"How Stress Affects Your Cholesterol Level: Everything You Wanted to Know"

"How Stress Affects Your Cholesterol Level:

Everything You Wanted to Know"

by Karen Reed

"You’ve heard all about how high cholesterol levels are causing ill health. More importantly, you’ve heard about how bad cholesterol is causing ill health. It affects your arteries and blood flow, putting your heart under more pressure to perform properly. Those with high cholesterol levels are more at risk of stroke, heart attacks, and heart disease.

Cholesterol has long been linked to the food we eat. There are certain foods that we’re recommended to stay away from and others that we should get more off to promote good cholesterol levels and help protect the arteries. Did you know that it’s not just food that affects the cholesterol levels? Stress has been linked to high cholesterol. In fact, some studies now show that stress is worse than the food we eat for cholesterol levels and ill health.

The problem is that stress is a silent killer. We don’t realize that our cortisol levels are up and causing these problems until it’s too late in some cases. It’s important to reduce our stress levels to keep our cholesterol levels down. Here’s a look at just how stress causes high cholesterol and what you can do about it.

What Exactly Is Cholesterol? Before you start looking at stress and how it affects to high cholesterol levels, you need to know more about it. What exactly is it and what does it do?

There are two types of cholesterol: good and bad. The bad cholesterol is known as LDL cholesterol, and you shouldn’t have any more than 100mg/dL of this type in your body. Good cholesterol is HDL, and you should have at least 60mg/dL. A good level of total cholesterol, according to physicians, is 200mg/dL and this can be made up of both good and bad. Considering you shouldn’t have more that 100mg/dL of the bad stuff, you want at least 100mg/dL of the good stuff. The more good cholesterol you have, the better it is for you. Good cholesterol can keep the bad stuff at bay and under control.

What exactly is cholesterol? It’s a fatty substance that is only found in animal products. It is naturally produced by your body, but can also be added to food. The body will make more cholesterol due to trans and saturated fats being added through food. Both types of cholesterol will enter the arteries and build up. The good stuff builds up as a lining to the arteries, protecting them from damage. The lining is soft and makes it easier for the blood to flow through the veins.

On the other hand, bad cholesterol blocks the arteries. It creates a friction layer that stops the blood flowing freely. The heart and brain don’t get the blood that they both need and clogs can appear in the arteries. You’re at a higher risk of suffering various health problems, including stroke and heart disease, because of your high bad cholesterol levels.

There are various types of people more at risk for having high cholesterol levels. There are certainly genetic factors involved, but there are also lifestyle factors. One of those is stress levels, especially in those who are overweight, smoke or have other health problems.

Stress and the Unhealthy Lifestyle: One of the reasons found for the stress and high cholesterol link is bad lifestyle habits. Those who are stressed are more likely to follow less healthy habits in other areas of their life. They’re less likely to exercise and more likely to eat bad food. After all, saturated and trans fat foods tend to be the comfort foods – those that people crave to try to boost their endorphin and serotonin levels.

People who are stressed will look for ways to counter their cortisol levels, and that is usually through unhealthy methods. People are more likely to drink or smoke, which puts other strains on their body. The body isn’t able to produce the good cholesterol and is encouraged to create bad cholesterol. This reason is highly common in men. It is men who tend to deal with stress the worst, possibly due to misconceptions that relaxation techniques are for women. They also tend to have higher stressful jobs than women, since many men are in higher positions of power and authority. Men tend to be in more leadership roles, which means more responsibility and decision making. It may not seem fair, but that’s just a common view.

How the Body Reacts to Stress Causes High Cholesterol Levels: Another study found that people who suffer from high levels of stress have higher bad cholesterol due to the high levels of triglycerides. The triglycerides are the components that encourage the boost of bad cholesterol levels, causing major health problems. It doesn’t matter what your diet is like, although the unhealthier diet will put you more at risk.

The study researchers considered the reasons for the higher triglycerides. While the exact reason isn’t known, the theory is that it is due to the stress hormone cortisol. This is common is people who suffer long term stress, and leads to the release of adrenaline in the body.

Adrenaline is the body’s “flight or fight” response and helps to deal with the stress levels. It pushes people into making decisions and keeps them alert and active when they desperately need to be. Many people in trauma incidents report that they don’t know how they kept going. The adrenaline pushed them forward until they were given a chance to relax. That was when their bodies shut down, and they had the chance to allow the trauma to affect them. Adrenaline can certainly have benefits, but it causes the increase in triglycerides. This then triggers the high levels of bad cholesterol, which can later affect the body in other ways.

Stress Can Cause “Stickiness” in the Arteries: Another study has found that the arteries can be “sticky” due to high-stress levels. This may or may not be linked to high cholesterol levels. It could be a problem on its own that makes it look like someone has high cholesterol levels.

Stress makes the muscles spasm. This affects the arteries, which causes problems with the blood flow. The platelets in people with high-stress levels are commonly “sticky.” They cling to the artery walls and create bumps and friction for the blood flow. The blood is more likely to clog, and other health problems arise. The constriction of the arteries certainly doesn’t help things. When the arteries constrict, the area for the blood flow gets smaller, and it causes the blood flow to slow down. Mixed with the stickiness or high cholesterol problems, the blood gets stuck and clogs. It’s harder for the heart and brain to get the blood that they both need.

Stress causes many other health problems and affects the body in more ways that we currently know or understand. It is possible that stress isn’t just a factor for high cholesterol but makes high cholesterol worse for the health.

Reducing Stress to Prolong Life: Many scientists now recommend not focusing on reducing cholesterol as much as reducing stress. Cholesterol gained a bad rep for a long time, including good cholesterol. It’s taken time for the medical world to realize that not all cholesterol is bad and there are other factors that cause many of the same risks. One of those is the high-stress levels. It’s important to keep them to a minimum so the whole body can work effectively and we can prolong out lives.

The tricky thing is finding a way to reduce stress levels. Understandably reducing stress isn’t always easy and people can end up even more stressed because they’re trying to reduce it. Think about how you feel when you’re struggling to sleep because of stress. You get more worked up, which releases more cortisol and more adrenaline into the body. It’s harder to get to sleep, and this cycle continues until you find a way actually to reduce the stress.

Meditation and exercise are often considered the best ways to reduce stress. Yoga is a popular option since it combines the two together in many ways. You get to become one with yourself, focus on your breathing, and tone your body at the same time.

Both meditation and exercise help to release more happy hormones into your body. The right chemicals help to reduce the levels of cortisol in your body. You’ll have less adrenaline keeping you awake and fewer triglycerides causing your bad cholesterol production to increase.

