Category: Current Events

“Land of the Free”? Not So Fast – the Trend-line is Not Linear!

1938 USA Communist Party Convention -Abraham Lincoln as centerpiece

Like most people my age, #60+, I can remember a time when we all were a LOT more free. Rifles in the pickup trucks, shooting guns near suburban neighborhoods, playing outside ALL day with the parents not really knowing where their kids were at. This was all “normal”.

Also during this time, it was the college campuses that allowed and even encouraged thinking and expressing one’s own thoughts no matter how popular they might be. Anti-government speech was not just tolerated, it was at the heart of what it meant to be an American, the Spirit of ’76!

Well those days are long gone, and the transition to where we are today was not a linear one at all. At first there was some minor deviation, but in the past 5-10 years, the college campuses are more group-think than ever, where the narrative of the day is king, where thought police thrive.

This is not the first time this has happened, but it does seem to be the first time it has happened without a war in the past 150 years, but it does have some similarities to a time in American history over 220 years ago where the thought police surfaced, when the “Land of the Free” enacted the Alien and Sedition Act in 1798 which …:

made it a federal crime to publish any false, scandalous or malicious writing – even if true – about the president or the federal government

You see, freedom of speech is a natural, God-given right that governments can and will take away. In the “Land of the Free” in 1798, there were many who took issue with this course change that occurred only 22 years after the thirteen American colonies sought independence from the British Empire. When Thomas Jefferson became president, he and his administration repealed this act. However, one this course change is embedded in a nation’s/empire’s DNA, there is no going back:

Abraham Lincoln arrested Northerners who challenged the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson arrested Americans who challenged World War I. FDR arrested Americans he thought might not support World War II. LBJ and Richard Nixon used the FBI to harass hundreds whose anti-Vietnam protests frustrated them.

In our own post 9/11 era, the chief instrument of repression of personal freedom has been the government’s signature anti-terror legislation: the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act permits FBI agents to write their own search warrants and gives those warrants the patriotic and harmless-sounding name of national security letters (NSLs). This authorization is in direct violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which says that the people shall be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects from unreasonable searches and seizures, and that that security can only be violated by a search warrant issued by a neutral judge and based upon probable cause of crime.

To most libertarians, this is where we are today, where the government has successfully transitioned the US Empire to a static point where the “Land of the Free” is no more. However, there is yet another effort that has been made in the past five years or so to continue the transition towards a totalitarian state, and this one comes from the corporate side of Lincoln’s dream of mercantilism, where government and big corporations become two wings of the same bird.

– Murray Rothbard on Mercantilism

As Rod Dreher of Russian Insider indicates in this article, “A Russian Woman Working as a College Professor in the US Writes About the Sovietization of Amerika”, it seems that it is the former citizens of the old USSR are the most sensitized to this trend the most while typical Americans see this as no big deal, much like the Germans in 1930’s Germany as the Nazi’s came to power.

Clarissa [not her real name] is a college professor who emigrated to the US from Russia as a young woman, a few years after the fall of the Soviet Union. She is yet another ex-Soviet bloc person who is extremely anxious about the emergence of soft totalitarianism here. Of course she can’t use her real name, because she fears professional retaliation. It should tell us something that not a single academic from a former communist country that I interviewed for this book was willing to speak using their own name — this, in the Land of the Free. Why not? Because they were afraid of facing professional consequences for speaking out against identity politics and the “social justice” regime.

I am pretty sure if I were to chart out freedom in the USA, we are now at an all-time low as both the government and corporate America are actively seeking out dissenters to the latest narratives. The tools are in place to “take out” people professionally both in social media attacks:

Totalitarianism is something that takes away from people the unbearable burden of freedom. It allows many people to hound and persecute with impunity. That is pleasant in many senses. There was a practice in the Soviet Union where people would be told to get together in groups at work and write letters to the newspaper to denounce famous poets or artists. We see that today in Twitter. People love that because it allows a little person to completely destroy somebody who has done something great.

.. as well inside universities and corporations with diversity and sensitivity training in the workplaces:

All your co-workers are enemies. Either they can get you in trouble, or they are out to destroy you with an accusation. It destroys all sorts of uncontrollable communities – friendship, families, church communities. When you set people against each other, they are much easier to control. This is what it was like under totalitarianism.

