Comments by "bladesmassive" (@russbuttypennyblackblade) on "Inside Ukraine's elite sniper unit conducting night raids - BBC News" video.

  1. Politics Jonathan Turley on Devon Archer Testimony: ‘One of the Greatest Corruption Scandals in the History of Washington’ by Jamie White August 1st 2023, 1:26 pm "I've been a critic of influence-peddling for decades. I've never seen anything like the Biden family," says Democrat constitutional scholar.
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  2. V. Where is the political right in all of this? Over the last 50 years, the political right has been an odd coalition of the ruling class (Wall Street bankers, Fortune 500 companies), the rural poor, evangelical Christians, and libertarians. The tacit agreement that held the coalition together was that the rich would get low taxes and no regulations in return for the base getting token rhetoric on cultural issues (support for religion in public life, opposition to homosexuality, support for the Second Amendment, and opposition to abortion). Usually what happened is that the rich got everything they wanted and the base got platitudes with no action. With Trump naming three justices to the Supreme Court, the Republican base is suddenly having all of their wishes granted. In the Covid crisis, the Wall Street faction of the Republican Party was horrible. Massive corporations including Amazon, Home Depot, and Target used the lockdowns to increase their market share. Every company except Pharma loses money when workers are injured by vaccines, but the big corporations pushed them on their workers anyway. We know that these large corporations are amoral but during Covid they were immoral. But there were two bright spots in the Republican coalition. The latest survey from the Pew Research Center shows that evangelical Christians have changed their minds about vaccines in greater numbers than just about any other large group. In the space of just the last four years their support for mandatory vaccinations has dropped by 39 points. This suggests that evangelicals are better at putting real world evidence ahead of ideology than many of those who pride themselves on their scientific objectivity. About 20 Republicans in Congress have been good but the rest are as useless as the bougiecrats. The Libertarian Party and most long-established conservative non-profit organizations completely forgot all of their values in the face of fear. But the “small l” libertarians who often write for Brownstone Institute have done some of the best work in the world to stop the rise of global Pharma fascism. Several times per week Brownstone Institute publishes the best writing from dissident academics to help us understand the crisis and develop solutions. Brownstone Institute also publishes books, hosts an annual conference, and organizes regular in-person gatherings to build a counter-hegemonic movement for freedom.
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  3. Opinions Capital, Postmodernism, and Left Authoritarianism: The Unholy Alliance by Toby Rogers | Brownstone Institute August 1st 2023, 1:52 pm Ideas matter. Postmodernism, authoritarianism, and Pharma fascism are destined for the slag heap of history. But in the meantime they will continue to cause a lot of carnage.
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  4. The world since 1900 has experienced two major world-encompassing wars. Wars cost a lot of money, and countries—even if they were once on a gold standard—usually start printing massive amounts of money to finance their wars. This fact can be seen in the United States Federal Reserve (Fed) liabilities, for which data is available from the time of its inception in 1914—or just before the beginning of World War I—to the present.* If we look at the Fed liabilities taken from its published reports and normalize those dollars to 1914 dollars, then we get the following chart. The normalization was achieved using the Fed M2 money supply data for the years between 1959 and 2023. This means we are truly comparing “apples with apples.” Figure 1: US Federal Reserve Liabilities on its balance sheet normalized to 1914 dollars (red curve)
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  5. A digital prison is being built around us Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Email LIVE POLITICS
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  6. The movie will continue to be shown well beyond the coasts of the United States. It will be in theaters throughout South and Central America starting on August 31th. South Africa will have its first release on August 18th, Australia and New Zealand on August 24th, and the United Kingdom and Ireland on September 1st. For a movie that struggled for eight years to find a distributor – until Angel Studios, a crowd-funded media company acquired worldwide distribution rights and agreed to release the film in theaters this year – its upcoming global presence is a jaw-dropping turn of events. The film stars Jim Caviezel (star of “The Passion of the Christ”) as a former U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security agent (the real-life Tim Ballard) who quits his government job to go rogue and rescue a pair of young Honduran siblings who’ve been kidnapped by a Colombian pedophile ring. It’s an unsettling, raw action-drama, but it has hit a home run with audiences, especially conservatives and Christians, who long for movies devoid of leftist agitprop and who appreciate a moral rallying cry. Pay it forward, as Caviezel advises audiences at the end of the movie, and buy a ticket for someone else. To date the movie has grossed over $149 million. The budget? $14.5 million. While creative criticism of a movie is to be expected, and the “Sound of Freedom” certainly has drawn its fair share of that on Rotten Tomatoes, other critiques lean conspiracy theory – a phenom which only draws more committed ticket buyers. For example, NPR claims the movie has “QAnon supporters” promoting it, while Federale, a writer for Vdare, opines that it will likely “to end up as propaganda for those who want to open up America’s borders.” The open-borders complaint is especially of interest to Border Hawk News, given our bent. But is it a legitimate one? The former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Tom Homan (who has launched a new non-profit, Border911.com) has recruited Tim Ballard to his team. Homan, a border hawk extraordinaire, even favorably mentioned “Sound of Freedom” in an interview on the El Conservador radio show. Ballard, himself, wrote a fiery editorial for the Deseret News titled, “I’ve fought sex trafficking at the border. This is why we need a wall.” Meanwhile, a congressional movie screening of the film was held on Capitol Hill, whereby Speaker Kevin McCarthy complained about the Biden Administration’s immigration policies and about how many children are being “trafficked into America because they believe the border to be open.” Finally, President Donald Trump, seated next to Jim Caviezel, hosted his own showing at his private New Jersey club. If anything, the movie has brought scores of newcomers to the ongoing debate about national security, unfettered migration, and the whereabouts of the 85,000 unaccompanied minors in the custody of the U.S. Health and Human Services during Joe Biden’s tenure. As President Bukele noted, “What’s more important than our children? This movie has had so much success because it tackles a topic … that few people want to discuss. Who buys these children to sexualize them?” Who does, indeed? Shedding light on the present darkness will certainly help expose some of the most evildoers on the planet.
