Larry C. Johnson, 7/18/26
"Iran Obliterating U.S. Bases,
KIA Cover Up Just Got Exposed!"
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So, we rise from the rubble...
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Saturday, July 18, 2026
Jeremiah Babe, "Alert! The War Will Bankrupt The U.S."
Jeremiah Babe, 7/18/26
"Alert! The War Will Bankrupt The U.S."
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Col Douglas Macgregor, "Pentagon LyingHell Break Loose as U.S. Soldiers in Critical Conditions"
Full screen recommended.
Col. Douglas Macgregor, 7/18/26
"Pentagon Lying, Hell Break Loose
as U.S. Soldiers in Critical Conditions"
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Musical Interlude: Josh Groban, "Remember When It Rained"
Full screen recommended.
Josh Groban, "Remember When It Rained"
"A Look to the Heavens"
"This fantastic skyscape lies near the edge of NGC 2174 a star forming region about 6,400 light-years away in the nebula-rich constellation of Orion. It follows mountainous clouds of gas and dust carved by winds and radiation from the region's newborn stars, now found scattered in open star clusters embedded around the center of NGC 2174, off the top of the frame.
Though star formation continues within these dusty cosmic clouds they will likely be dispersed by the energetic newborn stars within a few million years. Recorded at infrared wavelengths by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2014, the interstellar scene spans about 6 light-years. Scheduled for launch in 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is optimized for exploring the Universe at infrared wavelengths."
"He Tended His Flock Every Dawn… Until the Last One"
Full screen recommended.
"He Tended His Flock Every Dawn…
Until the Last One"
"He had never counted the years. He counted the sheep. Every dusk, he would walk the same hillside path - staff in hand, lantern swinging at his side - calling each one home by name. Not one ever got lost. Not one was ever left behind. For forty years, the village fell asleep to the sound of his gentle voice echoing off the stone walls. Nobody ever thought to ask how long he could keep walking that hill. Until one evening, the hill was quiet. And the flock waited by the gate, alone. An original frontier folk storytelling song - composed, written, and imagined by a human artist who believed that the most faithful people in the world are often the quietest. This song is part of the Cotton Villages series: cinematic storytelling songs set in cozy fantasy worlds, frontier folk landscapes, and heartwarming village tales. Every track is an original narrative - a small life, fully told in music and image."
"When Life Hurts – Watch This and Keep Going"
Full screen recommended.
"When Life Hurts – Watch This and Keep Going"
"There are moments in life when the pain feels unbearable. When everything seems to fall apart. When you feel alone… broken… exhausted. This video is for those moments. “When Life Hurts” is a powerful motivational speech designed to remind you that pain is not the end of your story - it’s the beginning of your transformation. Hard times don’t last. But strong people do. If you're going through heartbreak, failure, depression, rejection, or setbacks - don’t quit. The struggle you’re facing today is building the strength you’ll need tomorrow. Use the pain. Grow from it."
"My Past Won’t Shut Up"
Full screen recommended.
Delta King's Blues,
"My Past Won’t Shut Up"
"Some nights get quiet… but your memories don’t. “My Past Won’t Shut Up” is a haunting Delta King’s Blues tune about old mistakes, old love, and echoes that refuse to fade. A dark, brooding acoustic guitar circles the same chords like thoughts that won’t let you rest. The harmonica cries long and low, sounding like a voice drifting through a half-lit room. The groove moves slow and heavy, built for late hours when the past pulls up a chair. This is blues for unfinished business. For people who learned the lesson… but still hear the reminder. Time moves on - memory don’t."
Native Elder, "The Truth About Coincidences"
Full screen recommended.
Native Elder,
"The Truth About Coincidences"
The Poet: Theodore Roethke, "In a Dark Time"
"In a Dark Time"
"In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood-
A lord of nature weeping to a tree.
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What’s madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day’s on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall.
That place among the rocks- is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is-
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark, dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind."
- Theodore Roethke
"2 U.S. Soldiers Killed By Iran"
"Trump's Pickett's Charge"
"Trump's Pickett's Charge"
by Matt Bracken
"Some folks are seriously discussing a “ground operation” in Iran, and Kharg or Qeshm Islands seem to be their preferred targets. This sounds plausible in the abstract, but when you dig into the nuts and bolts, it looks to me like a suicide mission for the troops to be landed. I hope that wiser heads prevail, and refuse to plan or conduct a new Pickett’s Charge, Alamo, or Custer’s Last Stand.
First, let’s look at how the Soldiers or Marines would be delivered to Qeshm Island. Our Osprey tilt-rotors have double the range and speed of helicopters, so IMHO they will be the go-to first option. I’ll discuss dropping Soldiers by parachute later. And just rule out bringing our amphibious ships loaded with Marines close enough to disgorge their ACVs, Amphibious Combat Vehicles, with their max speed of 6 knots through the water, and max range through the water of 12 nautical miles. The ships would be sitting ducks while offloading ACVs and landing craft.
“A Marine amphibious assault, likely hitting Qeshm Island before Kharg, because Kharg sits too deep in the Persian Gulf to be the first move.” A Marine amphibious assault with WHAT? Helicopters and tilt-rotors, lift by painfully slow lift, from distant ships? Forget about bringing amphibious ships within boat and ACV launching range of Qeshm, much less Kharg.