It will be tempting to reach for a glass or two (or even a bottle) of wine to deal with stress. Smoking is tempting, along with binge watching a TV series while you struggle to sleep. You want to look for healthier ways to handle your stress. The negative ways will just cause more problems for your health.

Long Term vs. Short Term Stress and Cholesterol: If you have the odd day where you feel like you’re at the end of your tether, don’t worry about it too much. It’s not the short-term stress that causes the increase in cholesterol levels. The studies show that those who suffer long term stress are the ones who are most likely to see all the negative side effects.

Sure, stress isn’t good for you, but it is also a normal part of living. There are times that adrenaline and cortisol are needed. They can keep you going when you run out of energy or when going through trauma.

Those who suffer long term stress will have prolonged cortisol and adrenaline levels. Those hormones will be much higher than they need to be and in the body for much longer. They cause a range of health problems when around for long periods of time, including high blood pressure, insomnia, and even Type II diabetes. It shouldn’t be surprising that high cholesterol levels are also a problem.

Healthy eating is an important lifestyle choice. Not only will it help to reduce the foods that cause cholesterol production but it can also reduce the cortisol release. Healthy foods protect the body, supply energy, and help to boost the production of happy hormones, which help to reduce the stress hormones.

When you suffer from long term stress, you will want to look for ways to eliminate the reason for stress as much as possible. I know this isn’t always going to be easy. You may enjoy your career, but there will be times that you struggle to cope with all the demand your job throws at you. It’s not like you can just pick and choose. However, if there is a way that you can reduce the stuff you do that causes stress, such as delegation, then you want to do it where you can.

Long term high-stress levels may not cause immediate problems. There are links to issues years down the line because of the stress levels that you have felt at some point in your life. This issue is linked more with long term stress, but some bouts of short-term stress can also be a problem.

Stress Isn’t the Only Culprit: It is important to note that stress isn’t the only reason we suffer from high cholesterol levels. While it’s a silent killer and common, there are many other reasons your cholesterol levels could be high. Diet is certainly a factor, but so are genetics and other lifestyle choices that you make. The place you work or the chemicals that you inhale from where you live can also cause cholesterol levels to increase.

This is something that scientists are still trying to understand. We have come a long way since believing that all cholesterol was bad. Now we know that some cholesterol is good, and we want it to our bodies, but we need to make sure that it is good. While stress isn’t the only culprit, it is one of the main reasons for high cholesterol levels and other health problems. It’s best to keep the stress levels at bay as much as possible.”

- https://www.positivehealthwellness.com/

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Full screen highly recommended.

“Neuroscience Says Listening to This Song

Reduces Anxiety by Up to 65 Percent”

By Melanie Curtin

“Everyone knows they need to manage their stress. When things get difficult at work, school, or in your personal life, you can use as many tips, tricks, and techniques as you can get to calm your nerves. So here’s a science-backed one: make a playlist of the 10 songs found to be the most relaxing on earth. Sound therapies have long been popular as a way of relaxing and restoring one’s health. For centuries, indigenous cultures have used music to enhance well-being and improve health conditions.

Now, neuroscientists out of the UK have specified which tunes give you the most bang for your musical buck. The study was conducted on participants who attempted to solve difficult puzzles as quickly as possible while connected to sensors. The puzzles induced a certain level of stress, and participants listened to different songs while researchers measured brain activity as well as physiological states that included heart rate, blood pressure, and rate of breathing.

According to Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson of Mindlab International, which conducted the research, the top song produced a greater state of relaxation than any other music tested to date. In fact, listening to that one song- “Weightless”- resulted in a striking 65 percent reduction in participants’ overall anxiety, and a 35 percent reduction in their usual physiological resting rates. That is remarkable.

Equally remarkable is the fact the song was actually constructed to do so. The group that created “Weightless”, Marconi Union, did so in collaboration with sound therapists. Its carefully arranged harmonies, rhythms, and bass lines help slow a listener’s heart rate, reduce blood pressure and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol.

When it comes to lowering anxiety, the stakes couldn’t be higher. Stress either exacerbates or increases the risk of health issues like heart disease, obesity, depression, gastrointestinal problems, asthma, and more. More troubling still, a recent paper out of Harvard and Stanford found health issues from job stress alone cause more deaths than diabetes, Alzheimer’s, or influenza.

In this age of constant bombardment, the science is clear: if you want your mind and body to last, you’ve got to prioritize giving them a rest. Music is an easy way to take some of the pressure off of all the pings, dings, apps, tags, texts, emails, appointments, meetings, and deadlines that can easily spike your stress level and leave you feeling drained and anxious.

Of the top track, Dr. David Lewis-Hodgson said, “‘Weightless’ was so effective, many women became drowsy and I would advise against driving while listening to the song because it could be dangerous.” So don’t drive while listening to these, but do take advantage of them:

10. “We Can Fly,” by Rue du Soleil (Café Del Mar)

9. “Canzonetta Sull’aria,” by Mozart

8. “Someone Like You,” by Adele

7. “Pure Shores,” by All Saints

6. “Please Don’t Go,” by Barcelona

5. “Strawberry Swing,” by Coldplay

4. “Watermark,” by Enya

3. “Mellomaniac (Chill Out Mix),” by DJ Shah

2. “Electra,” by Airstream

1. “Weightless,” by Marconi Union

I made a public playlist of all of them on Spotify that runs about 50 minutes (it’s also downloadable).”

- http://www.stumbleupon.com/

"The Poet: Mary Oliver, "The Journey "

"The Journey"

"One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice -

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

 Mend my life!

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do -

determined to save

the only life you could save."

- Mary Oliver

“7 Things Fear Has Stolen From You”

“7 Things Fear Has Stolen From You”

by Marc Chernoff

“There is no greater hell than to be a prisoner of fear.”

- Ben Johnson

“Courage doesn’t mean you don’t get afraid; courage means you don’t let fear stop you. Everything you want is on the other side of fear. Don’t ever hesitate to give yourself a chance to be everything you are capable of being. Although fear can feel overwhelming, and defeats more people than any other force in the world, it’s not as powerful as it seems. Fear is only as deep as your mind allows. You are still in control. The key is to acknowledge your fear and directly address it. You must step right up and confront it face to face. This tactic robs fear of its power, instead of fear robbing YOU of…

1. Your true path and purpose. Fear of being different… Don’t be fooled by what others say, especially when they try to tell you what is right for you. Listen and then draw your own conclusions. What is your intuition telling you? There is not a clear path that everyone should follow. Your greatest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding in life at all the wrong things. Choose a path that fits YOU. Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. Challenge yourself to ask with each and every step, and each focus point that consumes your energy: “Does this thing I’m doing right now truly serve me and those I care about in the next few minutes, few months, and few years?” Whatever you settle on, just make sure you don’t gain the whole world by losing your soul and purpose in the process.