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  7. Politics NYC Paying COVID Test Company to Shuttle Migrants Upstate by RT August 1st 2023, 10:06 am DocGo pivoted from offering Covid-19 testing and vaccination on-the-go to dumping asylum seekers in small towns and cities that didn’t have the resources to handle them
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  8. But according to Connecticut bar records, Hunter had an “administrative suspension for failure to pay the Client Security Fund fee” in 2021, which was repeated in November that same year and in June of 2022. Get up to 60% OFF and DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items during our Christmas In August sale! Connecticut lawyer Kevin Rennie told The Daily Mail that Hunter’s statement was “extraordinary” and that he “misled the court.” “I’m careful about using the word ‘lie’ because I don’t know what was in his head. But he certainly should have known better,” he said. “A lawyer who is asked under oath where he is admitted to practice and does not include in his response that he is suspended from practice in one of them has misled the court.” “He did not give her an answer that, I think most judges would see under these circumstances, was in good faith. It omitted crucial facts.” “Clearly he thought he was admitted to the practice in Connecticut. He ought to know, after 26 years, that certain obligations come with that. And they are by no means onerous,” he added. Rennie also said he was surprised Hunter’s lawyers didn’t catch that glaring oversight. “It’s only $75. The Judicial Branch, they’re very good about reminding people that they need to pay by June 15. So I was surprised,” Rennie said. “I was also surprised that given what we all assume he’s paying in legal fees, that someone at the law firm representing him would have just checked the box to make sure everything was as it should be – such as ‘You paid the $75, didn’t you?'” Hunter’s plea deal fell apart during the hearing after Judge Noreika called into question the blanket immunity from future prosecutions his attorneys believed was included in the plea bargain. Perjury is classified in Delaware as a Class D felony, the potential punishments of which usually include prison time, fines, or probation. But given the DOJ’s preferential treatment of Hunter so far, this latest violation by Joe Biden’s son will likely never be addressed.
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  9. New York City paid a mobile medical services company $432 million to carry out the mayor’s plan to bus thousands of migrants to upstate towns that didn’t want them, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The questionable no-bid contract, which was not approved by the city comptroller, saw DocGo pivot from offering Covid-19 testing and vaccination on-the-go to dumping asylum seekers in small towns and cities that didn’t have the resources to handle them, according to the investigation. Migrants told the NYT that they were lured upstate with promises of comfortable accommodation and plentiful work. Instead, they said, they were given fake work and residency permits, some printed on phoney New York City letterhead, all rejected when they tried to present them at the local Department of Motor Vehicles to secure an ID. Meanwhile, officials in destination cities and towns – including New York’s capital, Albany – said they weren’t even given the migrants’ names – let alone information that would help connect them to immigration assistance. DocGo reportedly cited medical patient privacy laws in justifying its refusal to share the information. The town supervisor for Albany suburb Colonie sued the city after two busloads of migrants arrived at the SureStay Hotel in May and cited it for keeping the illegal tenants past the 28 consecutive days allowed by law. The business nevertheless accepted three more busloads of migrants from New York City last weekend. Brain Force Ultra is now HALF OFF! Experience the next level in high-powered energy nootropics that’s loaded with proprietary super ingredients while you still can! At the SureStay, security guards allegedly threatened to kick the migrants out of the ‘program’ if they were caught talking to reporters and could be seen in a video posted by the NYT threatening to beat up one interview subject for “talking too much.” Signs plastered all over the hotel warned migrants in four languages that being caught drinking, smoking, or engaging in “threatening behavior” would render them ineligible for asylum. DocGo removed the signs when questioned by the Times, claiming it was unaware of their existence, and NYC officials claimed there was no rule prohibiting media interviews. More than half of the counties in New York have declared emergencies over the migrant influx since May, when New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city had more migrants than it could handle and began busing them upstate. The city is facing numerous lawsuits over the program. In June, the city began paying religious facilities to house migrants after a plan to put them in school gymnasiums met with vehement resistance from parents and Adams’ plea for private property owners to open their doors to the 90,000-plus illegals who have swamped the city since the spring went largely unheeded.
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  10. Hunter Biden has been caught misleading a judge while under oath during his disastrous plea deal hearing last week. Delaware district judge Maryellen Noreika had asked Hunter where he was eligible to practice law. “You’re member of the bar?” she asked him. Hunter replied, “Yes, your Honor. District of Columbia and Connecticut, your Honor.”
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  11. Opinions Has World War 3 Already Begun? by John Hartnett | Mises Institute July 31st 2023, 3:14 pm A comparison with World War I and World War II indicates also that the Fed started shrinking its balance sheet after the war was over, which make a lot of sense when the demand for war munitions and other wartime supplies is no longer needed. Do we have the equivalent situation now?