So one might think I just need to be more careful about what I share in certain social circles. But that is not how this works, to see how any flavor of totalitarianism actually works, we need to learn from those who lived there:

… wokeness in corporate America is a weapon used by white-collar professionals to weed out competitors for increasingly scarce jobs. She said, “People find ideological purity tests useful to weed out people who compete for jobs you cover. Progressive forces are completely allied with globalist capitalism.”

She also said that people have no idea how vulnerable they are to this mindset, because of social media. “You will not be able to predict what will be held against you tomorrow. You have no idea what completely normal thing you do today, or say today, will be used against you to destroy you. This is what people in the Soviet Union saw. We know how this works. This is why people like me are so upset today.

One would think that at least the church might be a place where one can be real in this regard. Anyone who understands the 1st century church, it was the underground Christians in the Roman Empire that actually turned the then-known-world upside-down NOT with violence or revolution, but with love of their neighbor where .. :

[NOTE: It seems that true “diversity” does not focus on division based on race, sex or anything else. A true team sees each unique God-created individual as part of the crew that can help to keep the ship afloat.]

Well, a note of caution, most of the churches today, especially ones with government registration in place (501c3), are part of the corporate woke-ness effort underway in this country. Most of the church of today bears little resemblance to the church in the generation after Jesus was killed by religion and empire.

Until this trend is reversed, the ‘circle of trust’ is going to get mighty small. Take your time in knowing who your friends are, it is better to be lonely than to be a fresh target for either empire or corporate-elite.

Peace out

-SF1

Shale, Oil, Petro-Dollar and More – US Empire’s Strategic Future

In the grand scheme of things, and politicians and their masters, the elites, are always scheming, one has to wonder about the trajectory of the confederated united States of America (former British colonies in North America) –> United States of America (the republic) –> United States of America (the centralized federal government from Lincoln’s policies) –> the United States of America (democracy that embraced via 16th and 17th amendments to the US Constitution both federal income (direct) taxes on the people as well as popular election of senators vs. state appointed PLUS social security, the original welfare program and FDR’s decision to leave the gold standard) –> the US Empire that emerged post WWII that replaced the British Empire. Debts were still being paid by the nations that fought WWI and the Marshall Plan meant even more debt was to be incurred as a result of WWII for the US:

The UK/US effort with Middle East oil started in the late 1940s and early 1950s made it clear that the US imperialism was to be more covert and economic than the British effort. The CIA’s assassination of Iranian prime minister in 1953 signaled to the region that the US was dead serious about maintain control of oil production in the region to the US’s benefit.

By the 1970s, after the US totally severed all ties with the gold standard in 1971 under Nixon and his short-term efforts to deal with more war debt, this time from the Vietnam War, Henry Kissinger setup the petro-dollar system to enable the US to incur even more debt than ever before as an article from Southfront’s Dr. Leon Tressell points out:

The Petro-dollar system set up by Kissinger in the 1970s underpins the American control of the global trading system and allows it to maintain a massively over bloated military the scale of which the world has not seen since World War 2.

With this backdrop that articulates an empire’s trajectory, from federated sovereign states to a global superpower empire, one can only wonder how long the US can fake it until it makes it time and again before the petro-dollar magic wears off.

To help unpack what is really happening in the oil world, one has to understand the initial promises of shale, the technology that allowed both Obama and Trump to brag that the US is now a net exporter of oil production and to leverage this “bubble” (no pun intended) to strong arm other nations not on the US Empire’s dependents list.

President Trump’s abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposition of sanctions on Tehran was based on the premise that the drop in Iranian oil exports would be made up for by U.S. shale oil production. Thus keeping down any inflationary pressures on the global oil market.

While Iran is definitely in the empire’s crosshairs, so is Russia:

Trump has also used the stick to force Europe away from Russian gas supplies. Under the terms of the misnamed ‘Protecting Europe’s Energy Security Act of 2019, a sanctions law ironically written by oil and gas rich Texas Senator Ted Cruz,‘the U.S. has threatened EU countries with sanctions if they participate in helping with the construction of Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline under the Baltic sea.

The world’s bully continues to play cards like it has a full house, but it may be bluffing:

The EIA 2020 forecast is for shale oil production to peak in 2022 at 14 million barrels per day and continue at that level until 2050. The vast majority of this oil production is expected to come from the shale oil pays in just 3 states: Texas, New Mexico and North Dakota. The bulk of this oil production is expected to come from the world’s largest oil field in the Permian basin that runs across Texas and New Mexico.

There is the bluff. The US is treating shale like oil, and they are not the same. In the first half of the 1900s, oil wells put in place in this time-frame STILL makeup 50% of the global oil market. Shale is proving to have a much different curve:

The problem oil companies face is that the decline rate of shale oil wells are frighteningly rapid at a rate of 70% in the first year and 30% in the second year of operation. This means they have to keep pumping and drilling new wells like mad to just to keep up production levels.

Sounds like the EIA forecast may have been some “fake news”. Not cool.

Of greater concern are the reports warning that the Permian basin, the jewel in the crown of America’s fracking industry, is approaching peak production.

In 2018 Paul Kibsgaard CEO of Schlumberger, one of the oil industry’s largest service provider, warned, “We are already starting to see a similar reduction in unit well productivity to that already seen in the Eagle Ford, suggesting that the Permian growth potential could be lower than earlier expected.”

A respected scientist took the EIA projects and offered his own report:

David Hughes, a scientist who worked for 32 years with the Canadian Geological Survey, has carried out an exhaustive analysis of the EIA claims for U.S. shale production up to 2050. His 177 page report SHALE REALITY CHECK 2019 Drilling into the U.S. Government’s Optimistic Forecasts for Shale Gas & Tight Oil Production Through 2050 concludes that EIA forecasts through 2050 are,’extremely optimistic for the most part, and are therefore highly unlikely to be realized.’

This is not good news. This is the type of news the media will bury and the US government will ignore.

Maybe this is the reason Trump refuses to leave Syria’s eastern oil fields, or Iraq. Maybe this is why Trumps economic sanctions target Iran and Venezuela?

Oil production from countries that Washington designates as enemies, such as Russia, Iran and Venezuela, will increase in importance on the global market as U.S. shale oil production starts to decline. This will give greater power and influence to OPEC and Russia when it comes to determining oil prices through production cuts/increases.

Maybe this is also why Trump has actually stepped up the Middle East warfare, buy dropping more bombs per day than O-bomb-a and taking the additional aggressive step of threatening assassination of Iraqi politicians that might strike new deals with China for Iraqi oil:

Nations from Iraq to Saudi Arabia are developing trade and infrastructure relations with China which the United States takes strong exception to. Take for example, the recent bombshell admission by Iraq’s caretaker Prime Minister that Trump threatened him with assassination if Iraq proceeds with an oil for infrastructure project with China. In the first phase of this deal Iraq will send 100,00 barrels of oil to China in return for a $10 billion credit. China would finish the building of the country’s electricity grid and other major infrastructure projects including its vital oil and gas sector.

A desperate empire/bully is no fun to be around, as someone is going to get hurt economically or with low yield nukes that are being placed on US Navy submarines.

Dr. Tressell wraps up by stating:

As U.S. shale oil production declines it will seek to maintain control over the regions oil production. China’s desire for growing amounts of Middle Eastern oil will intensify this clash for resources, influence and power in the region. Thus leading to greater geo-political and economic conflict.

So basically, for three decades, since the Cold War with the USSR ended, the USA has destabilized the Middle East, and now, blow-back will be a real thing and not just a CIA projection. The War of Terror costing $6T may have spawned a new season of global conflict.

So the US is in a “pre-War” period and we are already $23T(2020) in debt, usually all that debt piles up AFTER a war. This can’t end well especially if the petro-dollar status slips away.

So now what?

“… Jesus then left the Temple. As he walked away, his disciples pointed out how very impressive the Temple architecture was. Jesus said, “You’re not impressed by all this sheer size, are you? The truth of the matter is that there’s not a stone in that building that is not going to end up in a pile of rubble.” Later as he was sitting on Mount Olives, his disciples approached and asked him, “Tell us, when are these things going to happen? What will be the sign of your coming, that the time’s up?” Jesus said, “Watch out for doomsday deceivers. Many leaders are going to show up with forged identities, claiming, ‘I am Christ, the Messiah.’ They will deceive a lot of people. When reports come in of wars and rumored wars, keep your head and don’t panic. This is routine history; this is no sign of the end. Nation will fight nation and ruler fight ruler, over and over. Famines and earthquakes will occur in various places. This is nothing compared to what is coming…” – The Bible (The Message paraphrase) – Matthew 24:1-8

This might be another world war, or this might be a more final clash ..