2. Self-respect. Fear of not being good enough… Don’t be too hard on yourself. There are plenty of people willing to do that for you. Do your best and surrender the rest. Tell yourself, “I am doing the best I can with what I have in this moment. That is all I can ever expect of anyone, including me.” Love yourself and be proud of everything you do, even your mistakes, because your mistakes mean you’re trying. If you feel like others are not treating you with love and respect, check your price tag. Perhaps you subconsciously marked yourself down. Because it’s YOU who tells others what you’re worth by showing them what you are willing to accept for your time and attention. So get off the clearance rack. If you don’t value and respect yourself, wholeheartedly, no one else will either.

3. Your ability to make concrete decisions. Fear of commitment… You cannot live your life at the mercy of chance. You cannot stumble along with a map marked only with the places you fear, or the places you know you don’t want to revisit. You cannot remain trapped, endlessly, in a state where you are unable to ask for directions, even though you’re terribly lost, because you don’t know your destination. You have to commit to goals that speak to you. You have to stand up, look at yourself in the mirror, and say, “It isn’t good enough for me to know only what I DON’T want in life. I need to decide what I DO want.”

4. Priceless opportunities and life experiences. Fear of change and discomfort… As Thich Nhat Hanh so perfectly said, “People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.” In many cases you stay stuck in your old routines for no other reason than that they are familiar to you. In other words, you’re afraid of change and the unknown. You continually put your dreams and goals off until tomorrow, and you pass on great opportunities simply because they have the potential to lead you out of your comfort zone.

You start using excuses to justify your lack of backbone: “Someday when I have more money,” or “when I’m older,” or the over-abused “I’ll get to it as soon as I have more time.” This is a vicious cycle that leads to a deeply unsatisfying life – a way of thinking that eventually sends you to your grave with immense regret. Regret that you didn’t follow your heart. Regret that you always put everyone else’s needs before your own. Regret that you didn’t do what you could have done when you had the chance.

5. General happiness and peace of mind. Fear of facing inner truths… If you keep looking for happiness outside yourself, you will never find it. Happiness is found from within. What you seek is not somewhere else at some other time; what you seek is here and now, within you. The more you look for it outside yourself, the more it hides from you. Relax, remember the source of your deepest desires, and allow yourself to know their fulfillment. A choice, not circumstances, determines happiness. Each morning when you open your eyes, say to yourself: “I, not external people or events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. It’s up to me. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow hasn’t come yet. I only have today and I’m going to be happy in it.”

6. Your willingness to love, truly and purely. Fear of not being loved in return… Although it is nice when gestures of love are returned, true love is one-way traffic. It’s a pure flow of giving and expecting nothing in return. Anything else is a contract. Notice how whenever you allow love to flow you are always clear, calm and strong. It is only when the thought arises, “What have they given me in return?” that there is confusion and resentment. Ego transacts, love transforms. Life is too short for all these meticulous contracts and transactions.

Look out for yourself by focusing your love in a direction that feels right to you, but once you decide to love, remain clear, remain bright, and remain strong. Love without expectation. Don’t let fear get in your way. When the love you give is true, the people worthy of your love will gradually reveal themselves over time.

7. The right company. Fear of being alone… Sadly, no matter how much love you give, some relationships simply aren’t meant to be. You can try your hardest, you can do everything and say everything, but sometimes people just aren’t worth stressing over anymore, and they aren’t worth worrying about. It’s important to know when to distance yourself from someone who only hurts you and brings you down. When you give your love to someone, truly and purely without expectation, and it’s never good enough for them, there’s a good chance you’re giving your love to the wrong person.

The bottom line is that long-term relationships should help you, not hurt you. Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and like-minded. And remember, good relationships are a sacred bond – a circle of trust. Both parties must be 100% on board. If and when the time comes to let a relationship go, don’t be hostile. Simply thank the relationships that don’t work out for you, because they just made room for the ones that will.

Next steps… Your biggest fears are completely dependent on you for their survival. Every new day is another chance to change your life, and it’s way too short to let fear interfere. Today, focus your conscious mind on things you desire, not things you fear. Doing so can bring your dreams to life.

Your turn… What has fear stolen from you? What has it stopped you from doing, being, or achieving? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts with the community.”

- http://www.marcandangel.com/

○

"Grave Faults..."

“Only the following items should be considered to be grave faults: not respecting another's rights; allowing oneself to be paralyzed by fear; feeling guilty; believing that one does not deserve the good or ill that happens in one's life; being a coward. We will love our enemies, but not make alliances with them. They were placed in our path in order to test our sword, and we should, out of respect for them, struggle against them. We will choose our enemies.”

- Paulo Coelho, "Like the Flowing River"

"How It Really Is"

 

"Yellow Trucking: 30,000 Unemployed, Jobs Are Not Coming Back, One Of The Worse Failures in US History"

Full screen recommended.

The Atlantis Report, 8/15/23

"Yellow Trucking: 30,000 Unemployed, Jobs Are Not Coming Back,

 One Of The Worse Failures in US History"

"Unemployment at a record high, a trucking giant collapses, and the economy faces uncertainty. A colossal company has collapsed, resulting in the loss of 30,000 jobs. This news comes at a time when the government and media are claiming that the economy is booming and that jobs are plentiful. But this raw data tells a different story, a story of struggle and hardship for thousands of Americans. So we are going to uncover the reasons behind the company's downfall and the implications it holds for the entire economy."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"The Marian Feast and the Nixonian Fraud"

"The Marian Feast and the Nixonian Fraud"

Timeless money, political prestidigitation and a world without limits...

by Bill Bonner and Joel Bowman

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity."

~ W.B. Yeats, "The Second Coming" (1919)

Templemichael, Ireland - "Our trip across the Irish sea was uneventful. Then, we settled into Dublin for a few days, attending a granddaughter’s baptism. The priest, a charming man from Dublin, had something on his mind. Before we get to that, we pass along a headline, AP: "Trump and 18 allies indicted in Georgia." "Donald Trump and 18 allies have been indicted in Georgia over efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. The criminal case announced Monday is the fourth brought against the ex-president. (Aug. 15)"

We offer no opinion on the merits of the case, if there are any. Surely, Donald Trump has done a lot of dodgy things in his long career as a leveraged real estate speculator, entertainer and politician. What interests us is what this tells us about America’s drift towards Banana Republic…or Late, Degenerate Empire…status. The blood-dimmed tide is loosed; everything is political now…including the law.