Do the math, run the numbers, count the troops, planes, helicopters and tilt-rotors. The idea of invading Queshm is insane. Okinawa was not in artillery range of Japan. Custer faced better odds at Little Big Horn.
A Qeshm Island beach:
Typical Qeshm Island terrain. This is what you can see from above. You can’t see the tunnel complexes.
“Inside Qeshm Island, Iran’s underground ‘missile city’”
"You Are My Brother..."
“You are my brother, but why are you quarreling with me? Why do you invade my country and try to subjugate me for the sake of pleasing those who are seeking glory and authority? Why do you leave your wife and children and follow Death to the distant land for the sake of those who buy glory with your blood, and high honor with your mother's tears?
Is it an honor for a man to kill his brother man? If you deem it an honor, let it be an act of worship, and erect a temple to Cain who slew his brother Abel.
Is self-preservation the first law of Nature? Why, then, does Greed urge you to self-sacrifice in order only to achieve his aim in hurting your brothers? Beware, my brother, of the leader who says, "Love of existence obliges us to deprive the people of their rights!" I say unto you but this: protecting others' rights is the noblest and most beautiful human act; if my existence requires that I kill others, then death is more honorable to me, and if I cannot find someone to kill me for the protection of my honor, I will not hesitate to take my life by my own hands for the sake of Eternity before Eternity comes.
Selfishness, my brother, is the cause of blind superiority, and superiority creates clanship, and clanship creates authority which leads to discord and subjugation.
The soul believes in the power of knowledge and justice over dark ignorance; it denies the authority that supplies the swords to defend and strengthen ignorance and oppression - that authority which destroyed Babylon and shook the foundation of Jerusalem and left Rome in ruins. It is that which made people call criminals great men; made writers respect their names; made historians relate the stories of their inhumanity in manner of praise.
The only authority I obey is the knowledge of guarding and acquiescing in the Natural Law of Justice.
What justice does authority display when it kills the killer? When it imprisons the robber? When it descends on a neighborhood country and slays its people? What does justice think of the authority under which a killer punishes the one who kills, and a thief sentences the one who steals?
You are my brother, and I love you; and Love is justice with its full intensity and dignity. If justice did not support my love for you, regardless of your tribe and community, I would be a deceiver concealing the ugliness of selfishness behind the outer garment of pure love.”
- Kahlil Gibran
"The Cry of Their Mothers..."
"Humanity is the spirit of the Supreme Being on earth, and that humanity is standing amidst ruins, hiding its nakedness behind tattered rags, shedding tears upon hollow cheeks, and calling for its children with pitiful voice. But the children are busy singing their clan's anthem; they are busy sharpening the swords and cannot hear the cry of their mothers."
- Kahlil Gibran
U.S. Navy Hospital Corpsman HM1 Richard Barnett, assigned to the 1st Marine Division, holds an Iraqi child in central Iraq in this March 29, 2003 file photo. Confused front line crossfire ripped apart an Iraqi family after local soldiers appeared to force civilians towards positions held by U.S. Marines.
“My heart broke on its shame and sorrow. I suddenly knew how much crying there was in me, and how little love. I knew, at last, how lonely I was. But I couldn’t respond. My culture had taught me all the wrong things well. So I lay completely still, and gave no reaction at all. But the soul has no culture. The soul has no nations. The soul has no color or accent or way of life. The soul is forever. The soul is one. And when the heart has its moment of truth and sorrow, the soul can’t be stilled. I clenched my teeth against the stars. I closed my eyes. I surrendered to sleep. One of the reasons why we crave love, and seek it so desperately, is that love is the only cure for loneliness, and shame, and sorrow. But some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.”
- Gregory David Roberts, "Shantaram"
"How It Really Is"
Hey! They've got something big for you, too, Good Citizen!
Same as it always was, same as it always will be...
"You Won't Believe the Amount of Insanity Hitting the U.S. This August"
Full screen recommended.
Finance Economist, 7/18/26
"You Won't Believe the Amount of
Insanity Hitting the U.S. This August"
"You won't believe the amount of insanity hitting the U.S. this August. Oil executives just warned the White House that petroleum inventories are at "tank bottom." Exxon's senior VP warned Brent crude could hit $150 to $160 per barrel. Gas is at $4.26 and climbing. The IEA confirms 10.5 million barrels per day of Gulf production is offline and demand exceeds supply by 1.78 million barrels per day. The personal savings rate collapsed to 2.6 percent, the lowest since before COVID. Twenty-nine percent of Americans are financing groceries on installment plans. The New York Fed warned last week that nearly half of all businesses have more tariff price increases planned. The $5 trillion debt ceiling raise from the OBBBA will be burned through in just two years. Hurricane season peaks in August while the grid is already under extreme stress. Texas came within 4 minutes of total grid collapse in 2021. The first official data on healthcare coverage losses and SNAP cuts is expected this summer. The CBO projects 5 million will lose insurance. And Congress goes on recess in August with nobody in Washington to manage any of it. Seven converging pressures in one month on a consumer who has $170 a month left in savings."
