THE BIG PICTURE

This fascistic moment ( with VIDEO) – “A brilliant video reveals dark rumblings of discontent. LOTS of people are talking about “Storm” — a seven-and-a-half-minute film directed by Romain Gavras that features the Swedish rapper Yung Lean (Jonatan Leandoer Håstad, his stage name is a play on words: lean is a recreational street drug made by mixing prescription cough syrup with soda and hard candy). The video consists of two parts — “Storm I” which is a short drama set in an all-boys school and “Storm II” that includes stunning choreography by Damien Jalet. Let’s start with Storm II because that’s the clip that is generating the most discussion.” – Toby Rogers

cranky again – “Oh I do sometimes have to acknowledge my profound stupidity about Socialism. I certainly basically understood it to be at its heart a great levelling where wealth was evenly distributed from the rich to the poor. That has always been the theory that always seems to have failed catastrophically with millions dead by the end of it. The “it’s going to be different this time,” has never worked. So I don’t quite get this country’s direction at all. It seems that the middle class and the poor are paying for everything while the rich get richer. In fact the poor are paying for the rich to do so.” – Sylvia Shawcross  -GOOD ONE FROM SYLVIA!!!!

The REAL Reasons We Live Paycheck-to-Paycheck & the Psychological Operation that Made it Happen [Part 2] – “Worldwide advertisers and a brilliantly diabolical plan…Here’s how a covert operation to upend traditional American lives was released on the unknowing public and how that operation changed everything…” – Agent131711

FCC Wants to Kill Burner Phones By Forcing Telecoms to Get All Customers’ IDs – “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants to make it effectively impossible for people to buy what many call burner phones—a phone not explicitly linked to your identity at the point of purchase—which would impact privacy-conscious people, to domestic abuse survivors, to journalists, and many more. The FCC plans to do this by legally forcing the country’s telecoms to store a wealth of personal information about essentially all phone customers, including a government issued identification number and their physical address,” – Joseph Cox

Work for free, feed on the sun – “When leaders forget their job is to serve the people, ordinary suffering becomes a punchline, a sermon, or a problem to be managed. Marie Antoinette almost certainly never said, “Let them eat cake,” but the line has endured because it captures a universal and persistent truth: rulers can become so insulated from hunger, prices, wages, and daily survival that ordinary suffering becomes invisible to them. Which brings us to Yemen, where a decade of war and political fracture has left hundreds of thousands of public sector workers — teachers, doctors, civil servants — without regular pay.” – Collapse Life

Are Taxpayers Helping to Finance America’s Data Center Boom? A Quest for Clarity – Taylor Hudak

German public health authorities dispense lunatic heatwave pointers, advise against mobile air conditioning units – eugyppius

 

 

NEWS

Scrambled Eggs ala Trump – “I guess you can’t make war without breaking a few eggs. In today’s news, they are scrambled all over the world.” – David Haggith

Israel sets ‘conditions’ for ending occupation of south Lebanon: – “Reports say Tel Aviv is mulling a ‘symbolic’ withdrawal from ‘minor areas’ of the south, as Israeli officials vow to continue occupying Lebanon ‘for years'” – The Cradle News Desk

Escalation Without Dominance: The Dangerous Gap Between American Firepower and Influence – “For over a century, the United States enjoyed a unique geopolitical luxury called escalation dominance. Except for the Soviet Union, Washington could consistently threaten to raise the stakes in any military conflict, knowing it could easily outgun any opponent on the battlefield. Washington projected power globally because it possessed the capacity to inflict catastrophic damage while remaining largely insulated from the consequences. Today, literally today in Geneva, that specific historical era has definitively and offically ended.” – Ashes of Pompeii

The Denver Post’s Wolf Pup Problem – “When the facts become inconvenient, the image often tells a different story. No reasonable person believes a wolf pup was attacking cattle. The livestock attacks that have become increasingly common since Colorado’s wolf reintroduction program began are carried out by adult wolves. Adult wolves kill livestock because that is what wolves do. They are predators. They are not Disney characters. They are not plush toys. They are apex carnivores. Yet readers were presented with an image carefully designed to evoke sympathy rather than reality.” – Brian C. Joondeph