“.. Staying with it—that’s what God requires. Stay with it to the end. You won’t be sorry, and you’ll be saved. All during this time, the good news—the Message of the kingdom—will be preached all over the world, a witness staked out in every country. And then the end will come…” The Bible (The Message paraphrase) – Matthew 24:13,14

One day at a time people .. stay the course!

-SF1

Safe Place: When a Nation is Triggered in Thinking National Security is at Risk

Whether it be a nation or an empire, leaders always know that the fear card can produce unity and an excuse to utilize totalitarian measures against their own people, and the masses will love it, because the feels.

In reading about why the CIA and FBI saw threats with both JFK’s and MLK’s trajectories. Jacob Hornberger states:

Why did they target Kennedy? For the same reason they targeted all those other people for assassination — they concluded that Kennedy had become a grave threat to national security and, they believed, it was their job to eliminate threats to national security.

It has to sound familiar, especially over the past few years and the Russian threats due to Trump’s ‘friendly’ attitude to Russia (as he ramps up the sanctions, sending missiles to bases in Syria that Russian troops are based, etc.). Give me a break.

Although the article specifically attributes these actions as starting after WWII as the OSS operations were then made permanent by Truman’s creation of the CIA, the very psychological mechanism of fear has been a real thing in America since the colonial days.

It was the fear of American Indian raids that had independent and autonomous farmers in the colonies agree to pay takes to raise an army to remove those threats. It was the fear of a free trade zone in the southern United States in 1861 that prompted the northern politicians to “put down the insurrection” in a way that forever altered the US government to be highly centralized and a source of significant tyranny. Many southern states were subject to 12 years of military rule that not only wrecked the south economically, but revealed the desperate measures this totalitarian US government would take to keep itself “safe”.

By the 1890s this fear extended to the world for the US government, using the USS Maine incident in Havana harbor to make war with the failing Spanish Empire and seize lands around the world. By 1918, the progressive thought that the US was to be a power for “good” in this world, to keep the world safe made the people accept that sending millions of men overseas to die in France in WWI “worth it all”. Even Franklin Roosevelt knew that the end game of war was the only way to maintain his and his political party’s power, and used deceptive embargoes and tariffs to manipulate the Japanese Empire to lash out predictably allowing the US to enter WWII.

It was after this war that included the US immorally using nuclear bombs against primarily civilian populations that had little strategic military value that the US added yet another immoral weapon in their suite of tools to keep the world safe for democracy. Assassination. How totalitarian, how Communist!

The US using tactics that their “evil” enemies use are ever apparent these days when it can be argued that the US is the largest exporter of terrorism in the 21st century. It is no accident that securing the largest opium producing area in the world to secretly fund the CIA might be what keeps the politicians in line, with drug money ..

But I digress.

I guess the point of all this is to show how the US has developed into the very totalitarian state that it was fighting against in WWII. In Jacob’s article it points out that the way the nation/empire fights abroad always comes home. The domestic “fight” to retain power will start to use tactics that were only used in “war” or in classified CIA operations:

State-sponsored assassinations to protect national security were among the dark-side practices that began to be utilized after the federal government was converted into a national-security state. As early as 1953, the CIA was developing a formal assassination manual that trained its agents in the art of assassination and, equally important, in the art of concealing the CIA’s role in state-sponsored assassinations.

In 1954, the CIA targeted the democratically elected president of Guatemala for assassination because he was reaching out to Russia in a spirt of peace, friendship, and mutual co-existence. In 1960-61, the CIA conspired to assassinate Patrice Lumumba, the head of the Congo because he was perceived to be a threat to U.S. national security.

So inside of a decade, the CIA developed the tools that the FBI could assist them with in these domestic threats ..

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy achieved a breakthrough that enabled him to recognize that the Cold War was just one great big racket for the national-security establishment and its army of “defense” contractors and sub-contractors.

That’s when JFK announced an end to the Cold War and began reaching out to the Soviets and the Cubans in a spirit of peace, friendship, and mutual coexistence. Kennedy’s Peace Speech at American University on June 10, 1963, where he announced his intent to end the Cold War and normalize relations with the communist world, sealed President Kennedy’s fate.

This deep state action over 50 years ago has served to keep a reign on US presidents ever since. This also was extended to other leaders that threatened the deep state:

… one day after his Peace Speech at American University, Kennedy delivered a major televised address to the nation defending the civil rights movement, the movement that King was leading.

What better proof of a threat to national security than that — reaching out to the communist world in peace and friendship and then, one day later, defending a movement that the U.S. national-security establishment was convinced was a spearhead for the communist takeover of the United States?

You now know why US media is the lapdog for deep state propaganda, to keep the narrative alive that the US is perpetually fighting terror and fighting to keep itself and the world safe while the US government has developed a ..:

… totalitarian-like governmental structure that has led our nation in the direction of state-sponsored assassinations, torture, invasions, occupations, wars of aggression, coups, alliances with dictatorial regimes, sanctions, embargoes, regime-change operations, and massive death, suffering, and destruction, not to mention the loss of liberty and privacy here at home.

No one should be surprised here in 2020 when we can see clearly how things are done, especially with Soleimani’s assassination.

The US has evolved into the very thing it was created to avoid.

The illusion of safety remains, but the reality of despotism is already here.

-SF1

When Desperation Demands a Plan “E” – What a Coup Can Do for You

I am a detail guy, so sometimes I get lost in the rabbit trails just 50 foot above the tree line doing my CSI work, but then there is something that demands that I soar to 10,000 foot or more to get a handle on the big picture. I wonder is that is what is behind the saying ‘can’t see the forest for the trees’?

Retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. has an article on Lew Rockwell today that helped me see the big picture. While I want to be aware of the details of life (micro and macro, local/state/national and global) I also do not want to be caught off guard by the trends.

Karen offers that there have been four major efforts so far in the coup that has split DC in two and a fifth effort that is already underway:

  • If the predictable election of 2016 fails to deliver the controllable neoconservative president,
  • if a pseudo-McCarthyite campaign against an economically recovering and energy-independent Russia fails again,
  • if putting your own guys in the National Security Council also fails, and
  • if an impeachment seems likewise doomed to peter out, what do you have left?

If you are a war-whoring, petrodollar-preserving, rapture-ready, neoconservative globalist…. well, you’re in luck!

  • President Pence is ready to step in.

Yes, the war party, the CIA/FBI/Deep State, a majority of Republicans and Democrats, the MIC , many evangelical Christians and all those that hate peace are aligned as never before. Their collective effort is focused to:

… stop Trump’s early promises to put America first, bring our troops home, secure borders, and spend the American taxpayer bounty on American production and infrastructure – have paved the way for a wholesale public acceptance of the neoconservative agenda.

If you doubt that these state-centric actors just happen to be able to align the stars and have MSM mimic its very words .. consider just one element of the apparatus that is a parasite to this country:

The CIA, now nearly 80 years old, has become a global power, with global influence. It should surprise no one that the CIA is also a major influence over US territory, the US Government, and the very opinions and perspectives of the average US citizen.  Media and entertainment, technology and communications, access to cash, total information awareness of our money, movements, thoughts and speech, with the complete opacity of its own budget and actions – all of this this is part of the CIA’s mission today.  If you thought it was just other country’s riots, assassinations and regime changes, you are behind the times.

Talk about power and influence .. and a whole lot of sociopaths all rolled into one, these people and this collective will not be going away any time soon, and they are not susceptible to the results of elections either (like anything is) .. but I digress.

Now about VP Mike Pence as a hedge to keep things status-quo back home in the old USA:

Mike Pence was a predictable vice-presidential choice.  A nondescript statist, evangelical “good” man, he served his role as a non-threatening, mildly competent second.  He would also be a fourth or fifth tier hedge against the uncontrollable populist and hearty sinner Donald Trump, a man who had never won an election in his life before 2016.  The CIA has decades of experience in choosing presidents, and vice presidents, manipulating both campaigns and popular opinion, creating crises on demand, and surveilling citizens and parties and candidates – in other countries.  The unexpected spontaneous and massive patriotic crowds convening for Trump throughout the 2016 campaign alone must have told the CIA what was written on the wall.  Even with then CIA Director Brennan’s assistance, and that of the FBI, Hillary couldn’t catch the imagination of voters, or bring them out to see her preach, even when she spoke in our native accents.

While Trump has been elusive enough combating the first four efforts listed above, there has been damage to what he can actually impact that would bring him anywhere close to what he promised on the election path:

In these four failures to bring down Trump, the deep state/CIA alliance has indeed achieved much, and won much. Trump has been constrained in his efforts to fulfill his most popular domestic initiatives, while the continued direct and indirect attacks on him in the mainstream, left-leaning “independent” and government media have worn down his popular support. Independents and libertarians who may have leaned Trumpward have all but peeled away and are looking at other parties and candidates. NeverTrumpers already favored Pence, and that was a major reason for his inclusion on the 2016 ticket. Troop deployments, Pentagon funding and interventionist wars have all been reignited.  The Federal Reserve, once a Trump target, is enthusiastically burning up the printing presses, with very little mainstream discussion and with Trump applauding, not auditing.  The upcoming nuclear destruction of Iran and the unleashing of a long wave of war and terror is just around the corner.

So if you are the CIA, you can’t just duplicate what you did in the 1950s (assassinate Iran’s elected president) or in the 1960s (rub out JFK who threatened to splinter the CIA into the wind) you have to get innovative:

Who will best serve the deep state/CIA/petrodollar empire in November 2020 and beyond? Trump, if he lives long enough will be re-elected by actual voters, and as a lame duck he may prove difficult. The Democratic field is split between reliable lackeys and unreliable ones, and while wars may be ensured, there’s nothing the CIA hates more than unpredictability. What to do with the gift of four failed domestic operations against Trump?

The answer is, devise a health event (mental or physical or both) that results in a sitting President Pence just in time for a reasonably short campaign, in a time of war, against an uninspiring array of old white man from a divided opposition party.

Plan E. This is the last resort the CIA has available up its sleeve. The common person on the street sees Trump and Pence as one in the same. Nothing could be further from the truth. I really hope we do not see the day when Pence is president, like Hillary, their view is the more war around the world, the better.

So how does this play into the incredible events of the last week when the US executive branch can just go drone a military leader of another country that we are not even “legally” at war with? You have to know the back story that MSM fails in their journalism to provide the American public:

… career operational CIA Gina “Chemical” Haspel and her sidekick, former 30-year CIA man, evidence destroyer, fellow torturer, and current CIA contractor Jose Rodriguez are already spending more time briefing and conspiring with Mike Pence than Donald Trump ..

There you go. When your VP starts to be involved in things without you, you have to know that something is up. In my mind, Trump has his hands full and has enemies at every turn. The only things that holds him back is:

  1. self-preservation (he knows the story of JFK)
  2. brainwashing (with neo-cons 360, he readily comes under their influence in time)

We have seen this full on with the decision to drone murder an Iranian general on a peace mission in Iraq and the Iraqi general host:

His manipulation into the assassination of Kassem Soleimani, who after defeating the stated US enemy ISIS in the region, was a messenger and architect of a detente in his last visit to Baghdad, but also representing another step away from the petrodollar, was pure CIA textbook.  Tell him what you want (true or not), nurture a sense of urgency, and know your target in order to psychologically manipulate him.

So like a tragic play, here we are on 11JAN2020 where Trump’s week ahead involves impeachment proceedings. I am sure that there is plenty of stress .. so …

… if Trump takes a break or sees a doctor now, our public suspicions of mental and physical incompetence are 100% confirmed, and we “expect” his imminent decline from the stage. The “surprise” strike on Soleimani has given the Senate a new “Constitutional” reason to be angry with Trump, so it improves the chances of a serious trial, and even removal from office. It’s a win-win because even if not removed, the Senate trial, and Trump’s predictable reaction to it, will serve to explain away a stroke, embolism, heart attack, or mental breakdown, all leading to a welcome peacefulness and stability of an ascendant Mike Pence.

Just know that Karen’s last line was pure sarcasm. I guess all us veterans have this baked into our character as a result of our experiences.

I am not a fan of Pence as you probably can tell. A dangerous man because he fully buys into the zeal, passion and noble cause to usher in the “End Times” on an express lane.

Pence, an evangelical neoconservative who deserves to be President as it is surely God’s Will, will also need support from his deep state friends Gina Haspel and Mike Pompeo. He will have it in spades. The warfare-welfare empire is saved for another day.

The anticipated fallout of a Pence presidency:

Property values will continue to rise in the five counties surrounding D.C., Americans will continue to get poorer and angrier, and in their frustration and fear, many will even demand more state assistance, and probably a draft. A new kind of draft, whereby soldiers can “earn” student loan debt relief, and the like. Socialism, American-style, who can oppose that? What fun we can expect under a Pence presidency, and I give him a second and maybe even a third term.

This is not said to scare anyone, just a reality check on what kind of America to expect in the 2020s with someone like Pence (or Hillary) driving.

It is my grand-kids who I would weep for, another generation of cannon fodder for the war party elite to use and abuse.

When will this cycle ever stop?

-SF1

2020: We Can See Clearly Now

Yes, thanks to a “slight” miscalculation on the part of the US Empire, I think many people will wake up to the fact of what has been coming down for 40 years in the Middle East.

Before this era, there was little terrorism while there were a couple of world wars. Which do you prefer? Personally, I prefer none, not for me mind you, but for my kids and my grand-kids I prefer peace.

The “slight” miscalculation is highlighted in this article that rightly makes prominent what most of MSM (no surprise there) and most people are missing:

The US did not plan to kill the vice commander of the Iraqi Hashd al-Shaabi brigade Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes when it assassinated Iranian Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani on Thursday at 11:00 PM local time at Baghdad airport. Usually, when Soleimani was arriving in Baghdad, security commander Abu Zeinab al-Lami, a deputy officer to al Muhandes, would have welcomed him. This time, al-Lami was outside Iraq and al-Muhandes replaced him. The US plan was to assassinate an Iranian General on Iraqi soil, not to kill a high-ranking Iraqi officer. By killing al-Muhandes, the US violated its treaty obligation to respect the sovereignty of Iraq and to limit its activity to training and offering intelligence to fight the “Islamic State”, ISIS. It has also violated its commitment to refrain from overflying Iraq without permission of the Iraqi authorities.

As the article states, the US and Iraq are both embarrassed by this turn of events that unmasks the US Empire’s true intentions, on behalf of Israel. This has coalesced most of the various militias in the region (except ISIS of course, sponsored by US, Israel and Saudi Arabia) and has now linked former enemies Iraq and Iran to have common ground. It will be interesting the uptake of this outside the region as Russia and China, along with Syria find each others as friends with a common enemy, especially with all the trade sanctions and tariffs that the US has instigated. I am thinking too that the European “coalition” days are numbered as what nation in Europe will side with the US Empire at this point?

So is the US Empire at the 1775 point of the British Empire? An unmasked  and revealed belligerent imperialist force for bad verses American Exceptionalism, a Global Force for Good. Time will tell.

I am pretty sure that with Brexit, and with Trump’s blunder on Iraqi soil, we will all see much clearer in 2020. As more and more people distrust huge government, distrust its partner in crime, the media, there will be all sorts of things that can be revealed in this new year.

One thing I do want to draw attention to is the difference in character between the typical US politician and the man (i.e. labeled a bad guy by Trump) that was murdered after a non-private commercial flight from Damascus, Syria to Baghdad, Iraq:

Soleimani’s handwritten will: “My wife, I have chosen my burial place in the cemetery of the Martyrs of Kerman, Mahmoud knows it. I want my gravestone to be simple. Just write ‘Soldier Qassem Soleimani’ no more titles and phrases.”

Quite the difference, no?

Interesting days to come .. enjoy each day and the blessings that God the Creator has blessed us with in the midst of “wars and rumors of wars” – Jesus in Matthew 24:6.

Hug your kids, your grand-kids and good friends!

I can see clearly now the rain is gone
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

Oh, yes I can make it now the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright)
Bright (bright) sunshiny day

(Ooh…) Look all around, there’s nothing but blue skies
Look straight ahead, there’s nothing but blue skies

-SF1