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Adventures With Danno, "Shocking Prices At Sam's Club"
Full screen recommended.
Adventures With Danno, 7/18/26
"Shocking Prices At Sam's Club"
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o
Meanwhile, in a sane, civilzed society...
Full screen recommended.
Travelling with Russell ,11/8/25
"I Went To Russia's Newest
Discount Supermarket: Chizhik"
"What does the newest supermarket in Russia look like in 2026? Join me as I visit a brand new supermarket in Moscow, Russia. Chizhik Supermarket is a new chain store that has just opened its 3,000th store in only 5 years of trading."
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"Walmart Just Got Caught... And Everyone Knew Something Was Wrong"
The Unfolded States, 7/18/26
"Walmart Just Got Caught...
And Everyone Knew Something Was Wrong"
"Walmart meat overcharging concerns exploded after packaged ham was found weighing far less than the amount printed on its label. One package labeled at four point nine three pounds registered only one point eight three pounds on a Walmart store scale, raising serious questions about grocery price accuracy. This video examines the mislabeled meat at Walmart case, including the repeated three point one pound discrepancies found across several Kentucky Legend ham packages. We calculate how much customers could have overpaid, review how store employees responded, and separate confirmed evidence from claims that remain unproven.
We also examine Kentucky Legend’s explanation, Walmart’s refund response, previous weighted grocery settlements, and the control gap between supplier labeling and retailer oversight. The evidence confirms an incorrect package weight problem, but it does not prove a deliberate nationwide scheme. More importantly, the case shows how supplier errors can reach store shelves when packaged meat labeling controls fail. You will also learn how shoppers can document suspicious weights, request verification, preserve receipts, and report unresolved discrepancies to local weights and measures authorities. Subscribe for more evidence based consumer investigations, and share your opinion below. Who should verify the weight before a product is sold, the supplier, Walmart, or both?"
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Dan, I Allegedly, "Get Ready to Go to Jail"
Full screen recommended.
Dan, I Allegedly, 7/18/26
"Get Ready to Go to Jail"
"Millions of dollars in COVID relief were meant to keep businesses alive, but investigators now say massive fraud took place through PPP loans and EIDL loans. The SBA, Department of Justice, FBI, and Inspector General are aggressively pursuing fraudulent applications, with hundreds of thousands of loans under investigation. If you thought this story was over, think again. In today's video I break down the latest SBA fraud investigations, whistleblower rewards, PPP loan fraud, EIDL fraud, taxpayer losses, business news, and why many people could soon face criminal charges. We also discuss the housing market, pending home sales, restaurant closures, and other important business and financial news that impacts all Americans."
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"China’s Beidou Satellite System is a Game Changer in Iran’s War with the US"
Click image for larger size.
"China’s Beidou Satellite System
is a Game Changer in Iran’s War with the US"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Hat tip to Kevin Wamsley of Inside China Business. His recent video explaining the importance of China’s Beidou satellite navigation system provides a critical insight into the current success of Iran’s missile strikes on US and Israeli targets. It is a game changer. Here’s the video:
Let me summarize it. During the 12-day war in June 2025, Iranian missiles and drones struggled against sophisticated Israeli and American electronic warfare. GPS jamming and spoofing repeatedly disrupted their guidance systems, limiting their effectiveness during the intense 12-day conflict. Fast-forward to early 2026, and the battlefield dynamics had shifted dramatically. Iran’s precision strikes began threading through advanced air defenses, hitting high-value targets across the Gulf with surprising accuracy. Intelligence analysts pointed to one key factor: Iran had ditched GPS for China’s Beidou satellite navigation system.
The US unwittingly provided the spark that ignited China’s quest for the Beidou. The story begins in 1993 when a single Chinese container ship, the Yinhe, sailing to Iran, the vessel was accused by the CIA of carrying chemicals for weapons production. Middle Eastern ports, under pressure from the US, refused entry and the ship was stranded in the Indian Ocean. The US not only pressured allies but reportedly disabled the ship’s GPS access, forcing it to drop anchor for weeks. Inspections in Saudi Arabia eventually cleared the vessel, but China received no apology or compensation.
This humiliation - losing navigation mid-ocean due to reliance on a foreign-controlled system -became a pivotal lesson for Beijing. It accelerated development of an independent satellite navigation network: Beidou (BDS).
ͦ BDS-1 (2000s) provided initial regional coverage.
ͦ BDS-2 expanded capabilities.
ͦ BDS-3 (completed around 2020) transformed it into a global powerhouse with dozens of satellites, far more ground stations (especially in the Global South), and superior accuracy in many regions compared to GPS.
Today, Beidou outperforms GPS in coverage and precision across roughly 165 countries, offering a resilient alternative that cannot be unilaterally jammed or spoofed by Western powers.
After the 2025 conflict exposed vulnerabilities in GPS-dependent systems, Iran moved decisively. By late 2025 or early 2026, it integrated Beidou into its missile and drone arsenals. Reports from March 2026 already highlighted dramatic improvements: Iranian munitions evaded electronic countermeasures that had worked months earlier.
Key advantages of Beidou for Iran include:
ͦ Resistance to jamming/spoofing - Advanced frequency-hopping and anti-interference tech.