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  12. US factory output has also dropped four months in a row, indicating that the huge boost from $8 trillion+ in covid stimulus has now fizzled. Biden can use tax dollars to create as many green tech factories and false jobs as he wants, but the bottom line is that US manufacturing is crashing because global demand is under pressure. High inflation and high prices coupled with rising interest rates tend to do that. Biden’s strategy is reminiscent of the Chinese government’s efforts to falsify economic growth – The CCP often uses unnecessary public works and infrastructure projects as a means to create jobs out of thin air. Not because they care about the well-being of the population, but because they care about how China is perceived by the rest of the world. There are thousands of empty buildings dotting the landscapes of ghost cities in China, paid for with public funds as a means to make the CCP look like they are creating a successful communist paradise. Sometimes, the CCP dumps millions of dollars into these buildings and then simply blows them up. Such projects artificially boost GDP, create millions of jobs on the taxpayer’s dime (for a short time) and portray an image of a country on the path to 1st world success. But, it’s all a facade. This is exactly what Biden is trying to do with the American economy – A false front using manipulated stats, not just to con the world, but to con the American people. At the Mercy of the Big Banks Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Emai
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  13. The Congressional testimony of Hunter Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer has revealed the extent of “one of the greatest corruption scandals in the history of Washington,” according to constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley. Archer revealed several major bombshells while testifying before the House Oversight Committee in a closed-door meeting on Monday, for example, alleging then-Vice President Joe Biden was “the brand” for Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and that 20 phone calls were made by Hunter with Joe present to sell “the brand.” “Burisma would have gone out of business if ‘the brand’ had not been attached to it,” Archer had claimed. Turley, a registered Democrat, reacted to Archer’s damning testimony in an appearance on Fox News on Monday. “What we now know, quite frankly, is that the President has been lying,” Turley told Fox anchor Neil Cavuto on Monday. “He lied during his presidential campaign, he lied as president when he had his staff repeat that he has no knowledge, no interactions with these business dealings. That’s clearly false.”
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  14. Politics Former Assistant FBI Director: Biden’s Involvement in Hunter’s Business Deals a ‘Slam Dunk’ Bribery Case by Jamie White August 1st 2023, 11:46 am "If you can match up the services within a reasonable period of time with the thing of benefit, in this case $10 million or whatever it is, then you have bribery," says Christopher Swecker.
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  15. III. Postmodernism Postmodernism, led by the French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault, declared that it is impossible to determine objective truth. The only “truth” is the relative perspective of each individual person. Since its introduction in the 1960s, postmodernism has metastasized throughout the social sciences, art, and culture and now is the predominant ideology of the left. Postmodernism makes things disappear on a society-wide scale. If there is no objective truth that can be known, voilà, no structural problems to be solved other than our own psyches that can be treated with drugs or psychotherapy. This strange ideology is incredibly valuable to capital. The ruling class wants to do horrible things to our bodies. And postmodernism has become a Magic Eraser of these crimes. So the autism epidemic becomes, through the magic transmogrification of postmodernism, the Neurodiversity Movement!™️ It’s no longer the largest chemical poisoning event in history, it’s simply A Different (Maybe Better!?) Way of Being!™️ This is not a problem to be solved, this is a civil rights movement to be celebrated!™️ Capital also figured out that they can make $1.3 million per person they “transition” to a “different gender” via chemicals and surgery. Increasingly the business plan targets queer, autistic, and mentally ill kids, many of whom may not be able to give informed consent. This is troubling to people with common sense. Enter postmodernism that rebrands this violent assault on the body as “gender-affirming care.” It’s striking that every word in that phrase is incorrect — they are referring to sex not gender, there is nothing affirming about telling people they are born in the wrong body, and chemical poisons and radical surgeries that often cause pain and complications for a lifetime are the opposite of “care.” But since there can be no objective truth, all that matters is the perspective of those with sex dysphoria (regardless of the fact that those views may change later, but cannot actually be reversed). Under the guiding hand of postmodernism, the wide-scale poisoning, mutilation, and castration of sexual minorities becomes something to be celebrated, the highest form of civilization (while any regret is hidden from view). Under postmodernism, any form of toxic injury is made to disappear, never to be investigated, and the injured are celebrated but not actually supported in the weirdest display of internal mental colonization in history. However, the reliance on postmodernism as the point of the spear for capital creates its own set of problems. If there can be no objective truth, then it’s really hard to force people to do things. And capital really really wants to force people to do things. Enter left-authoritarianism.
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  16. The Department of Justice wants to arrest Devon Archer, Hunter Biden’s former best friend and business partner, to prevent his expected testimony before Congress, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) revealed on Sunday. Rep. Comer explained in an interview on “Sunday Morning Futures” that the DOJ sent a letter to a federal judge in the Southern District of New York demanding Archer begin his term of imprisonment before his scheduled testimony on Monday. “The letter from the Department of Justice is trying to nudge the judge to go ahead and sentence Devon Archer for something unrelated to what we’re going to be talking to him about tomorrow,” Comer said.
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  17. Joe Biden and the Democrats have been engaged in a coordinated propaganda campaign for the past few months, claiming that Biden has pulled off a miracle by boosting the US economy and defeating inflation. Yet, around 60% of Americans in polls continue to say that Biden is doing a terrible job when it come to the economic situation, and over 70% of Americans say they are now financially stressed, due in large part to inflation in the cost of living. Around 72% of Americans continue to believe that the country is on the wrong track. If the financial structure is on the way to a “soft landing” and a historic recovery as the political left says, then why are the majority of Americans in dire straits? The logical answer is that the Democrats are lying about the true condition of the economy. The latest example is Biden’s announcement on social media that America is witnessing a “manufacturing boom” thanks to his policies. It’s unlikely that Joe Biden is personally engaging in his own social media accounts; he has a team of paid lackeys to run those accounts for him. However, the point remains that “Bidenomics” is the chosen rally cry for leftists. Why? Because the majority of fiscal threats have taken place on Biden’s watch and, in part, because of Biden’s policies.