A World Without Limits: Let us return to more pleasant matters. “We’re grateful for any baptism,” said the priest, after the ceremony. “So many people today think they don’t need religion. It’s the most remarkable thing. They think they’re completely responsible for their own lives…that they can make their own rules…and decide for themselves how they will live and what rules they will live by.

But they were born into a world they didn’t create…by a process they had nothing to do with…and then, they fall in love, and not because love was something they invented or even wanted to do…and then – a miracle – they have babies of their own. They think the sun rises and sets…because of something they did. As if they were masters of time itself. Their lives are all time. And yet, as Jesus said…can any one of them add a single second to their day?

Baptism marks your entry into the real world. It’s a world you didn’t create…with laws you didn’t write…and what you could call feedback loops, which are really moral lessons. You do something bad and something bad happens to you. You may not want something bad to happen to you. But the laws of the real world…are always enforced. There are no escapees. No scofflaws. People get what they deserve…if not in this world, certainly in the next.

Maybe it’s a generational thing. I don’t know. But more and more people seem to think they can pretend that this real world of limits and duties doesn’t exist. They think they can live on Amazon, where they can shop for anything they want, when they want, 24 hours a day. They think they can do anything, any time, any way they want. I guess that is what’s behind all these people who want to choose whether they will be men or women. But is that a choice we really have?”

Political Prestidigitation: While the priest was speaking, our mind was wandering in directions he probably didn’t expect. We were thinking about other choices we probably don’t really have. We cannot, for example, choose to get rich by printing money. It’s been tried many times. Doesn’t work. And where in the history of the world is an empire that lived by the sword and didn’t pay the price? The price is high. How can a country that spends $1.5 trillion per year on foreign policy ever hope to balance its budget? And without a balanced budget how can it hope to avoid inflation and bankruptcy?

“The odd and unlikely thing is that so many people think the world of faith is the unreal world. They think Christianity…or Judaism or the Muslim faith…are made up. They think that recognizing the lessons learned over thousands of years…and the truths that have withstood the tests of time… are somehow imaginary or untrue…they call them ‘superstitions’. But the world of faith is far more real than the artificial, self-centered world in which they live.”

Today is the “Marian Feast,” it is the day Catholics celebrate the “Assumption” of Mary (mother of Jesus) into Heaven. It is also the day the Nixon Administration engaged in a little magic of its own…creating a new dollar, cut off from the real world. With no fixed connection to gold (or anything else)…the new dollar distorted everything…and misled those who managed it.

Timeless Money: We blame many of today’s conceits and bamboozles on this switcheroo from August 15, 1971. Along with the War Between the States…the Spanish American war…WWI…the creation of the Federal Reserve, the Roosevelt Administration and other important milestones…it was a cruel baptism…a full immersion; like a baby drowned in a bathtub.

Cutting the dollar loose from gold, the feds also cut it loose from time. Time is money; money is time. The elites thought they could create more money; they must have also thought they could buy time. This delirium was heightened when they dragged interest rates below zero. Interest rates connect the present with the past and with the future. They measure the “time value” of money. Setting rates below zero meant they had not only added to time…but made it irrelevant. It was as if they had destroyed the most important thing in our lives…they had disappeared the hours. You could hold a T-bond forever and have nothing to show for it. Time had no further value.

What black magic was this? Or was it just tomfoolery? And what price do you pay for this kind of claptrap? How about $94 trillion in debt…inflation….bankruptcy…chaos…confusion…corruption…? Decline and fall? Stay tuned..."

Joel‘s Note: "It was the Austrian School economist, Ludwig von Mises, who first warned about the boom and bust cycle guaranteed by fractional reserve banking and, in particular, central banks diddling with the price of money. Wrote Mises, in his comprehensive treatise on economics, Human Action, back in 1940:

“The popularity of inflation and credit expansion, the ultimate source of the repeated attempts to render people prosperous by credit expansion, and thus the cause of the cyclical fluctuations of business, manifests itself clearly in the customary terminology. The boom is called good business, prosperity, and upswing. Its unavoidable aftermath, the readjustment of conditions to the real data of the market, is called crisis, slump, bad business, depression.”

Of course, people don’t want to hear about the downside, the “$94 trillion in debt…inflation….bankruptcy…chaos…confusion…corruption…” that Bill cites. The “decline and fall?”

 Instead, they yearn for a magic elixir, a cure for reality, some form of political prestidigitation, wherein an elected (or even unelected) official pulls a rabbit of perennial prosperity out of a hat. Continued Mises: “People rebel against the insight that the disturbing element is to be seen in the malinvestment and the overconsumption of the boom period and that such an artificially induced boom is doomed. They are looking for the philosophers' stone to make it last."

Last week, we spoke with BPR investment director, Tom Dyson, about how he’s philosophically positioned to avoid the “Big Loss”… the one nobody seems to want to even acknowledge or contemplate, much less confront with eyes wide open. Here’s part of Tom’s response… (the full Private Briefing was about an hour.) “I was just thinking about 2020 and 2021 and just looking back over some of the things that we were talking about and that were in the news back then. It's easy to forget how crazy the markets got back then with blank check companies, for example. To think that people were propositioning investors with this pitch. ‘We don't know what we're going to invest in, but we're going to invest in something cool. Why don't you give us our money now and we'll take care of it?’

[…]

“Loans with negative interest rates and images of rocks selling for hundreds of thousands or whatever. So it was crazy. It was a true bubble. And then you overlay on to that, they've just jacked up interest rates the fastest that any of us have ever seen in our lifetimes. I'm not going to say the fastest ever, but who knows? I don't know what's going to happen. I'm not saying that there's going to be a market crash or that bad things are going to happen. I'm not saying that. I don't know that. I don't have a crystal ball. What I'm saying is I don't want to participate in this right now. I just don't want to. I want to be on the sidelines and I'm happy to watch. It's fun to watch, I love it, but I don't want to be on the field.

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Bet It All"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly 8/15/23

"Bet It All"

"So many people believe that the stock market is about to collapse. Michael Burry has stepped forward and put a $1.6 billion bet that the market is going to collapse. Next up is Robert Kyosaki, who said that “America is Broke." And finally we have Mr. Wonderful who says “I live in the real World.“

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

John Wilder, "Unfrozen Caveman Interview"

"Unfrozen Caveman Interview"

by John Wilder

"I’m here with my friend, Coroc. Coroc was frozen in an accident in the year 5000 B.C. which may or may not have been related to the first recorded time a man said, “Oh, yeah? Hold my beer.” Coroc was thawed after his body was found while a construction crew was excavating the foundations for a McDonald’s® that was being built in Kharkov. Coroc has since gotten a degree from Harvard® Law and an MBA from Wharton© and has also killed an elk with a pocket knife in the parking lot of a Wendy’s. I’ve asked him for an interview so I could get in a few questions about his unique experiences in dealing with business and economic situations.