ͦ Higher accuracy - Circular error probable under 5 meters in key regions, enabling precise strikes with fewer munitions.
ͦ Real-time command - Secure messaging allows mid-flight adjustments over long distances.
This upgrade has contributed significantly to Iran’s ability to penetrate US defenses in the Gulf countries and dramatically improved Iran’s ability to strike critical targets, which has undermined confidence in US security guarantees in the Gulf.
The US decision to use GPS as a weapon in 1993 has backfired spectacularly - proof that humiliating China inspired a technological leap that now gives China and its allies a strategic advantage over the US."
Scott Ritter, "To All Americans: Brace for the Blast!"
Scott Ritter, 7/17/26
"To All Americans: Brace for the Blast!"
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Friday, July 17, 2026
Canadian Prepper, "Urgent: The Iran War Is About To Explode"
Full screen recommended.
Canadian Prepper, 7/17/26
"Urgent: The Iran War Is About To Explode"
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The Poet: Wendell Berry, "A Warning To My Readers”
"A Warning To My Readers”
“Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.”
- Wendell Berry
Musical Interlude: Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibration"
Full screen recommended.
Spirit Tribe Awakening, "Raise Positive Vibration"
"Peaceful, empowering and soothing music and nature to nurture your mind, body, and soul. Supporting and empowering you on your life journey. 528Hz positive energy healing music with 417Hz Solfeggio frequency. These frequencies have a specific healing effect on your subconscious mind." Be kind to yourself, savor this extraordinarily beautiful video. Headphones recommended, not required.
"A Look to the Heavens"
"Have you ever seen the Pleiades star cluster? Even if you have, you probably have never seen it as large and clear as this. Perhaps the most famous star cluster on the sky, the bright stars of the Pleiades can be seen without binoculars from even the depths of a light-polluted city. With a long exposure from a dark location, though, the dust cloud surrounding the Pleiades star cluster becomes very evident.
The featured exposure covers a sky area several times the size of the full moon. Also known as the Seven Sisters and M45, the Pleiades lies about 400 light years away toward the constellation of the Bull (Taurus). A common legend with a modern twist is that one of the brighter stars faded since the cluster was named, leaving only six of the sister stars visible to the unaided eye. The actual number of Pleiades stars visible, however, may be more or less than seven, depending on the darkness of the surrounding sky and the clarity of the observer's eyesight."
The Poet: John Jefferson, “Wounded But Not Slain”
“Wounded But Not Slain”
“I am wounded but I am not slain.
I’m bruised and faint they say…
I shall lay me down and bleed a while,
then I shall rise and fight again.
Just let me lie and bleed awhile;
I’ll not be long this way.
My Spirit’s low and my eyes flow.
My heart is sad and sore;
But when my pen’ent tears are gone,
I’ll stand and fight some more.
I’ll bind these wounds; I’ll dry these tears;
I’ll close this bleeding vein;
I’ll not lie here and weep and die:
I’ll rise and fight again.
‘Twas yesterday I bowed so low,
Was weak from tears and pain;
Today I’m strong; my fears are gone;
Today I fight again.”
- John Jefferson
o
“You cannot kill me here. Bring your soldiers, your death, your disease, your collapsed economy because it doesn’t matter, I have nothing left to lose and you cannot kill me here. Bring the tears of orphans and the wails of a mother’s loss, bring your God damn air force and Jesus on a cross, bring your hate and bitterness and long working hours, bring your empty wallets and love long since gone but you cannot kill me here. Bring your sneers, your snide remarks and friendships never felt, your letters never sent, your kisses never kissed, cigarettes smoked to the bone and cancer killing fears but you cannot kill me here. For I may fall and I may fail but I will stand again each time and you will find no satisfaction. Because you cannot kill me here.”
- Iain S. Thomas
"How Did It Get So Crazy, So Fast?"
"How Did It Get So Crazy, So Fast?"
by John Wilder
"One of the comments on a post a few weeks back asked a pretty good question: “How did we get so crazy, so fast?” The answer actually involves several intertwining threads, mice, Soviets, and gasoline engines, so let’s see of we can weave a web that covers at least a chunk of what has made us so crazy, so quickly. This is a distillation of the last seven years’ worth of study and writing, so some of it might be pretty familiar. Also, it’s not necessarily complete yet, but here are the major threads that I see that have led to what Heinlein called The Crazy Years.
First: Societal Malaise Due to Abundance: I’ve written several times about John Bumpass (that’s his real middle name according to the Internet) Calhoun’s Mouse Utopia experiment, see immediately below this paragraph for links to two previous posts. The short summary is Dr. Calhoun asked a crazy question: what would happen if you gave a population of mice everything they could want: food, water, freedom from predation, space to live, bedding material, and places to make nests.
The result? The mice died out. At a certain point they stopped mating, mother mice stopped taking care of infant mice, gangs formed, and some mice (the “beautiful ones”) just spent their time grooming themselves and not really interacting. If this sounds like Reddit® or TikTok™ or the Democratic National Convention, well, you’re right. For a certain subset of the population, abundance has ruined them.
I think it started in the 1960s. I’m just guessing. I like to blame the hippies, so they’re likely the early-version. It then continued into the wildest era of abundance the world has ever seen: the 1990s. If you look at any time lapse, that’s when the United States started leading the world (it has spread now, literally) in having obesity, not hunger, be the bigger (pun intended) health problem.