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  18. Getting along with a nation that has the world’s largest nuclear weapons stockpile is a good thing, former US President Donald Trump has said, as he reiterated his claims that he could defuse the Ukraine conflict in a matter of hours. “The fake news hates when I say I know [Russian President Vladimir Putin] well. They hate when I say I got along with him. You know, it’s good to get along,” he told supporters at a campaign rally in Erie, Pennsylvania on Saturday. “They have more nuclear weapons than us, or just about the same, but a little more than us,” he said, adding that “nobody ever talks about that” when discussing the Ukraine conflict. The US is in a “very stupid, dangerous position right now,” Trump said. The former US leader is campaigning for the Republican nomination for the 2024 presidential election, even as his legal troubles pile up. Last week, special counsel Jack Smith announced new charges against him, which are related to alleged mishandling of classified materials after leaving office. Trump claims to be a victim of a “witch hunt” by the Democratic Party and “the deep state.” Get up to 60% OFF and DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items during our Christmas In August sale! The embattled TV show host-turned-politician reiterated his claims that if he were serving a second term, the conflict in Ukraine would not have happened, because, as he put it, “Russia respercted us, Putin respected me.” If re-elected, he could stop the hostilities in 24 hours, he also claimed. He told supporters that at one point, he intimidated the Russian leader with “things that you don’t want to know.” “I said: ‘it’s gonna really be bad’… He said: ‘You wouldn’t do it,’ and I said: ‘Yes, I will,’” Trump said. “And he didn’t believe me, but you know, he believed me 10%. But that’s all he needed.” Trump claimed that he used the same kind of tactics with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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  19. VI. Conclusion Ideas matter. Postmodernism, authoritarianism, and Pharma fascism are destined for the slag heap of history. But in the meantime they will continue to cause a lot of carnage. If we survive the current crisis, it will be because of this new coalition of disaffected Democrats together with evangelical Christians and “small l” libertarians who reject postmodernism, authoritarianism, and fascism and fight with everything we’ve got for freedom, rationality, and common sense. At the Mercy of the Big Banks Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today!
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  20. Opinions Democrats Are Beating Up RFK Jr. Over Vaccines – Why This Issue? by Ted Rall | Sputnik July 30th 2023, 10:09 am If the underlying issue is that RFK subscribes to conspiracy theories, it’s going to be hard to find other politicians to support. Biden had claimed WMDs were in Iraq and Hillary Clinton claimed the Russians stole the 2016 election from her.
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  21. Politics Perjury: Hunter Biden Caught Misleading Judge Under Oath Over Bar Membership in Connecticut by Jamie White July 31st 2023, 1:11 pm Hunter Biden told Delaware district judge that he was eligible to practice law in Washington, D.C. and Connecticut -- but Hunter was suspended from practicing law in CT for failing to pay his $75 annual fees.
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  22. Ukraine has received a new grant from the United States worth $1.25 billion to reimburse state budget expenses, including wages for state employees and social benefits, the Ukrainian Finance Ministry said on Monday. “The State Budget of Ukraine received a grant from the United States of America in the amount of USD 1.25 billion through the Multi-donor Trust Fund of the World Bank,” the ministry said in a statement. The grant was provided as part of the fifth additional financing under the World Bank’s Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance in Ukraine (PEACE in Ukraine) project, which seeks to partially cover state budget expenditures, including for social and humanitarian purposes. “The involved grant funding will be aimed at reimbursing state budget expenditures, in particular, to pay wages for government employees and payments under certain state social assistance programs (IDPs [internally displaced persons], people with disabilities, low-income families and housing, utility subsidies) and other social payments,” the ministry said. Ukraine has received $8.45 billion in US grants to support the state budget in 2023 alone, while as much as $20.4 billion has been disbursed since February 2022. Ultimate Bone Broth Plus is now 40% off! Get it today to taste & experience the upgraded version of our famous formula to rediscover primal nutrition that’s missing from our modern diet! Last week, the chairwoman of the Ukrainian parliament’s budget committee, Roksolana Pidlasa, said the state budget received $25.3 billion from international partners in 2023, accounting for 49.1% of all state budget revenues. Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko said in May that the country’s budget has been running a deficit of about $5 billion a month since the military conflict began, with two-thirds of the money coming from foreign loans and grants and three-quarters spent on military needs. A digital prison is being built around us Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Email LIVE
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  23. Politics Ukraine Receives $1.25 Billion in US Grant Funds for Paying Wages, Social Assistance by Sputnik July 31st 2023, 11:10 am American taxpayers now paying salaries of Ukrainian government workers
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  24. Politics Trump Outlines Why US Must Improve Relations With Russia by RT July 31st 2023, 11:07 am Moscow has more nuclear weapons than America does, Trump says
