, but it simply means I don’t want to own them. I don’t want to be that risky. With the country on the brink of a cultural and financial breakdown, the upcoming election could be the tipping point. The volatility we’re facing will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen before."
“Before the Leaves Fall From the Trees”
“Before the Leaves Fall From the Trees”
by Simon Black
"The morning of June 28, 1914 began like any other normal day. It was a Sunday, so a lot of people went to church. Others prepared large meals for family gatherings, played with their children, or thumbed through the Sunday papers.
At that point, tensions had been high in Europe for several years; the continent was bitterly divided by a series of complex diplomatic and military alliances, and small wars had recently broken out. Italy and the Ottoman Empire went to war in 1912 in a limited, 13-month conflict. And the First Balkan War was waged in early 1913. Overall, though, the continent clung to a delicate peace. And hardly anyone expected that most of the next three decades would be filled with chaos, poverty, and destruction. And then it happened.
That Sunday afternoon, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire was assassinated during an official visit to Sarajevo. And the world changed forever. Five weeks later the entire continent was at war with itself. But even still, most of the ‘experts’ thought it would be a simple, speedy conflict. Germany’s emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, famously told his troops who were being shipped off to the front line in August 1914, “You will be home before the leaves fall from the trees...” It took four years and an estimated 68 million casualties to bring the war to a close. But that was only the prelude.
Following (and even during) World War I, a series of bloody revolutionary movements took hold in Europe, including in Russia, Greece, Spain, Turkey, and Ireland. Then came the Spanish flu, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of people. Later, Germany sunk into one of the worst episodes of hyperinflation in human history.
Communism began rapidly spreading across the world almost as quickly as the Spanish flu, often through violent fanatics who engaged in murder and arson in order to intimidate their opponents; this became known as the ‘Red Scare’ in the United States.
Of course there were some good years during the 1920s when people generally felt prosperous and happy; but it all came crashing down at the end of the decade when a severe economic depression strangled the entire world. It lasted for more than ten years, during which time the world was once again brought to an even more destructive war that didn’t end until atomic weapons obliterated the civilian populations of two Japanese cities.
Again – go back to June 1914. Who would have thought that the next 30+ years would play out so destructively? Even for the people who did predict that Europe would go to war in 1914, most leaders thought it would be over quickly. And almost no one expected it would spawn decades of chaos.
Today we’re obviously living in different times and under different circumstances. But we may be standing at a similar precipice as in 1914, staring at enormous trends that could shape our lives for years to come. Covid only scratches the surface.
We now know without a doubt, for example, how governments will respond the next time they feel there’s a threat to public health. They’ll say, “We’re listening to the scientists.” Really? The same scientists who told people they couldn’t go to work, school, or church, but it was perfectly fine for peaceful protesters to pack together like sardines without wearing masks because they’re apparently protected from the virus by their own righteousness? The same scientists who wanted to lock everyone down to prevent Covid, but are happy to accept skyrocketing rates of cancer, depression, suicide, heart disease, and domestic abuse as a result of those very lockdowns and so-called "vaccines'?
The public health consequences from this pandemic and "vaccine" will reverberate for years to come. And that doesn’t even begin to take the economic consequences into consideration. Western governments have taken on trillions of dollars in new debt this year and central banks have printed trillions more. Even with all that stimulus, however, there are still hundreds of millions of people worldwide who lost their jobs, and countless businesses that have closed.
Future generations who haven’t even been born yet will spend their entire working lives paying interest on the debts that are being accumulated today. The long-term consequences of all this are incalculable.
And then there are the social trends – the rise of neo-Marxism that’s sweeping the world so fast. It’s the Red Scare of the 21st century. They despise talented, successful people. They believe it’s greedy for you to keep a healthy portion of what you earn, but it’s not greedy for them to take it from you and spend it on themselves.
Many of the people in this movement, of course, are violent fanatics who routinely engage in arson, assault, and vandalism. Same for the social justice warriors who are just as quick to violence and intimidation; plus they’ve already commandeered the decision-making of some of the largest, most powerful companies in the world. You can’t even watch a football game or a TV commercial anymore without some commentary on oppression and victimization. And any intellectual dissent is met with intimidation or censorship.
In fact the largest consumer technology companies in the world have become our censors. We’re not allowed to share scientific information that doesn’t conform to the Chinese-controlled World Health Organization’s guidance. And news articles that don’t match their ideology are blocked.
Let’s not kid ourselves – these trends are not going away any time soon. It’s great to be optimistic, hope for the best, and enjoy the good years as they come. But it makes sense to at least be prepared for the possibility that we could be at the very beginning of a period of enormous instability that may last a very long time."
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"The Guns of August"
"In this landmark, Pulitzer Prize–winning account, renowned historian Barbara W. Tuchman re-creates the first month of World War I: thirty days in the summer of 1914 that determined the course of the conflict, the century, and ultimately our present world. Beginning with the funeral of Edward VII, Tuchman traces each step that led to the inevitable clash. And inevitable it was, with all sides plotting their war for a generation. Dizzyingly comprehensive and spectacularly portrayed with her famous talent for evoking the characters of the war’s key players."
Freely download here:
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“It is history that teaches us to hope. It is well that war is
so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it.”
- Robert E. Lee
But we've learned nothing from history, nothing at all,
and our fondness, no, love of war, has only improved the weapons...
"Oh, Yeah..."
"When life hands you a lemon, say
"Oh yeah, I like lemons. What else you got?"
- Henry Rollins
"Charlie Chaplin's Life Lessons"
"Charlie Chaplin's Life Lessons"
"Charlie Chaplin, one of the most iconic figures in cinematic history, left behind not only a legacy of timeless films but also valuable life lessons encapsulated in his personal philosophy. Known for his brilliance in comedy and his ability to evoke deep emotions, Chaplin’s reflections on life are as poignant as his performances.
1. "Nothing is eternal in this world, not even our problems." Chaplin's reminder of impermanence speaks to the fleeting nature of both joy and sorrow. It encourages us to view challenges as temporary, knowing that all things pass in time. His optimism, even in the face of adversity, resonates deeply with his own journey of overcoming poverty and hardship to become a global star.
2. "I like to walk in the rain so that no one can see my tears." This profound statement reveals Chaplin’s understanding of the human tendency to hide vulnerability, even in times of sorrow. It’s a reflection of how he used humor as a mask to cover his own pain, a technique he often applied in his films, where his characters faced life's harsh realities with humor and grace.
3. "A wasted day in life is when we don't laugh." Chaplin believed in the healing power of laughter. His comedic genius brought smiles to millions, and he knew the importance of finding joy even in difficult times. Laughter, to him, was an essential part of the human experience, one that could transform even the darkest moments.
4."The six best doctors in the world are: Sun, Rest, Exercise, Diet, Self-Esteem, and Friends." His advice on living a healthy and balanced life was simple but timeless. It emphasizes the importance of holistic well-being, focusing not just on physical health but also on mental and emotional wellness through meaningful relationships and a positive sense of self.
Chaplin's message of living fully, laughing often, and taking care of one’s mind, body, and spirit serves as a reminder that life is a precious, unpredictable journey. His wisdom continues to inspire us to live with joy, resilience, and gratitude for the present."
"A Whorehouse of Damned Fools: Thought, If Any, in the Federal Bubble"
"A Whorehouse of Damned Fools:
Thought, If Any, in the Federal Bubble"
by Fred Reed
"I expect my columns to be gems of lucidity and concision, such as to arouse despair in other writers. I have been expecting this for decades now. It may still happen. Meanwhile I fear today’s effort will be helterskelter, having the literary aspect of a tossed salad. I beg patience.
The Earth holds some eight billion people. It is interdependent with most relying, sometimes for life itself, on things from somewhere else: food, oil, gasoline, fertilizers, parts crucial to machines also crucial, electronics controlling the crucial machines and networks. A world war, even with conventional weapons, would kill incalculable numbers, if only by breaking supply chains. We don’t know how many since we haven’t tried it yet. Nuclear? Far worse.
Of the eight billion, how many would it take to start a world war? Who are they? Why do they hold the power of fdeath by burning or starvation over the rest of us? Why would they do it?
Biden, not very smart, pathologically aggressive, exploring early senility, desperate for reelection, might be able to do it alone. One man. In theory he could order a nuclear strike or Russia, though it is unlikely that he would do so and not clear that the military would obey. Simply ordering US fighters to attack Russian aircraft over Ukraine, or Syria, might do the trick. He is commander-in-chief, after all..
And Washington is poking hard at Russia in Ukraine, escalating and escalating, raising the ante. We now have troops on the ground in Gaza, America is preparing for war with China. Situations of this sort are not predictable. Say Hezbolla attacks Israel with Iranian support, America bombs Iran, Russia downs American planes, the US is now at war with Iran, which destroys American bases in the region and the large Russian reserve forces in Ukraine roll toward the Polish border. It’s nuke’m or lose’m.
Here let us consider the crucial role of blank ignorance in American foreign policy. We may use China as a convenient example. I have read that seventy-seven percent of Americans, or some such number, think that China is a dangerous enemy. This of course is a majority manufactured by the media. But how many Americans know anything about China? Can they name three Chinese cities other than Beijing, Hongkong, and Shanghai? Even those three? Can they name one date in Chinese history? Know what happened in 1976? But they are quite sure that China, wherever it is, constitutes a grave danger.
The foregoing applies almost as well to the Congress. A friend, a former US Senator, has estimated to me that ninety percent of the Senate doesn’t know where Myanmar is. Congressmen, usually negligible lawyers from somewhere, have neither the background, time, or interest to master multifaceted foreign countries. They vote as the wind blows, as the rest of their party votes, as lobbyists n donors wish, and as they think that their constituents. also comprehensively ignorant, will approve.
The media, often little better informed, throw softball questions to avoid embarrassing either the pols or the viewership. The typical question is vague and lets the politician ramble into his love of democracy, opposition to dictatorship, and passionate concern for human rights. No reporter would ask Senator Rubio whether he can tell semiconductores from possum droppings. Thus is policy made.
In two decades in Washington, I covered the military and its political hangers-on for Army Times, the Washington Times, the Washington Post, Universal Press Syndicate, Harper’s, and other stations of the journalistic cross. I had a Pentagon Pass and spent long hours walking the E-ring, talking to officers. I mention these not to puff my imaginary importance but to make the point that I know the smell, the attitude that moves the city, especially as regards the military.
There is a sense of omnipotence, of a right to rule. We have heard the phrases, the world’s policeman, the Indispensable Nation, a Shining City on a Hill, the Exceptional Nation. People believed this, and still do. This is hard to describe, but real. America had a God-given right, not infrequently expressed in religious terms, to intervene anywhere. Importantly, the US was believed to have the power to do so. In 1955, it did. Many of our gerontocratic leftover political fossils in power are old enough to have grown up in this.
There was, in those days, the American Imperium, US hegemony, the Empire, now consisting of something like 750 military bases around the world, control of the IMF, the World Bank, the United Nations, SWIFT, and so on. Washington came to think of this dominance as natural, eternal, a deserved fruit of European superiority. This is now collapsing, and Washington is ready to do anything, anything at all, to preserve it.
The desperate desire to stay in the saddle shapes America’s foreign policy. The approach is heavily military, in part because realists know that America cannot compete commercially or, for long, technologically with Asia. Washington has a short window of opportunity, perhaps of ten years, in which to crush first Russia and then China. Thus the war against Russia, a likely war in the Near East, threats to invade Mexico, and the frequent talk, and planning for, a war against china by 2025. They actually specify the year..
The horrifying thing is how very few are the men and women who can bring about a war in which hundreds of millions could die. In a world of eight billion, fewer (I will guess) than a hundred can start a holocaust. Much is made by conservatives of the Jewish Neocons, Victoria Nulan, Blinken, Zelenski, Kristol, and the gang, but there are also Biden, Bolton, Pompeo, Graham, Rubio, various Pentagon generals, and the arms industry.