I think this started to manifest itself, big time, in the music of the 1990s. We went from Warrant singing about Cherry Pie to Kurt Cobain mumbling about how living in the suburbs with all the Pop Tarts™ his fat face could eat was killing him. Turns out that shotguns are even more deadly than Pop Tarts©. Who knew? We had a generation that was lost because they had everything. I think a candidate for the hallmark phrase of this Crazy Cause is: “Why are we even here, dude?”
Second: Societal Anxiety Due to No Challenges: I recently made the comment on X® that a lot of people would e better off if they had been bullied as kids. Was I serious? Yeah, I was. One response was, “Why do you want to make things worse?”
The truth is, for me, that bullies actually helped me build my character and my resolve. And, believe it or not, sometimes the bullies were right and the things that they bullied me about (second graders can be assholes) were things I needed to fix to be a better person. Did I lift harder to get stronger because of it? Yes. Did I develop the internal resilience so that the people who (rightfully) bullied the smarmy second grader that I was eventually earned the respect of the bullies?
Yes. Males, even young males, need to develop a hierarchy and understand their place in it and why they are inferior to Chuck Norris.
No child is born perfect, and it is the challenges in life that help define and develop character. Without challenge, development is stunted.
I think that today’s twentysomethings have the problem that they look into a future that certainly looks grim to them, yet they’ve never had a chance to develop their character and are told again and again how perfect they are and how their choices are important.
Newsflash: the choices of a second grader generally deserve about as much attention as the choices my dog wants to make. Both will eat all of the cake in the house if you let them and make messes everywhere. It’s our job as parents to not care what they think when it’s important to develop character and virtue.
As a society we face many of the same problems: what is it we stand for and what are we trying to accomplish? We don’t have Soviets to fight, we’re actively encouraging invaders into our country to replace us, and we don’t have any cool national purpose like the Apollo program. I think a candidate for the catchphrase of this crazy cause is: “Why am I so worthless?”
Third: Societal Atomization Due To Tech: As humans, we have minds that are built around smaller social systems, mainly. The big move from rural to urban happened in the west only recently. Our legacy social structure is (mainly) to live in a town for a very long time, put down roots, make friends, make a reputation.
Most people aren’t leaders, they’re followers, and want to be led. Why else would sane people want zoning regulations? But now, put us in a constantly churning urban landscape where we don’t know the next-door-neighbor in the apartment building? Who do we turn to? Well, whatever latenightjokeman says or whatever TikTik™ says or whatever InstaFace© allows to be printed. People are defining themselves on how YouTube™ says Europeans feel about Donald Trump.
They are also allowed to pick whatever gender they are. How do I know tech is driving this? Back when COVID made everyone homeschooled, transgenderism dropped. Why? No one to identify to – which is why “transwomen” with no girl parts get offended when gynecologists won’t give them appointments. Yes. That’s a thing.
The iPhone™ is a big driver. It puts connections in the hands of kids. I talked with one Millennial, and he said that at the start of his high school career, kids “cruised main” looking for other kids. By the end of high school, it was all phones. Friendships dropped, and dating dropped. Mix that with the first two causes above, and it leads to fewer kids.
Dating sites magnify this, and make every girl “4” think that she deserves a Chad ranked 9 or higher because one time a drunk Chad had sex with her. This leads to Chads being happy, but girls being sad and hollow inside. I think a catchphrase for this Crazy Cause is “Who or what the heck am I?”
Result of these interacting strands of Crazy are a large number of people who:
• Stand for nothing.
• Have no examples of virtue other than seeking money in their lives.
• See no point in anything other than the present moment.
• Are distracted.
• Think they’re too good for PEZ™.
• Are filled with the combination of anxiety and narcissism.
• Do and feel whatever the media tells them to do.
• Haven’t built social circles of any particular strength – clubs and churches are on constant decline.
There’s good news. All of this is self-limiting. We’re not mice, and plenty of good humans haven’t fallen into Calhoun’s Behavioral Sink. Many of those same people have overcome challenges sufficient to shape their character for the better. Finally, there are enough of us that don’t follow. We lead. Or we choose our own path. And? We’re gonna win."
"H.L. Mencken Explains American Idiocracy 100 Years Ago"
"H.L. Mencken Explains
American Idiocracy 100 Years Ago"
by Joey Clark
"I am happy to report one of my favorite H.L. Mencken quotes has been making the rounds again on social media: “As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”
Though I am happy to see people exposed to Mencken’s political invective in any dosage no matter how small, I worry many are not quite getting the point. I fear they may only be wading into the shallow end of the pool. So, allow me to now baptize you in the dangerous depths of Mencken’s political cynicism.
Forgive me if you are reading this and have already been christened in these rarified waters. If so, I say bravo! Encore! I suppose it won’t hurt to be christened again. I try to do so weekly. One can never be too certain about one’s political soul.
The modern use of Mencken’s “moron” quote almost always seems to focus on the hilarious punchline – the “downright moron” label applying to a particular president or presidential candidate – without paying enough attention to the setup. Not only is a president being called idiotic; so too is the whole democratic ideal itself.