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  25. Source: Liabilities data for 1916–2023 from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, statistical release H.4.1, Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions and Condition Statement of Federal Reserve Banks, via FRED; and M2 money supply data for 1959–2023 from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, statistical release H.6, Money Stock Measures, via FRED. Note: The solid trend line (1) is a curve fit to the data between 1965 and 2003. The solid trend line (2) is a double exponential curve fit to the data after 2003. The two world wars are indicated by arrows pointing to the pink regions. Recessions are indicated by sepia-colored strips. Figure 1 indicates that, due to the massive war spending, Fed liabilities expanded significantly up to 1920 and then from 1930 to 1946 while they contracted in the postwar periods. The triangle-shaped humps above the trend line (1) and labeled World War I and World War II indicate this fact. However, note that between these periods of massive money printing was the Great Depression of 1930–32. The liabilities dipped below the trend line (1) then. Now looking at the period after 2000, we see again the liabilities dipped below the trend line, indicating the depression brought on by subprime mortgages in the global financial collapse. After this, the Fed massively began expanding its liabilities, which roughly follows the exponential growth indicated by trend line (2). Save 40% on Ultimate Fish Oil today to improve your supplement routine & experience the world-renowned powerhouse formula! In 2014, the Fed began contracting its liabilities again until 2020, when the covid-19 pandemic started. Is it a coincidence that the war in the Donbas region of Ukraine between Russia and Ukraine also started in early 2014 after the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych via a US-backed coup? For this reason, on figure 1, we have drawn the start of a potential new world war (World War III) from that time. If we take the real value of the expansion of the Fed liabilities between 1934 and 1963 due to World War II and compare it to the total liabilities from 2008 to 2023, we find the latter to be 2.3 times larger at its peak than in the case of World War II. Couple this with the depression brought on by the global financial collapse from 2004 to 2008 just before the massive currency printing started in 2009 (i.e., quantitative easing QE1 followed by QE2, QE3, and QE4), does it indicate that we are already in World War III? A comparison with World War I and World War II indicates also that the Fed started shrinking its balance sheet after the war was over, which make a lot of sense when the demand for war munitions and other wartime supplies is no longer needed. Do we have the equivalent situation now? The Fed has been aggressively expanding its balance sheet from 2020 after a period of quantitative tightening (QT) from 2014 to 2019. However, that latter QT was only because of the massive expansion under QE1 to QE3. The second trend line, an exponential fit to the data after 2003, is indicated by the solid trend line (2). From this, we see that periods of QT have brought the Fed liabilities down to just touch this trend line (2). It is hard to see on this scale, but the monetary easing used to bail out Silicon Valley Bank, Signature, and the other banks in March also brought the liabilities up to this trend line (2) briefly before QT continued. It seems that the Fed should be tightening (QT) and pulling its liabilities down to get back to trend line (1), when in fact, it is expanding (QE) on an upward exponential fashion along trend line (2). Our question really is, as it follows from history, whether we can only expect aggressive QT to occur after the next world war is ended. Currently, all the news indicates that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)/Ukrainian war with Russia is being expanded. Joe Biden has ostensibly sent hundreds of billions of dollars in military assistance to the Ukraine already. Many of the European NATO countries are joining in supplying arms and money. The rhetoric constantly grows stronger. Therefore, it would seem that this kinetic war needs to end before the Fed liabilities can be contracted back down to the trend line (1) indicated in figure 1. When will that happen? We don’t know. Ask Biden or whoever is running him? A round of massive QT, with much higher bank savings rates, could do it. However, with the concomitant price inflation caused by all the massive QEs after 2009, this tightening would bring the world to financial Armageddon. You can see from the chart that the only way out for the Fed is to bring their balance sheet liabilities back down to the 1963 to 2003 trend line (1). At what cost though? More bank runs and bank collapses like what happened in March this year? However, it would seem that a kinetic World War III is inevitable if past wars are our teacher. At the Mercy of the Big Banks Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Email LIVE
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  26. A Central American head of state agrees: God’s children are not for sale. El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who is a one-man criminal gang busting machine, recently met with the producer of the indie box office hit, the “Sound of Freedom,” Mexican actor Eduardo Verástegui. The pair signed a Letter of Intent in the Casa Presidencial agreeing to combat child sex trafficking, the theme of the movie. The agreement, specifically, is between the government of El Salvador and the Viva México movement. The film was shown this past weekend in the Teatro Presidente in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador, to a crowd of 1,500 people. Gracias, presidente @nayibbukele , por invitarnos a presentar Sound of Freedom en El Salvador. Gracias, por su decisión y valentía, al firmar un convenio de trabajo y cooperación para impulsar una lucha sin cuartel contra el crimen feroz de la trata de niños. Celebramos haber… pic.twitter.com/irXWrRRNsE — Eduardo Verástegui (@EVerastegui) July 30, 2023 “This is the first time the film will be presented outside the United States, where a President is the host … where a President invites the public to see the film for free,” Verástegui said. Brain Force Ultra is now HALF OFF! Experience the next level in high-powered energy nootropics that’s loaded with proprietary super ingredients while you still can! “This is an important problem and governments must act rapidly, decisively, and forcefully to prevent it,” Bukele added.
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  27. Joe Biden @JoeBiden · Follow This is made possible by our historic investments.
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  28. Opinions Big Drop in Cardboard Box Sales Scream Recession by Michael Maharrey | Schiff Gold July 31st 2023, 3:05 pm You might wonder, ‘What do cardboard box sales have to do with the economy?’ Stop and think about it. Stuff gets shipped in boxes. Everything from raw materials to final products arriving at your door is packaged in boxes. If there is less stuff produced and sold, an economy will need fewer boxes. So, cardboard box sales serve as a pretty good indicator of real economic activity — production, buying, and selling.