In Washington there is talk of putting US boots on the ground in Ukraine, this being thought of as something the Russians would find fearsome. It isn’t’. America is no longer a nation of tough country boys. The Army can’t meet recruiting quotas because the American young are obese. Physical and mental standards have been lowered. Recruits with felony records are accepted. For years the services have been laboratories for political indoctrination, feminized, larded with sexual curiosities, rotted with affirmative action hires. The Army has no troops or officers who have experience with combat against a serious enemy with massive artillery, tanks, helicopter gunships. In recent decades the American military has bombed goat herds armed with rifles from secure bases with PXs. The Russians they would try to fight in the Ukraine are battle-hardened with over several years of experience of combat against a modern Ukrainian army. It would be a slaughter.
Here we come to a major element in Washington’s purported strategic thinking: Wars are containable and fought somewhere else, never in America. This curious delusion is palpable in all the threats of direct intervention. A mistake. If American soldiers fight Russian soldiers, America will be at war with Russia, whose submarines could easily torpedo American troop or supply ships. Today’s cruise missiles, such as those used by Russia in the Ukraine, are accurate and have in some cases ranges of 1,200 miles. Several of these launched from submarines and killing most of the people at the Pentagon would be a shock. The Pentagon, note, is a short bicycle ride from the Capitol and the White House.
What then would Washington do? Russia is a huge nuclear power, able to incinerate the US and Europe at the same time. Nuclear saber rattling by Washington won’t intimidate it. Russia is independent in both food and energy. Its air force is large and powerful. God help an aircraft carrier that tried to fight continental Russia. What do America’s toy soldiers do now?
A very, very important point: Wars usually do not turn out as expected. Here i repeat myself but I ask regular readers, if I have one, to be patient. Let’s look at some actual wars and how well they matched expectations. The American Civil War was supposed to be over in an afternoon at First Manassas. Wrong by four bloody years and 650,000 dead, equivalent to about six and a half million today. Nobody had the slightest idea of what that war would be. When Napoleon invaded Russia, he had no idea that Russian troops would soon be marching in Paris. Which is what happened. When the Germans launched WWI, they expected a short, victorious war of maneuver. They got four years of bloody, losing trench warfare. When Hitler invaded Russia, having Russian and American GIs divide up Berlin was not a major war plan. It happened. When the Japanese army urged war with America, it did plan on American sailors doing the boom-boom, as the Vietnamese used to say, with its daughters in the bars of Tokyo.
When the French recolonized Vietnam after WWII, they did not expect to be outfought and outsmarted at Dienbienphu. When the Americans repeated the French mistake, they also did not foresee being handed their ass, as is said in the military. It happened. When the Russians invaded Afghanistan, they did not expect to lose. But did. When the Americans, seeing the Russian defeat, also did not expect to lose. But did. The current war in the Ukraine goeth not as expected.
Now, regarding Ukraine: Militaries are often as bad at predicting the kind of war as its outcome. The game changer, as we like to say, in this war has been the drone. For one thing it allows armies to make precise attacks on targets, such as tanks, without risking the lives of soldiers. Further, when a drone spots, say, an enemy battalion, it can instantaneously relay its coordinates back to the artillery which in three minutes can bring down fire on said battalion. This wasn’t foreseen.
Now, as Washington prepares to start a war with China, it probably lacks a gerbil’s idea of how that war will go. There are the usual complacency, self-assurance, belief in America’s superiority in weapons and their use, the expectation of a short, sharp, victorious war, with the continental US remaining an untouchable sanctum. I find officials in the Federal Bubble talking of using F-35s to fly deep into China to bomb command centers. They say this in the same casual tone they would use when speaking of bombing Guatemala.
China isn’t Guatemala. It is a country of huge population, vast resources, large numbers of excellent engineers and scientists who feature prominently in the world’s elite technical journals. It is a country that sent a combined orbiter, lander, and rover to Mars, successfully, on its first attempt. It leads the world in number of supercomputers. It is not a dragon casually to be poked by overgrown little boys in the Five-Sided Wind Tunnel.
And it is a country that over decades has crafted its armed forces specifically to fight America in its nearby waters. I have a hard time imagining a situation better designed to produce surprises."
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