According to Mencken, mass democracy and the culture it produces marches us towards conformity, folly, and stupidity. So, the question remains – why, as “democracy is perfected,” does the inner soul of the people reflect morondom? Well, Mencken provides a full answer in his 1920 essay (the source of his “moron” quote) on the presidential election of that year, “Bayard and Lionheart.”
Given the way Mencken speaks of the candidates – Warren Harding and James Cox – he might as well be describing Biden or Trump. “Neither candidate reveals the slightest dignity of conviction,” writes Mencken. “Neither cares a hoot for any discernible principle. Neither, in any intelligible sense, is a man (now "person") of honor.”
However, Mencken then takes a turn. He shifts his focus away from the gladiators in the arena and onto the blood-thirsty spectators. He reminds us that democracy is not about the propagation of diverse and sound ideas, but winning votes at all costs. And how does one win votes?
“Of the two candidates, that one wins who least arouses the suspicions and distrusts of the great masses of simple men,” writes Mencken. “Well, what are more likely to arouse those suspicions and distrusts than ideas, convictions, principles? The plain people are not hostile to shysterism, save it be gross and unsuccessful… But they shy instantly and inevitably from the man who comes before them with notions that they cannot immediately translate into terms of their everyday delusions; they fear the novel idea, and particularly the revolutionary idea, as they fear the devil.”
Mencken goes on to venture that this fear of ideas is a “peculiarly democratic phenomenon” which has been perfected in America, a country that has developed the doctrine of “right-thinking” with a “singular passion for conformity” and “dread of novelty and originality in almost every aspect of life.”
If one is not in agreement with the right thinking of the time, then one is immediately suspect, “...any novel idea, in any field of human relations, carries with it a burden of obnoxiousness, and is instantly challenged as mysteriously immoral by the great masses of right-thinking men.”
Mencken continues: “Such tests arise inevitably out of democracy – the domination of unreflective and timorous men, moved in vast herds by mob emotions. In private life no man of sense would think of applying them. We do not estimate the integrity and ability of an acquaintance by his flabby willingness to accept our ideas; we estimate him by the honesty and effectiveness with which he maintains his own. All of us, if we are of reflective habit, like and admire men whose fundamental beliefs differ radically from our own. But when a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental – men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost.”
That said, we can now craft a simple formulation for why, according to Mencken, the White House will one day “be adorned by a downright moron.”
• Democracy offers power to the masses.
• With power on offer, the masses come to care more about winning power than the free expression of ideas.
• With winning as the goal, all novel ideas take a back seat to conformity, virtue signaling, and emotional appeals.
• With the rules of the mob now set as such, only the most empty-headed or hucksterish politicians rise to the top.
• And finally, as this process is perfected and the democratic populace expanded, fewer and fewer ideas will matter until we have reached the land of Morondom with the president as our idiot idol.
So, the next time you wish to quote Henry Louis Mencken to call some president a moron, feel free, but I hope you understand it is the American people’s common love of mass democracy that has brought us to this “great and glorious day.”
If you would like to know more about Mencken, read this definitive essay by Murray Rothbard, called “H.L. Mencken: The Joyous Libertarian.”
"Mass Layoffs Are About to Destroy the Job Market in 2026"
Full screen recommended.
The Unfolded States, 7/17/26
"Mass Layoffs Are About to
Destroy the Job Market in 2026"
"Mass layoffs 2026 are exposing a dangerous shift in the American labor market, but the biggest threat is not simply how many workers are being fired. It is what happens when slower hiring, longer unemployment, and AI restructuring make comparable jobs harder to find. This video examines major job cuts involving Microsoft, Walmart, Rogers Communications, General Motors, and reported restructuring plans at Volkswagen. It compares corporate layoff announcements with Bureau of Labor Statistics data, long term unemployment, job openings, and the low hire, low fire economy. You will see how artificial intelligence, outsourcing, automation, hiring freezes, and team consolidation can reduce head counts without always appearing as traditional layoffs. We also explore the human cost of job loss, from depleted savings and housing commitments to lower salary offers and heavier workloads. The 2026 job market has not collapsed everywhere, but displaced technology and white collar workers may face a slower, colder, and less forgiving path back to stable employment."
Comments here:
"Nobody Can Afford Their Old Life Anymore And Everyone's Finally Saying It Out Loud"
Full screen recommended.
Epic Economist, 7/17/26
"Nobody Can Afford Their Old Life Anymore
And Everyone's Finally Saying It Out Loud"
"The cost of living crisis in America, told by the people living it. Eighteen ordinary Americans, one story: full-time work and nothing left at the end of the month. Inside this video: an eviction notice with $800 still missing, furniture abandoned because moving costs more than the furniture is worth, overdraft fees charged to people who already have no money, rent that went from $500 to $3,000 on a wage that barely doubled, and junk fees for everything the rent already promised. The data backs them up. The Brookings Institution found 45.5% of U.S. households couldn't cover basic needs in 2024.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition counts just 34 affordable rentals for every 100 of the poorest renters. The National Association of Realtors' affordability index fell below 100 — the typical American family now earns less than a median home costs. This was never a spending problem. It's a transfer - the same house, the same shift, the same paycheck, quietly repriced so more of it flows upward every month."