John Wilder (JW): Coroc, I image the world is much different than when you were frozen into a block of ice near Kharkov 7,000 years ago. What’s the best new invention that you’ve seen?

Coroc IceBeer (CI): PEZ®. It is a light and fruity brick of flavor that explodes in your mouth like Magorthath’s axe explodes the skulls of his feeble enemies. It makes me laugh, but not too much, for that is womanly.

JW: Your last name is IceBeer. Did you have beer back then?

Coroc: If we didn’t have beer, there would have been many maidens left unplowed, if you know what I mean. So, yes. Beer is, how you say, awesome, although I can assure you we would not have had any of that Bud Light. We would rather have consumed the flat body of a badger that had been walked on by many horses and then left out on the ground for a week.

JW: Whoa, that escalated quickly! Let’s change the subject a bit. When dealing with a middle manager that didn’t give you the appropriate chance for advancement, what did you do back then?

Coroc: This happened many times. When a leader was too old or feeble, we would simply say, “You, you are not fit to lead! Go and gather berries with the women or I will split your skull with my axe.” Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

JW: What happened if you fought?

Coroc: Well, depends on if you win or lose. Lose? No problem, since you were dead. Win? No problem, since you took his women, took his hut, and took his things. Only a real problem if his women were named Karen.

JW: Sounds violent.

Coroc: Yes, it was the original hostile takeover.

JW: Did people ever not have jobs?

Coroc: No. Everyone had a job. Need someone to go hunt? Yes. We always needed that. Need someone to go and fight the idiot tribe next door that wouldn’t turn their music down after eleven? Yes, men needed. Need someone to fish and drink beer? Yes. Always needed.

JW: What if someone didn’t want to help out?

Coroc: I don’t understand. I already told you about the hostile takeover.

JW: Let’s shift gears. Here in 2023, we have a complex economy that uses electronic ledgers to keep track of the movement of goods and services and the payment from one country to another. This is enforced with many central banks working together to balance the flow of currency from one country to another. How did you do that, Coroc?

Coroc: Crom. I thought 7,000 years would have made you people smarter. In my time, in Scythia, we had horses. We had women. Fiery, lusty women with big manes of blonde hair, massive thighs that they could crack walnuts with. Strong, birthing hips. We rode our horses, took our axes, and made piece with other tribes.

JW: Don’t you mean “peace” instead of “piece”?

Coroc: No. They gave us a piece. Simple. And no problem with Human Resources, since we treated every tribe exactly alike. And there was no corporate debt to worry about.

JW: So you didn’t have to worry about interest rates?

Coroc: The only interest I had was in the rate my enemy would die so I could hear the lamentation of his women. I think that was our major metric on our KPI, the relative volume of the lamentation of the women.

JW: What about your stock market?

Coroc: It was pretty stable. You can only eat so much steak per day. We kept a close eye on our stocks.

JW: What was your retirement like?

Coroc: Retirement meant, mostly, hanging out with the gods once you died in battle. It was a pretty good plan, leave 5% of your lootings in a plan, get 2.5% tribal match. And there was free healthcare! If you had poor health, we didn’t care. See? Free. Simple.

JW: So, were you ever plagued by guilt over your colonizer attitude?

Coroc: (Sadly) Yes, we were sometimes feeling guilty of our ability as colonizers. There are only so many men that we could use to fight, so our ability to conquer even the feeble toothless enemies we had was limited. Why, some years we would only vanquish a few kingdoms and petty princelings.

JW: Was there much poverty in your tribe?

Coroc: We had a great poverty prevention program. It was called starvation. Worked wonders.

JW: Last question, what about inflation? Did your tribe ever see inflation?

Coroc: Only under one leader who tried to make smooth round rocks currency. Worked horrible, pretty soon everyone was strong, though, infinite amount of small round rocks back in Scythia, so it was great leg day.

JW: What happened to that leader?

Coroc: Hostile takeover."

- https://wilderwealthywise.com/

Gregory Mannarino, "Market: Deeper Into The Danger Zone, A 'Pan-Selloff' Is Possible"

Gregory Mannarino, AM 8/15/23

"Market: Deeper Into The Danger Zone,

 A 'Pan-Selloff' Is Possible"

- https://traderschoice.net/

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Down the rabbit hole of psychopathic greed and insanity...

Only the consequences are real - to you!

"The Wile E. Coyote Economy"

"The Wile E. Coyote Economy"

by Brian Maher

"As youth the Road Runner cartoon show amused us vastly. The Road Runner character would deceive his murderous pursuer - Wile E. Coyote - over a cliff edge. Yet this Coyote figure would continue his chase for incredible seconds… disobeying gravity’s iron laws… unaware of his precarious peril. At this point he’d glance groundward - and receive an updated intelligence report. Alarmed and stripped of his delusion, he’d succumb to reality and to gravity. He’d take the inevitable plummet. May we liken the economy of the United States to Mr. Wile E. Coyote?

What Cliff? We are informed that the economy of the United States bounds along on good, hard earth. It is miles and miles from any cliff. Thus the president’s White House’s goons inform us that: "President Biden’s agenda has driven the strongest economic recovery America has ever seen, with 13.2 million jobs added, a record number of states with unemployment rates at or below 3% and the national unemployment rate below 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years. Economic growth has been strong even as annual inflation has fallen for 12 straight months. At the same time, the president’s Investing in America agenda is already taking hold, with more than $500 billion in new manufacturing and clean energy investments pouring in across the country, while shovels hit the ground rebuilding every state’s infrastructure."

Just so. Yet we hazard the economy of the United States is already over cliff’s edge. As the deluded Coyote… we believe it is aloft on a false assumption. It has yet to glance groundward. When it does reality and gravity will perform their pitiless roles. The economy of the United States will follow the route of Wile E. Coyote - or so we hazard.

The Great Levitation: What presently holds the economy of the United States suspended skyward? Pandemic-era spending deliriums is the likely answer. Explains Real Investment Advice’s Mr. Michael Lebowitz: "The economy has marched forward, ignoring higher interest rates and consistent calls for a recession…"

Understanding why the economy has done so well is easy. Simply massive stimulus drove consumption…During the pandemic, the federal government rained money on the public and provided various other forms of financial benefits and relief…Individuals have primarily used the stimulus-related income from the government to help support their consumption… [which] helped propel the economy…

The fumes of pandemic stimulus and related personal consumption continue to keep the economy running strong despite the increasing headwind of high interest rates. Thus levitates the economy of the United States - on momentum. Yet for how much longer? When will it take the groundward glance?