So long, Starmer. – “Yay, I guess. There goes our sixth “leader” in ten years, and in comes our seventh. I know some quarters – on both right and left – will be going full Holy Grail… But I can’t bring myself to care about what is, at absolute best, a PR exercise. The only real change is that, moving forward, I will likely be italicizing the word “Sir” a lot less. As always, when there’s a leadership change, people will rush to talk about “legacy”. But Starmer doesn’t have one. He’s just sort of there. The process that started before he arrived carried one while he was there, and will continue after he’s gone.” – Kit Knightly

Sheer Madness: UK Tests Long-Range Missile For Ukraine To Bomb Moscow – Tyler Durden

Israeli government signs $40 million deal to launch pro-war propaganda campaign aimed at Christian Republicans – Leo Hohmann

The 5th Circuit Just Lit the Fuse on the Next Big Second Amendment Fight – “Most non-shooters don’t get how a firearm suppressor (often incorrectly called a silencer) works. Too many stupid television shows and movies have a shooter screwing a small object the size of a flash hider onto the barrel of a pistol or rifle, then firing the piece with a barely audible thwip. That’s not how it works. Europe, hunters routinely use suppressors to avoid annoying people with loud reports; they are considered more or less a requirement. Here in the United States, though, they are (stupidly) regulated in the same manner as fully-automatic weapons under the 1934 National Firearms Act.” – Ward Clark

Marjorie Taylor Greene joins Tucker Carlson and ditches Republican party: ‘We’re done with America Last’ – “The former Trump supporters have split from the party over accusations the president has not stuck to key campaign promises” – Sophie Clark

Democrats Decide the Answer Is to Democrat Harder – “Turns out “eat the rich” polls better than “balance the budget.” – Jenna McCarthy

Third Party Gains Ground: Over The Past Year, The Democratic Socialists Have Become An Alarmingly Powerful Force In U.S. Politics – Michael Snyder

Crimea suspends gasoline sales – “Russian oil continues to flow to NATO states” – Edward Slavsquat / Riley Waggaman

 

 

 

ECONOMIC NEWS

High gas prices soak up more retail-sales dollars — and restaurants are paying the bill – “Americans spend more on needs than wants” – Jeffry Bartash

Factory job cuts in June neared financial crisis and Covid levels, S&P says – “Job cuts at U.S. factories ran near their highest levels since the end of the global financial crisis in 2009 and the Covid-19 pandemic as worries grew over global demand and rising costs, S&P Global reported Tuesday.” – Jeff Cox

Canada’s Inflation Problem Is Far From Over – “Canada’s inflation rate accelerated to 3.2% in May, coming in above expectations and once again exposing the fantasy that inflation was somehow defeated. Policymakers spent the past year congratulating themselves for bringing inflation down, yet the cost of living continues to rise while the economy itself is sliding toward recession.” – Martin Armstrong

Half-Open, Half-Closed Strait of Hormuz Baffles Oil Markets – Tsvetana Paraskova –

Borrowed Time: The ‘Extend and Pretend’ Economy Must End – “Trillions in hidden distress and deferred losses are emerging as borrowers run out of time and options. America’s debt reckoning has begun.” – Laura Williams

Business Activity Falls for the 6th Month in France, 3rd Month in Germany – “Europe remains in the gutter but inflation eases.” – Mish

 

 

 

SURVIVAL, PREPAREDNESS AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY

What Is a Homestead? The Complete Guide to Starting and Living the Homesteading Life – Self-Sufficient Projects Staff

Health, Fitness, and The End Of The World – “There’s a stereotype of preppers, and it’s not kind: A middle aged or older man with a BMI that passed 30 before he was 30 and grew by 1% every year, a ton of guns, canned food, and a half-hearted vegetable garden. I know because I resemble that. As I’ve been struggling to recover my health, I’ve had a few realizations that have kept me on the path to fitness. Health is something money can’t buy. Ultimately, whether you’re healthy and fit is a question of discipline and commitment. Having children or dependents should serve as inspiration for the average prepper to do more than just go to the range and plink at blue helmet cutouts. ” – D.F.

13 Ways Bushcraft Can Help You in Emergencies – Dan F. Sullivan

Your Bug Out Shelter Only Has One Job – “Improvised wilderness shelter for staying alive, staying mobile, and getting through one more night A bug out rarely happens the way people picture it.’ – denob

The Real Reason Some Families Survived the Great Depression and Others Didn’t – Lisa Bedford

 

 

VERSE FOR THE DAY

Isaiah 40:31    But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.

 

IMAGE FOR THE DAY