Comments here:
John Wilder, "Six Strange Life Lessons from Completely Unexpected Sources"
"Six Strange Life Lessons from
Completely Unexpected Sources"
by John Wilder
“Well, you see, I’m not saying that I’ve been everywhere and done everything, but I do know it’s a pretty amazing planet we live on here and a man would have to be some kind of fool to think we’re all alone in this Universe.” – "Big Trouble in Little China"
Wisdom doesn’t always wear a tweed jacket with those leather elbow patches, smoke a pipe, and sit and stare in silent judgement over me for hours like the ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien after I do an Internet search for “sexy elves”. Sometimes wisdom comes from a “low-effort because I’m tired after travelling listicle-post”, so here we go...
Trees: Sometimes Just Hanging Around Is a Win: There are roughly three trillion trees on Earth. That’s more trees than there are stars in the entire Milky Way galaxy. I did not make that up, and was surprised when I found out. Most people like trees, but as I’m trying to clean out the forest next to Stately Wilder Manor that I have dubbed Mordor because, “One does not simply walk into Mordor.”
I think too much about trees. They don’t hustle. They don’t network. They don’t chase trends or pay bills. They just stand there, year after year, doing their job of being an impenetrable forest. That’s it. That’s the lesson. I don’t always have to be grinding, optimizing, or “leveling up.” Long-term presence and quiet consistency beat frantic motion most of the time. Trees have been winning at this game for millions of years while the rest of us burn out trying to do everything at once.
Health: Rest and recovery aren’t laziness. They’re how you stay standing when the storms hit.
Wealth: Patient compounding usually destroys the guy who’s constantly chasing the next hot thing.
Happiness: Sometimes the real win is just refusing to move.
While I’m doom-scrolling and stressing, the trees are out here quietly outnumbering the stars. Maybe I should take the hint.
Jack Burton: You Don’t Need to Know Everything to Be the Hero: Jack Burton from "Big Trouble in Little China" is the ultimate example. Definitely not the one with the master plan. He spends most of the movie confused, cracking bad jokes, but yet swinging when it counts. And he still ends up the hero. The lesson is simple: I don’t have to understand every variable or have the perfect strategy. Show up, stay calm when things get weird, and do the next right thing even though I don’t know where everything will end up. That’s often enough.
Health: Consistent basic effort beats analysis paralysis every single time.
Wealth: Good habits and showing up regularly compound.
Life: Confidence and action usually beat having every answer.
Jack Burton didn’t know what the hell was going on half the time. He just kept driving the truck, killing the bad guys, and going with the flow. That sometimes works better than the time I spend overthinking.
Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia: 2026 Update: Never Get Involved in a Land War in Asia.
Cats: They Domesticated Themselves and Only Talk When It Matters: Domestic cats basically moved in with humans on their own terms. They showed up, handled the rats, and let us feed them. Over time we got attached. Adult cats almost never meow to other cats. They save that sound almost exclusively for humans. That’s strategic communication. They know their audience. They don’t waste energy performing for everyone. They focus where it actually gets results.
Health: Prioritize the relationships and habits that actually support me instead of trying to please the whole world who mostly don’t care if I live or die.
Wealth: Don’t chase every opportunity or person. Focus on the ones that pay off.
Happiness: Authenticity and selective effort beat trying to be liked by everyone.
Cats didn’t ask permission to be part of the household. They just made themselves useful and trained the humans. Then they only spoke up when it was worth their time. Take notes.
Everyone Remembers Godzilla. Nobody Remembers the Heroes. In decades of Godzilla movies, the giant monster is the star. The scientists in lab coats, the soldiers, the regular people trying to stop the destruction as Godzilla stomps his way across Tokyo? They’re mostly forgotten five minutes after the credits roll. Action gets all the attention. Quiet, steady competence rarely does. Yet, the lab coat guys are usually the ones who actually prevent total collapse.
Health: The boring daily consistency is what actually changes bodies but having 16” biceps never hurts.
Wealth: Nobody remembers the millionaire dentist, but everyone remembers Elon.
Life: Being the reliable one who prevents disaster is more valuable than being the one causing the spectacle, but the only one they’ll remember is the one putting on the show.
“Why?” Is Still the Most Powerful Question: Four-year-olds drive adults crazy because they will not stop asking it. “Why is the sky blue?” “Why do I have to go to bed?” “Why can’t I have ice cream for dinner?”They haven’t yet learned to accept stupid answers and are not yet smart enough to cope with the mathematics of Rayleigh scattering. It’s annoying. But it’s also their superpower. I try to never lose the habit of asking why. It cuts through marketing, propaganda, bad habits, and bad advice.
Wealth: Ask why people think that spending $700 billion on data centers makes sense and if they’re such a great deal why are the hyperscalers selling majority stakes in them.
Life: Questioning things is how I attempt to stay sharp and avoid walking into obvious traps. Kids ask “why” until adults either give a real answer or get annoyed because their small brains are too young to understand a simple equation:
Wisdom doesn’t need a stage or a book deal. Sometimes it’s standing quietly in a forest hating trees, driving the Pork Chop Express through minority-owned businesses, training humans without asking permission, not getting involved in land wars in Asia, causing glorious messes, or just refusing to stop asking questions. Now back to those elves..."