Don’t Look Down! This Lebowitz fellow believes the answer may be soon: "Personal consumption growth rates are showing signs of fatigue…The year-over-year growth rate in retail sales is near zero percent. Accounting for inflation, retail sales are falling 2-4% annually. Since the start of the year, retail sales have fallen by half a percent and 2% below where they would be based on the pre-pandemic trend growth…Consumers… have largely drawn down the stimulus-related excess savings. It appears that savings drawdowns in aggregate will no longer contribute to abovetrend consumption."

And so the gravity-disobeying delusion of economic vigor dangles in peril. Here is additional evidence that the groundward glance is in prospect - and that the subsequent plummet is in prospect: Demand for credit continues to weaken. And at the same time, banks are tightening their lending standards. Banks are less likely to extend credit card lines or bump up credit limits. Also, credit card borrowing rates are now over 20%, which means those not paying their balances in full will spend more on interest and, therefore, have less for goods and services. When will Wile E. Coyote take notice?

Gravity: We have acquired additional evidence that the groundward glance and the subsequent plummet are in prospect. This evidence we obtained deep within the channels of the monetary wireworks. In brief, the nation’s money supply is expanding at a decreasing rate. And this rate decrease exerts a heavy economic gravity. It can tug an economy clear into recession.

Here we cite Mr. Ryan McMaken of the Mises Institute: "Money supply growth fell again in June, remaining deep in negative territory after turning negative in November 2022 for the first time in 28 years. June’s drop continues a steep downward trend from the unprecedented highs experienced during much of the past two years…"

Money supply growth has now been negative for eight months. That is, the momentum that has held the economy aloft is losing its push. At some point all momentum will die… and a stall ensues.

Not Since the Great Depression: How severe is the present money growth reduction? During June 2023, the downturn continued as year-over-year growth in the money supply was at -12.4% Negative 12.4% — the very angels and saints shriek in horror! More: That’s up slightly from May’s rate of -13.1%, and was far below June’s 2022’s rate of 5.7%. With negative growth now falling near or below -10% for the third month in a row, money-supply contraction is the largest we’ve seen since the Great Depression.

Since the Great Depression! Critically: The supply of money need not contract. The mere reduction in its growth rate represents the recessionary gravity: It should be noted that the money supply does not need to actually contract to signal a recession and the boom-bust cycle. As shown by Ludwig von Mises, recessions are often preceded by a mere slowing in money supply growth. But the drop into negative territory we’ve seen in recent months does help illustrate just how far and how rapidly money supply growth has fallen. That is generally a red flag for economic growth and employment.

Like I Said, Don’t Look Down: Gravitational effects: The monetary slowdown has been sufficient to considerably weaken the economy. The Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index is in recession territory. The Empire State Manufacturing Survey is, too. The Leading Indicators index keeps looking worse. The yield curve points to recession. Individual bankruptcy filings were up 68% in the first half of the year. Temp jobs were down, year-over-year, which often indicates approaching recession…These factors all point toward a bubble that is in the process of popping. The situation is unsustainable…

When will Wile E. Coyote finally take the groundward glance? When will gravity and reality reassert their sovereignty over him? We do not know. He may dangle yet due to enormous monetary momentum.

As Mr. McMaken himself concedes: "The U.S. economy still faces a very large monetary overhang from the past several years, and this is partly why after 14 months of slowing money supply growth, we are not yet seeing a sizable slowdown in the labor market."

Yet the character is presently over the cliff… airborne… shedding momentum… full of bliss… and ignorance.

Of course… The scene concludes identically on each occasion…

- https://dailyreckoning.com/

"Stocking Up At Meijer! Get Prepared!"

Full screen recommended.

Adventures With Danno, AM 8/15/23

"Stocking Up At Meijer! Get Prepared!"

"In today's vlog, we are at Meijer and are stocking up on groceries with all the sales we find. Inflation is causing major problems at supermarkets, and we are doing what we can to be prepared!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Musical Interlude: Deuter, "Along The High Ridges"

Full screen recommended.

Deuter, "Along The High Ridges"

"A Look to the Heavens"

“Far beyond the local group of galaxies lies NGC 3621, some 22 million light-years away. Found in the multi-headed southern constellation Hydra, the winding spiral arms of this gorgeous island universe are loaded with luminous young star clusters and dark dust lanes. Still, for earthbound astronomers NGC 3621 is not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy. Some of its brighter stars have been used as standard candles to establish important estimates of extragalactic distances and the scale of the Universe.

This beautiful image of NGC 3621 traces the loose spiral arms far from the galaxy's brighter central regions that span some 100,000 light-years. Spiky foreground stars in our own Milky Way Galaxy and even more distant background galaxies are scattered across the colorful skyscape.”

- http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap090919.html

Chet Raymo, “We Are Such Stuff...”

“We Are Such Stuff...”

by Chet Raymo

“Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.

Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments

Will hum about mine ears, and sometimes voices,

That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again.”

"Caliban is talking to Stephano and Trinculo in Shakespeare's “Tempest”, telling them not to be "afeard" of the mysterious place they find themselves, an island seemingly beset with magic, strangeness, ineffable presences. And you and I, and, yes, all of us, find ourselves inexplicably thrown up on this island that is the world, and we too, if we are attentive, hear the strange music, the sounds and sweet airs, that seems to come from nowhere and everywhere

No, I'm not talking about the usual ubiquitous clamor, the roar of internal combustion, the blare of the television, the beeping of mobile phones. I'm not talking about the Limbaughs and the Becks, the televangelists, the blathering politicians, the twitterers and bloggers (including this one). I'm not even talking about the exquisite music of Mozart, the poetry of Wordsworth, the theories of Einstein.

I'm talking about the sounds we hear in utter silence, in moments of repose, in the heart of darkness, when we are a little bit afraid, disoriented, off kilter. A strange music that comes from beyond our knowing, a felt meaning. You've heard it. I've heard it. You'd have to be deaf not to have heard it. 

Where we differ is how we describe it. Mostly, we give its source a name. Angels. Fairies. Gods or demons. Yahweh. Allah. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nixies, E.T.s, shades and shadows. Naiads, dryads, Ariel and Puck. A host of invisible creatures who are, in one way or another, images of ourselves. And, in naming, we are a little less afraid.