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  29. Opinions ‘Sound of Freedom’ Becomes Global, Cultural Flashpoint by Izzy Lyman | Border Hawk August 1st 2023, 10:29 am 'This movie has had so much success because it tackles a topic few people want to discuss. Who buys these children to sexualize them?' asks El Salvador president
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  30. I. Introduction I’m completely fascinated by the unholy alliance between capital, postmodernism, and left authoritarianism. I have not seen others describe this phenomenon yet so I will report what I am seeing. Capital, stored wealth, money itself — and all of the power that flows from that — seeks to expand itself. That’s what it has always done. As many have pointed out, capital follows the logic of a cancer cell — endless expansion, no matter the results for the system as a whole. (I’m not criticizing capitalism per se but rather the sort of predatory monopoly capitalism that always makes a mess of things.) For most of human history the way that capital expanded is through the exploitation of nature (taming and breeding animals, farming, and mining). Exploiting nature on a large scale requires a lot of labor so the ruling class developed slavery, serfdom, castes, indentured servitude, addiction, etc. Warfare enables one group to take resources from another so the lower classes were also turned into soldiers. By designing societies to exploit nature, people, and others over the last 500 years the members of the ruling class have obtained so much wealth that they are now able to direct the course of human events throughout the developed world. Now capital has figured out a new gold mine — the exploitation of the body itself. The organs, cells, and genetic material of the body can be enclosed, captured, enslaved, “legally” stolen, harnessed, and otherwise made to serve capital. As I have observed previously, mRNA shots turn every cell in the body into a miniature concentration camp engaged in forced labor for capital. This biological capture extends to the natural world too as the genetic material in our food is patented, manipulated, and tortured to produce more wealth for the ruling class. And then all of the human health harms caused by the genetic and chemical manipulation of nature can be further monetized by treating them, ineffectively, with more pharmaceuticals. It’s a perfect business model — until the entire system collapses. Brain Force Ultra is now HALF OFF! Experience the next level in high-powered energy nootropics that’s loaded with proprietary super ingredients while you still can! The era that we live in now can best be described as the Iatrogenocene — where all relationships on earth are mediated by the harmful involvement of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Total wealth on earth is estimated to be just north of $400 trillion. The ruling class already owns half of it. Via the iatrogenocide — creating and “treating” chronic illness — the ruling class will be able to strip the remaining $200 trillion from the poor and working class and turn us into permanent slaves once again.
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  31. Within the Democratic Party, a quirky single issue has become the focus of opposition to primary challenger Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: his reputation as an anti-vaxxer. For the purpose of this discussion, let’s set aside the question of whether or not the criticism is accurate. RFK Jr. denies being against vaccinations in general, says he is up-to-date on all vaccinations except for COVID-19, and claims the real problem is big pharma, not vaccines. Let’s also ignore the obvious motivation of Democrats’ attacks: Kennedy had the temerity to challenge Biden in the primaries, and opened strong with nearly 20% of the Democratic vote. But why is this the anti-RFK Democrats’ single issue? Why are they single-mindedly raging over the fact that he’s (assuming for the sake of argument that it’s true) anti-vax? The coverage has been brutal and sharply focused. “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” an NBC profile of the candidate begins, “is a conspiracy theorist running for president as a Democrat.” “Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist and scion of one of the country’s most famous political families, is running for president,” the Associated Press opened its wire-service piece announcing his 2024 bid. Brain Force Ultra is now HALF OFF! Experience the next level in high-powered energy nootropics that’s loaded with proprietary super ingredients while you still can! Kennedy is so irredeemably anti-vax, his critics say, that he’s not even worth engaging with. “There is no point in debating RFK Jr. on vaccines,” Time magazine wrote. “He’s wrong and has been proven so many times before.” The playing field of this particular political battle is, well, weird. First, the issue is moot. Even assuming that RFK is objectively a wacky anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist who was wrong about the safety of the COVID-19 vaccine (for the record, I’ve received eight COVID shots and plan to get a ninth), the pandemic is over. The Biden administration has officially declared the end of the novel coronavirus emergency. If RFK was wrong, the key word here is “was.” The controversy concerns what has now become, due to the passage of time, a non-issue. Would you vote against someone due to their (incorrect) position on the Franco-Prussian War? If the underlying issue is that RFK subscribes to conspiracy theories, it’s going to be hard to find other politicians to support. US President Joe Biden, for example, believed “Saddam’s program relative to weapons of mass destruction” was an actual real thing, even though the director of the CIA told him there was no evidence whatsoever at the time. Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “there’s no doubt in my mind” that Russia cheated her out of the 2016 election; Russiagate, we all knew then and we all know now, was a fever dream born of self-delusion. Whatever you think of RFK’s statements about vaccines, the consequences of the Iraq WMD and Russiagate conspiracy theories were over a million people killed and recklessly risking World War III. Perhaps RFK’s real sin is science denialism. If so, there isn’t a single American politician you can support with the possible exception of 2000 Democratic presidential nominee and former US Vice President Al Gore, if he’s still interested in the job. Climate science is clear; the Earth is heating rapidly and the future of humanity hangs in the balance in the immediate future. Democrats and Republicans alike are talking about jobs, the economy, censoring books, how the history of slavery should be taught, whether children should become transgender, anything but the most pressing important problem facing Americans and their fellow humans around the globe. It doesn’t get any more denialist than these distractions. I’m not inherently opposed to the idea of single-issue voting. I would never vote for anyone who supported the invasion of Iraq. I would never vote for anyone who wants to keep Guantánamo open or is willing to tolerate it. I would never vote for anyone who doesn’t support a $20-an-hour minimum wage. My vote only goes to someone who would stop persecuting Julian Assange. These are, to me, basic moral filters that tell me who someone is. I would also not vote for someone who, like RFK Jr., pledges “unconditional support” to Israel, or any other country. Unconditional support for another nation is stupid. If a US ally decides to pick a fight, I want the right to decide whether or not to get involved. RFK Jr. has stumbled into lifestyle identitarianism, a retrograde political tendency motivated not by identification with or support for a minority group or other historically marginalized population, but tribal symbolism. For a certain kind of lifestyle liberal in San Francisco or Manhattan, being pro-vax makes a statement: you are, or might be, ‘One of Us.’ You shop at Target, not Walmart. You follow tennis, not NASCAR. You watch “Barbie”—ironically. RFK Jr. elicits ire because, as a Kennedy and thus heir to the last liberal dynasty, he has committed the ultimate heresy: class treason. Here, class is not (strictly) about money. Cultural signifiers—your electric car, your vacation to Europe, your take on vaccines—determine who’s out with the in-crowd. Extracting himself from this pit won’t be easy. Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Email
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  32. Last week’s revelation that Facebook took orders from the Biden Administration to censor even accurate information about Covid is the latest example of the US government’s disregard for our Constitution. Thanks to Rep. Jim Jordan, Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, we now know the extent to which the Biden Administration went in its proxy war against the First Amendment. Getting the information wasn’t easy. It was only after Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was threatened with being held in contempt of Congress that he relented and shared information with the Judiciary Committee about Biden Administration pressure to censor Americans on Facebook who disagreed with White House policy on Covid. What we have discovered thus far is disgusting. For example, in April 2021, a Facebook employee sent a message to top executives in the company complaining that, “we are facing continued pressure from external stakeholders, including the [Biden] White House” to remove posts. In another example, senior executive Nick Clegg complained that Andy Slavitt, a Senior Advisor to President Biden, was “outraged…that [Facebook] did not remove” a particular post, according to Rep. Jordan’s report. Rep. Jordan revealed that the “offending post” that the Biden Administration wanted removed was simply a joke making fun of possible vaccine injury down the road. The Biden Administration even wanted to “protect” us from jokes that it didn’t like. The Administration did not stop at targeting what it called “misinformation.” As Constitutional Law Professor Jonathan Turley noted in a recent column, “the administration also demanded the removal of ‘malinformation’ that is ‘based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.’” So the Biden Administration wanted to “cancel” even truthful information counter to its own preferred narrative. HUGE!! Infowars M.D. products are now 30% OFF! This revolutionary series of lifestyle-altering products will redefine your peak physical and mental state! This level of contempt for our Constitution is shocking. As Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – who was himself censored at the behest of the Biden Administration – testified recently before Congress: “A government that can censor its critics has license for every atrocity. It is the beginning of totalitarianism.” Who knows how many thousands of Facebook accounts were banned or restricted at the behest of the Biden White House. Early last year I received notice that my own Facebook Page was “restricted” for 90 days because I pointed out that the CEO of Pfizer once claimed that his Covid shot was “100 effective” but later changed his story. The post was completely accurate but still my page was targeted. Although some are using this information for partisan gain against the Democrats in power, Americans should not delude themselves: left unchecked, there is little reason to believe a Republican Administration would show any more respect for the Constitution than the Biden Administration. Both parties have shown themselves to be selective in their pledged oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution. It is just as unconstitutional – and thus illegal – for the US Government to violate the First Amendment by proxy – through so-called private companies – as if the government directly attacked our free speech. We must remember that the unprecedented US government censorship of Americans during Covid was just the test run. Be assured that when the next “crisis” comes – and it will – the authoritarians in charge will again ramp up the censorship machine unless we do something about it. This article first appeared at RonPaulInstitute.org. Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Emai
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  33. II. Ideology as a tool for covering up crimes against humanity All of the above is rather odious. At some point the poor and working classes might get tired of being exploited and rise up to kill the ruling class (not as often as one might think, but it happens occasionally throughout history). So the ruling class requires elaborate systems of obfuscation in order to cover their tracks and continue their exploitation. In the earliest times, this was accomplished through religions that were constitutive of the state. The ruling class — from the Pharaohs to various kings — declared that they were closer to God than the peasants. Anyone who opposed the ruling class thus hated God (not a good look in a theocracy). Human sacrifice (from Aztec and Mayan temple ceremonies to drawing and quartering heretics in Medieval Europe) reinforced the point that the ruling class, much like God, really did decide matters of life and death. This hierarchy was considered the normal way to order human societies. Over the last five centuries, the obfuscation of the crimes of the ruling class was partly accomplished through high art. Who can complain about slavery and colonialism when the “centre” (England, continental Europe, and then America) uses some of that ill-gotten wealth to create beautiful paintings, symphonies, museums, philosophy, and then later, science? It creates the impression, sometimes even spoken aloud, that ‘the exploiters really are the best people so even if there is some pain (well, genocide) along the way, it’s okay because the exploiters are creating civilization itself!’ I really like the arts (and indeed they are often a tool of liberation) but if you follow the money, the history of high art and empire are often intertwined. In our current era, as the exploitation has grown even more despicable (global biological fascism), the ruling class has needed to come up with even more clever tactics. Enter postmodernism and left authoritarianism. The ruling class literally figured out how to take their fiercest critics and weaponize them to serve capital. It’s really their most extraordinary achievement — a level of mind control beyond anything the Pharaohs could have dreamed of.
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  34. IV. Left-authoritarianism Over the last 50 years, the political left in the United States has been a loose coalition of classical liberals, postmodernists, left authoritarians (the remnants of the Marxist left), and various interests groups — women, Blacks, Latinos, environmentalists, and LGBT persons. Democrats got tired of losing elections so in the 1992 presidential race, Bill Clinton brought capital (Pharma and Silicon Valley) into the coalition. But when the ruling class wants to institute global biological fascism, they really need the ideological muscle of left-authoritarianism. We saw this during Covid. The CIA injected a bit of fear into society in January 2020 and suddenly the left authoritarians in public health and the media were barking that there is The Science™️, it is known only by corporations and the state, everyone must mask up, isolate in their homes, and drive themselves to their poisoning appointments in stadium parking lots, convention centers, and pharmacies. Because both postmodernism and left-authoritarianism are just ideological props to cover up the underlying crimes, no one bothered to point out that left-authoritarianism is the exact opposite of postmodernism. They are just deployed to suit the particular occasion and the paid talking heads in the media will read whatever script is handed to them that day. What’s so incredibly sad about this is the number of useful idiots in the legacy media and academia who unironically go along with all of this. One day they are postmodern, the next day they are authoritarian, the next day they are fascist. They just want to be part of the in-crowd, they do not care about the content of the programming. This is the case throughout the bourgeoisie — the earnest little squirrels at the NY Times, Washington Post, Atlantic, New Yorker, CNN, MSNBC, and throughout academia, furiously typing away every day to participate in the narrative, never once realizing that they are actually viewed with contempt by the ruling class they faithfully serve.
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  35. Good news. The looming US recession has been canceled. Or has it? Just a few weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said that while economic growth has slowed, “our labor market continues to be quite strong — I don’t expect a recession.” Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said staff economists at the central bank now project a noticeable slowdown in growth starting later this year, “But given the resilience of the economy recently, they are no longer forecasting a recession.” In fact, with much stronger-than-expected second-quarter GDP growth and continued labor market strength, a growing number of people in the mainstream now think the US has escaped the clutches of a recession despite the Fed driving interest rates to the highest level in 16 years. Perhaps the optimism is premature. And maybe we shouldn’t put too much stock in the current official government numbers. Get up to 60% OFF and DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items during our Christmas In August sale! In the first place, it seems unlikely the US economy can avoid a significant downturn given the fact that the Fed has taken away its lifeblood – easy money. The economy was built on artificially low-interest rates and quantitative easing. Taking that away is like draining half the oil out of an engine. It might run for a little bit, but eventually, that engine is going to seize up. It’s just a matter of time. Remember — everybody thought the economy was fine in 2007 too, even though the housing market had already cracked and the Fed was cutting interest rates. In fact, GDP in the third quarter of that year was 3.9%. Second, it’s hard to reconcile the veracity of the government numbers when there are so many other data points indicating recession, including 15 consecutive drops in the Index of Leading Economic Indicators (the most consecutive negative prints since 2007-2008), an inverted yield curve, and a rising number of corporate defaults. And here’s another off-the-beaten-path metric that is screaming recession — a big plunge in the sale of cardboard boxes. Earlier this month, Packaging Corp. of America reported that cardboard box sales fell 9.8% in the second quarter. That ranks as one of the biggest slumps on record when you combine it with the 12.7% drop in Q1. According to a report by FreightWaves Research, the combined six-month decline ranks as the biggest plunge since early 2009. Now, you might wonder, ‘What do cardboard box sales have to do with the economy?’ Stop and think about it. Stuff gets shipped in boxes. Everything from raw materials to final products arriving at your door is packaged in boxes. If there is less stuff produced and sold, an economy will need fewer boxes. So, cardboard box sales serve as a pretty good indicator of real economic activity — production, buying, and selling. And the box barometer is not subject to government accounting tricks. The FreightWaves Research report said there isn’t anything indicating the sale of cardboard boxes will increase anytime soon. With regional banks cutting back on lending out of necessity, the emergency government food stamp (SNAP) benefits a thing of the past, federal student loan payments set to resume in October and the Federal Reserve continuing to tighten monetary policy to combat inflation, we’re unsure what would lead to improved box demand.” So, while the GDP and job numbers may make you think the Fed can control price inflation without driving the economy into the ground, I wouldn’t get too giddy. The box barometer is flashing “worry,” and that metric seems a whole lot more connected to reality than numbers pumped out by the Bureau of Labor Statistics or the US Bureau of Economic Analysis. At the Mercy of the Big Banks Our Christmas In August sale is NOW LIVE! Save up to 60% with DOUBLE Patriot Points on our hottest items today! SHARE Post Tweet Message Email
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  36. Politics Biden Gaslights Americans With Fake “Manufacturing Boom” As US Production Plunges by Zero Hedge July 31st 2023, 10:37 am The point remains that “Bidenomics” is the chosen rally cry for leftists. Why? Because the majority of fiscal threats have taken place on Biden's watch and, in part, because of Biden's policies.
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  37. Opinions Socialism Cannot Work, Not Even in an AI-Driven Economy by Raushan Gross | Mises Institute July 31st 2023, 2:55 pm Opening market spaces for AI seems reasonable; however, will the elites plan to socialize AI services and products, close up the industry, and eliminate AI buyer options? When prices, inputs, and outputs are calculated, it becomes an unfeasible proposition that AI services, products, and industries be socialized.
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