"The Peanut and the Philosopher"
"The Peanut and the Philosopher"
by Joel Bowman
“Whom the gods love dies young.”
~ Herodotus (c. 445 B.C.) ...
and also Billy Joel, from "The Stranger" (1977)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "Last night, beneath somber heavens, we laid to rest a source of laughter, light and love in our little family. Peanut, dear daughter’s Syrian hamster, is finally liberated from her wheel, with which she had such a complicated, love-hate relationship. Enshrouded in one of dad’s old undershirts, she was buried with a leather scarab beetle, “an homage to the Egyptians,” in a friend’s backyard, her initial’s “PB” embroidered with love and care. And inscribed on her humble cardboard coffin, in duly devoted cursive, an epitaph which brought a tear to your author’s eye:
Here lies the picture of purity and sublimity, returned to the earth.
R.I.P. Peanut (June, 2024 ~ July, 2026)
Yes, dear reader, a lot has happened since we last wrote you. Life and death... peace and war... love and loss. But still the world turns, and so we are left to make sense of the incomprehensible nature of what remains on it.
Last week we offered a few theories (not our own) on how to interpret the past... so that we might better understand where we are all headed. What is the engine of history, we puzzled? What drives a civilization forward? And how will we know if we ever “get there”? Many are the theories, hunches and hypotheses regarding the big questions; few are the truly valuable insights. As H.L. Mencken once wrote: “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong.”
Anti-Social Existence: At the tippy-top of the Wrong Heap, as near as we can tell, sits Karl Marx. Having “successfully” inverted Hegel’s dialectic, Marx began his analysis of history from the idea that it was man’s material conditions which determined his ability to think and act, not the other way around. As he (and Engels) wrote in "The German Ideology": “It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.” And from this one sentence springs forth one of the most dangerous theories in all human history: historical materialism.
The key lies in the phrase “social existence.” For Marx, human beings are inextricably bound to their material circumstances. Our ideas, values, and understanding of the world arise not independently of our economic lives, but largely as a direct result of them.
Little surprise, then, that everywhere Marx looked in the vast expanse of the cold, material world, he saw conflict... master and slave... bourgeoisie and proletariat... capital and labor, and so on. Society, reckoned he, is divided into a dominant class that controls the means of production (wealth and property) and a subordinate class that provides the labor.
As for cooperation... collaboration... mutually beneficial exchange... Marx saw only forced exploitation, the reductionist “people over profits” slogans you might find scrawled on a placard at a Zohran Mamdani rally for so-called “studies” students and other socialist soap-dodgers.
Only the Good Die Young: A moocher... an adulterer... a wastrel with other people’s money... an absent father... an arrogant hypocrite of bourgeois pomp and habit... Marx was many things. But a man of subtlety and nuance he was not. Unable to see the individual for the crowd, one person’s unique skill held little value for him. A unit of labor was a unit of labor, plain and simple. Which is undoubtedly why, for instance, his “labor theory of value” is so plainly and simply wrong.
Marx claimed a product’s value derived from the labor units that went into manufacturing it, an intellectually digestible concept reserved for only the most cerebrally lax. Your editor might sit at his piano a hundred lifetimes and not compose a tune like (his namesake) Billy Joel’s classic Only the Good Die Young, from his 1977 album, The Stranger.
By Marx’s calculation, the respective products of our labor – Billy’s and Joel’s – remain equal so long as we spend the same time tinkering at the keys, a proposition only the foolish, the deaf or the dishonest could possibly countenance. As dear readers well know, beauty resides as much in the ear of the listener as it does the eye of the beholder. So too for value.
It was the Austrian School economist, Carl Menger, who first proposed a workable alternative to Marx’s specious claptrap. Rejecting the “cost-base” (labor) value theories of the classical economists, Marx last among them, Menger posited a new perspective entirely: Man as the measure of all things. Goods are valuable, he asserted, because they serve various uses whose importance differs with regards to individual preference.
The Eye of the Beholder: Menger’s insights influenced many subsequent thinkers, including Ludwig von Mises, who perhaps set the record straight in clearer terms. Value, as Mises described it, was not determined by the nature of objects in a humanless vacuum, Marx’s purely “material world,” as some elemental component within the thing itself. “Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things,” he argued in Human Action. “It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.”
In this manner, one good has value over another not because it is intrinsically bestowed… but because we afford it value through our interaction with – and appreciation for – its various properties. Who among men, dying of thirst in the middle of the desert, would not trade all the riches in the world for a drop of life-sustaining water?
We understand intuitively that, depending on the moment in time and the particular circumstances attending it, an ounce of gold can be a blessing (as in times of hyperinflation or political uncertainty) or a curse (as it was for the ill-fated King Midas). In the end, we find that life is not so easily reduced to units of labor or hours at the office, much less on the proverbial hamster wheel... but in the love and joy and value we bring to others along the way. In this way can a Peanut outshine a philosopher.
Of course, Marx was not the only man with a boneheaded theory of the way the world worked. We’ll take a look at a few of his contemporaries next time ‘round. As always, stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World..."
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