And some of us are just content to listen, to take delight. Having woken to the inexplicable mystery of the world- the sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not- we let the music lull us back into a sweet slumber, a kind of dreamless dream, a reverie. Does reverie share a deep root with reverence? I don't know.”

- http://blog.sciencemusings.com/

"One Chance..."

“You get that one chance; and damn it, you’ve got to take it! If there’s one lesson I know I will take with me for eternity, its that there are those things that might happen only once, those chances that come walking down the street, strolling out of a café; if you don’t let go and take them, they really could get away! We can get so washed out with a mindset of entitlement – the universe will do everything for us to ensure our happiness – that we forget why we came here! We came here to grab, to take, to give, to have! Not to wait! Nobody came here to wait! So, what makes anyone think that destiny will keep on knocking over and over again? It could, but what if it doesn’t? You go and you take the chance that you get; even if it makes you look stupid, insane, or whorish! Because it just might not come back again. You could wait a lifetime to see if it will… but I don’t think you should.”

- C. JoyBell C.

Jeremiah Babe, "Warning! Collapse Of Society And Economy Unstoppable!"

Jeremiah Babe, 8/14/23

"Warning! Collapse Of Society And Economy Unstoppable!"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

"We're Going Off A Financial Cliff - Bill Holter"

"As interest payments balloon, a US debt default is mathematically inevitable, says former stock broker Bill Holter. He expects a currency collapse that will destroy the Americans' standard of living. He discusses geopolitical events that could accelerate the crash and concrete ways to prepare for the tough times ahead."

"Food Shortages & What They Don't Want You To Know! Fall And Winer 2023"

Adventures With Danno, PM 8/14/23

"Food Shortages & What They Don't Want 

You To Know! Fall And Winer 2023"

We are exposing the truth behind all of these food shortages, 

price gouging, and what they don't want you to know about all of this!

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

The Daily "Near You?"

Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Thanks for stopping by!

"Getting Information Off The Internet..."

 

Oh, I know, I know. The world's a complicated place...

"Ukraine/Russia War 8/14/23"

Col.Douglas Macgregor, Straight Calls - 8/14/23

"This Counter-Offensive Against Russia Has Failed Miserably"

"Analysis of breaking news and in-depth discussion of current geopolitical events in the United States of America and the world."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 8/14/23

"Ukraine War - Fighting is Fierce, 

But No Movement w/Ray McGovern fmr CIA"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

o

Judge Napolitano - Judging Freedom, 8/14/23

"Killing is Not Slowing Down in Ukraine Russia War, 

w/Tony Shaffer, fmr DoD"

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

Dan, I Allegedly, "Banks Are Setting Up More Phony Accounts"

Full screen recommended.

Dan, I Allegedly, 8/14/23

"Banks Are Setting Up More Phony Accounts"

"People are falling victim to synthetic identity fraud. More people are setting up bank accounts by just having partial information on a person. Wells Fargo bank is getting sued again for this."

Comments here:

- https://www.youtube.com/

"How It Really Is"

 

"Empire of Debt...and Destruction"

"Empire of Debt...and Destruction"

Ukrainian forces retreat, along with the press,

 as the great transfer of power and money continues.

by Bill Bonner

Dublin, Ireland - "In our 2006 book, ‘Empire of Debt,’ we pointed out that empires are typically ruined by a combination of disastrous financial policies (debt and inflation) along with reckless military adventures. We forecast that America would suffer both scourges. The cost of the latter almost guarantees the former. America’s ‘foreign policy’ establishment – Pentagon, defense industries, Congress, embassies, foreign aid…along with involvement in NATO, IMF, World Bank etc. – costs $1.5 trillion per year. So, here’s an update.

Even the toady press now suggests that Russia is winning the Russo-Ukrainian war. Despite months of reports on how the Russian military was falling apart, the latest news shows that Ukraine’s “summer offensive” has failed…and now the Russkies are counterattacking. Moon Of Alabama reports: "Western media have finally changed course. They are now admitting that the much promoted Ukrainian counter-offensive has failed. In fact, they acknowledge that it never had a chance to win in the first place." The Hill, the Washington Post and CNN now agree that the Ukrainian army will never achieve its aims.

In the northeast around Kupyansk the Russians have started their own offensive which has the Ukrainians on the run. Ukraine has ordered the evacuation of the area: "A mandatory evacuation has been ordered for the Ukrainian city of Kupyansk and its surrounding areas, as Russia intensified shelling of Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region and claimed to have captured Ukrainian positions near the city on Thursday. But Kupyansk is a Russian city and people refuse to leave."

Megapolitics: Things are not always what they seem. And sometimes, the real meaning is hidden far below the surface. Like the North Atlantic – on the surface, chilly winds blow…and icebergs endanger big ships… while deeper down, a huge undersea current brings water from the southern seas to warm a whole continent. Empires have their own purposes and destinations, too. From the Abbasid Caliphate to the Zulu Empire, they dominate…and then they die.

You don’t have to be a military genius…or get secret updates from the CIA…to see that the West’s proxy war in the Ukraine is not going as well as expected. The Military/Industrial/Spook complex controls the surface weather reports. And it has a keen interest in seeing things a certain way…not necessarily as they are, but as they would like you to think they were. So, to see what is going on, you have to look beneath the waves.

The mainstream press made it sound as if Putin’s aim was to march across Europe, like the Huns in the 5th century, raping the horses and riding off on the women. If so, he had to be stopped. And he was. Like the brave Polish knights who beat back the Muslim army of Mehmed IV in 1683, the Ukrainians put on their armor and stopped the Russians at the gates of Kiev. By that reckoning, Putin has clearly failed. His forces are now holed up in the Russian-speaking Eastern provinces of the Ukraine, where people wanted to leave the Ukraine anyway. But there is no evidence that Putin had any further ambitions than those he openly declared: trying to protect its southwestern flank from further NATO encroachment.

Ulterior Motives: In either case, the Russians – who were said to be such an offensive threat to Western Democracy – are now fighting a defensive war. In deep trenches…protected by mines and artillery…the defenders are hard to dislodge. And from Gettysburg to the Somme, attackers usually suffer huge losses and gain nothing. The ‘summer offensive’ was no exception.

Which leads us to a little question: how come? Military observers must have known that the Ukraine lacked the air support and the artillery to roll over Russian defenses. Why did they let the attack go ahead, knowing it would produce little more than burnout tanks and lifeless bodies?

The same question might be posed about the whole war. How could the US and NATO lose a war in the Ukraine? US GDP is $24 trillion. EU GDP is $18 trillion. Russia’s tiny $1.8 trillion economy is no match.

A clear victory would have sent the Russians running back to their homeland…begging for peace in order to avoid a NATO invasion. Then, beaten and humiliated, Russia would be no further danger. But there was considerable danger and uncertainty. The Russians might ‘go nuclear.’ There could be chaos...confusion…and maybe a civil war in Russia. The idealists hesitated. They say they want ‘regime change’ in Russia…but Putin’s most likely successors are more nationalistic, more anti-West than he is. And if the war were meant to protect democracy, it has been a dismal failure. Responsible statecraft: "Kyiv has outlawed opposition parties, arrested opposition leaders, closed opposition newspapers and broadcast media, cracked down on religious freedom, and indicated that presidential elections scheduled for 2024 will not be held if the war is still underway."

“They Wanted War”: The ‘neo-realists’ drew back too. They want to play the game, not upset the game board. Pursuing a winning strategy would be too risky for them. Besides, the US has no plausible interest in bumbling around the Eurasian steppes.

Already, John Mearsheimer sees the war in the Ukraine as a mistake. Rather than giving battle to Russia in the Ukraine…the US should prepare to confront a more worthy opponent in the Far East. A better strategy, he says, would have been to join forces with Russia to oppose the Chinese titan. As it is, the war pushes the Chinese, Russians, Iranians and others, into an alliance against the US…and even provides them a tutorial on current US military hardware and battlefield tactics.

And so, we have our answer; there never was a realistic path to victory, neither for the realists nor the idealists. In March 2020, Anthony Blinken and Boris Johnson pressured Zelensky not to accept a diplomatic settlement. They wanted war. They provided just enough help to keep the war going, but not enough to end it. It is an imperial war, after all. As a pretext for transferring more wealth and power to the ‘experts’ and their gun-toting enforcers, it has been a great success for all of them. But its deep purpose is to weaken the empire, not strengthen it. And so it continues. A beautiful quagmire…"

- https://www.bonnerprivateresearch.com/

Jim Kunstler, "No Mas"

"No Mas"

”It’s not Left vs Right anymore, it’s anti-establishment versus pro-establishment.” 

- Glenn Greenwald

by Jim Kunstler

"Karma is God’s hickory switch, and almost always applied with a cosmic chortle. Things come around when a certain excess cargo of cognitive dissonance breaks the brains of those just struggling to carry on. The country has had enough - enough walking-talking hypocrisies, enough trips laid on it, enough Tik-tok lectures from the nose-rings-for-lunch-bunch. We’re at the end of something and the beginning of something new. As in: an ass-beating is coming down.

Cue one Oliver Anthony, southern country boy with a flaming red beard and a new anthem for millions sore-beset by the relentless effronteries of the ruling elites. Rolling Stone Magazine, a ruling elites house organ, played the phenomenon this way:

These things listed above are…what? Things that Rolling Stone is in favor of? Pet causes? High taxes and obese people on welfare? And Mr. Anthony’s song is dissing them? You mean Right-Wing influencers shouldn’t mention Jeffrey Epstein’s name? Is it just plain rude… or does it stir up unappetizing questions that are better off not being asked (in polite company)? Kind of shows you where the battle lines are drawn now, doesn’t it?

Perhaps the final insult galvanizing all this sentiment in a song was Merrick Garland’s devious Friday afternoon announcement - when, theoretically, no one was paying attention - that he appointed US Attorney David Weiss as Special Counsel in the Hunter Biden matter. This is the same David Weiss, you understand, who oversaw the Hunter Biden investigation for the past five years before ascertaining anything that might be chargeable from a vast inventory of financial crimes with an overlay of documented sex and drug transgressions. The same David Weiss who let the statute of limitations run out on many of those crimes while he dawdled and frittered in Wilmington. The same David Weiss who cooked up a wrist-slap plea agreement on all this, with a hidden Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free clause inserted slyly in the fine print of the so-called “diversion agreement” that would have immunized Hunter B against any further inquiries - which Judge Maryellen Noreika discovered only by chance at the last moment, scotching the deal. (And yet, the government now claims that the diversion agreement - and Hunter B’s immunity from further charges - “stands alone,” is “in effect” and “still binding.” Hmmmm...)

This sort of in-your-face audacity sums up Mr. Garland’s reckless, lawless run as a rogue attorney general. But then who do you appeal to for relief? Anybody wondering why there is actually no justice in America these days need seek no further. By the way, the appointment of Mr. Weiss was patently illegal. The Special Counsel statute states plainly that the post can only be occupied by someone not in the employ of the government. Does Mr. Garland not know how this works?

What the AG also flung in America’s face was the “ongoing investigation” dodge that supposedly would allow the DOJ to avoid answering any congressional inquiries into Hunter Biden’s tangled financial crimes, which, after all, were committed in the service of the Biden family global racketeering operation. Has a cover-up ever been more blatant? And so now the time has come to impeach Merrick Garland for breaking the special counsel law and obstruction of justice. It’s pretty cut and dried, and it should be the first order of business when Congress returns from its August recess making the rounds of the county fairs. The second order of business should be the impeachment of “Joe Biden,” if he hasn’t resigned before Labor Day.

o

On a different but hugely consequential note, and related to the long-running outlandish mendacity of the US government, an attorney for the Federal Drug Administration told a federal appeals court in Louisiana hearing a lawsuit last week that the agency actually had no policy against the use of ivermectin for Covid-19.

FDA was not regulating the off-label use of drugs These statements are not regulations they have no legal consequences they don’t prohibit doctors from prescribing Ivermectin to treat COVID or for any other purpose. Quite to the contrary there are three instances I’d like to point the court to in the record that show that FDA explicitly recognizes that doctors do have the authority to prescribe ivermectin to treat COVID.”

How true is that? The FDA coerced Blue Cross and other insurers to warn doctors not to prescribe ivermectin for Covid-19, and likewise the Federation of State Medical Boards and National Association of Boards of Pharmacy to not fill doctor’s prescriptions for ivermectin for Covid-19 patients, despite the fact that it was among the best, most effective, and safest treatments for the disease. The FDA put out public service announcements telling Americans not to take ivermectin. The net effect was that state medical boards persecuted doctors for prescribing the drug (e.g., Maine Medical Board’s persecution of Dr, Meryl Nass). Also that hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 patients were denied early treatment, many of whom died.

We all know why the FDA pretended that ivermectin was not allowed to be used. Because it would have removed the Emergency Use Authorization that designated mRNA shots as the sole response to Covid, and it would have obviated the pharma companies’ liability shield for anything that went wrong. Of course, the whole damn thing went wrong and millions are now paying the price. Is this the beginning of the unwind of a colossal crime by those Rich Men North of Richmond against the people of this land?

From The FDA’s Official Website, Dec 10, 2021: