The Environment and Cancer Research Foundation (ECRF) reported three incidents of otherwise healthy people developing microwave syndrome after 5G towers were installed near their homes or places of work. Microwave syndrome is a condition that can occur when people are exposed to high levels of electromagnetic radiation. These radiations operate at a frequency of 300 MHz to 300 GHz and, as the Annals of Clinical and Medical Case Reports noted, there is “no previous research on possible negative effects on human health and the environment.”
One study from October 2022 did expose rats to 5G radiation of 3.5 GHz for only two hours a day, five days a week, for one month. They dissected the brain tissue of the test subjects and found notable changes. “Our results indicate that 3.5 GHz RFR causes changes in the energy metabolism and appetite of both healthy and diabetic rats. Thus, 5 G may not be innocent in terms of its biological effects, especially in the presence of diabetes.” The rats also experienced decreased irisin levels (a hormone correlated with weight loss and cognition) and their brain neurons began degenerating in the hippocampus region of the brain, which is responsible for memory.
The harmful effects of 5G have not been exposed; it has been labeled a “conspiracy theory” so that no one questions what this radiation is doing to our bodies. The American Cancer Society even admitted in 2020 that 5G towers may have side effects, but they were not sure. “Most expert organizations agree that more research is needed to help clarify this, especially for any possible long-term effects,” the society concluded. The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), part of the World Health Organization, admitted in 2011 that 5G towers were “possibly carcinogenic to humans.”
We know these towers have the potential to cause harm but no agency is seriously looking into the consequences. There are organizations, however, without a large platform that are attempting to ask governments to assess the dangers of these networks. We do know these towers are putting out dangerous levels of radiation, but per usual, we are the test subjects will not know the repercussions until it is too late.
Posted originally on the CTH on May 2, 2023 | Sundance
Gifted singer, songwriter and the connective thread that runs through the memories of our lives, Gordon Lightfoot, has died. He was 84.
A gifted Canadian artist from ordinary means, Mr. Lightfoot’s hits include, “If You Could Read My Mind,” “Early Morning Rain,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” and “Sundown,” which reached No. 1 on the Billboard charts in 1974.
“Sometimes I wonder why I’m being called an icon, because I really don’t think of myself that way,” Mr. Lightfoot told The Globe and Mail in 2008. “I’m a professional musician, and I work with very professional people. It’s how we get through life.” (NYT)
One of his great song lines, …”the hero would be me, but heroes often fail.” Gordon Lightfoot’s songs are sprinkled throughout multiple links in the chain of our lives. Each song reminding us of our memory attached to the moments of it. This passing hits a little harder.
Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance
Despite no one knowing ‘how’ Jeffrey Epstein actually made his money, one of the great mysteries amid a labyrinth of rabbit hole mysteries, the network of government officials and high-profile names who associated with and met Epstein has never been fully outlined or absorbed.
Other than a few random and specific names that surface from time-to-time, the lack of media curiosity into the bigger context of the Epstein story has always been somewhat perplexing. One would ordinarily think the opportunity for a Pulitzer might entice an intrepid media outlet to do a lengthy dive into the matrix of Epstein; alas, no effort toward that objective ever surfaced.
Today, another fragment in the story seemingly finds its way to the surface as the Wall Street Journal outlines a list of names that were not included in the “black book” story, but nonetheless were intertwined with Epstein *after* his first conviction as a sex offender [STORY HERE].
Two of the names within documents, schedules and calendars attributed to the Epstein life include current CIA Director Bill Burns and former White House lawyer Kathryn Ruemmler. In addition to being the White House legal counsel, Ms. Ruemmer was also the foundation lawyer for Bill and Hillary Clinton as well as the personal lawyer for Susan Rice.
(Wall St Journal) – The nation’s spy chief, a longtime college president and top women in finance. The circle of people who associated with Jeffrey Epstein years after he was a convicted sex offender is wider than previously reported, according to a trove of documents that include his schedules.
William Burns, director of the Central Intelligence Agency since 2021, had three meetings scheduled with Epstein in 2014, when he was deputy secretary of state, the documents show. They first met in Washington and then Mr. Burns visited Epstein’s townhouse in Manhattan.
Kathryn Ruemmler, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, had dozens of meetings with Epstein in the years after her White House service and before she became a top lawyer at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in 2020. He also planned for her to join a 2015 trip to Paris and a 2017 visit to Epstein’s private island in the Caribbean.
[…] The documents show that Epstein arranged multiple meetings with each of them after he had served jail time in 2008 for a sex crime involving a teenage girl and was registered as a sex offender. The documents, which include thousands of pages of emails and schedules from 2013 to 2017, haven’t been previously reported.
[…] Mr. Burns met with Epstein about a decade ago as he was preparing to leave government service, said CIA spokeswoman Tammy Kupperman Thorp. “The director did not know anything about him, other than that he was introduced as an expert in the financial services sector and offered general advice on transition to the private sector,” she said. “They had no relationship.”
Ms. Ruemmler had a professional relationship with Epstein in connection with her role at law firm Latham & Watkins LLP and didn’t travel with him, a Goldman Sachs spokesman said. Epstein introduced her to potential legal clients, such as Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates, the spokesman said. “I regret ever knowing Jeffrey Epstein,” Ms. Ruemmler said.
A spokeswoman for Latham & Watkins said Epstein wasn’t a client of the firm.
[…] Mr. Burns, 67 years old, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Russia, had meetings with Epstein in 2014 when Mr. Burns was deputy secretary of state.
A lunch was planned that August at the office of law firm Steptoe & Johnson in Washington. Epstein scheduled two evening appointments that September with Mr. Burns at his townhouse, the documents show. After one of the scheduled meetings, Epstein planned for his driver to take Mr. Burns to the airport.
Mr. Burns recalls being introduced in Washington by a mutual friend, and meeting Epstein once briefly in New York, said Ms. Thorp. “The director does not recall any further contact, including receiving a ride to the airport,” she said.
The following month, October 2014, Mr. Burns stepped down from his role at the State Department to serve as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a think tank. He ran the Carnegie Endowment until he was nominated in early 2021 by President Biden to serve as CIA director.
The documents show that Epstein appeared to know some of his guests well. He asked for avocado sushi rolls to be on hand when meeting with Ms. Ruemmler, according to the documents. He visited apartments she was considering buying. In October 2014, Epstein knew her travel plans and told an assistant to look into her flight. “See if there is a first class seat,” he wrote, “if so upgrade her.”
[…] Epstein and his staff discussed whether Ms. Ruemmler, now 52, would be uncomfortable with the presence of young women who worked as assistants and staffers at the townhouse, the documents show. Women emailed Epstein on two occasions to ask if they should avoid the home while Ms. Ruemmler was there. Epstein told one of the women he didn’t want her around, and another that it wasn’t a problem, the documents show.
Ms. Ruemmler didn’t see anything that would lead her to be concerned at the townhouse and didn’t express any concern, the Goldman spokesman said.
[…] Over the next few years, Ms. Ruemmler, then a partner specializing in white-collar defense at Latham & Watkins, had more than three dozen appointments with Epstein, including for lunches and dinners.
“In the normal course, Epstein also invited her to meetings and social gatherings, introduced her to other business contacts and made referrals,” the Goldman spokesman said. “It was the same kinds of contacts and engagements she had with other contacts and clients.”
In 2015, she was scheduled to fly with Epstein to Paris and in 2017 he planned to stop in St. Lucia to take her to his island home in the U.S. Virgin Islands for the day, according to the documents. (read more)
Sketchy… All of it!
Dirty people, working amid a system that trades dirt as currency…
Posted originally on the CTH on April 30, 2023 | Sundance
As I am sometimes able to do, today I printed the prayer thread and took it with me. I light what grandma always called ‘my Jesus candle‘, sit still, then walk quietly through each prayer and request with pause and deliberation.
As I generally do, I also add my own prayers targeting a turmoil that is less specific. There is bludgeoning in the world; there is also manipulation, deception and ultimately evil. I do not like it; I am repulsed by it; and like you I choose to oppose it in every way I am able. This is our ultimate zero-sum battle.
The task completed, I also pondered the changes of the past seven months that surround me. The physical landscape where my youth unfolded, forever changed – much of it erased completely. Then suddenly, for some unknown reason, a thought occurred:
If God told me a secret today that I was not permitted to share; a secret that today was my last day and yet I could not reveal that knowledge, what would I do?
There is a particular clarity of life, a clarity to purpose, that seemingly happens when we put a clock on our endeavors.
Generally, we ignore the clock, abiding to life is much easier that way, and, truthfully, I do not believe there is value focusing on something we do not control. However, while we do not control the countdown – we do control every choice we make within it. Thus, the question holds merit, ‘What would I do?‘
If we accept that we can create something, perhaps make it just a little bit better by making a choice, then we have accomplished something; perhaps much bigger than we imagine. It is a fundamental truth in life that if we change the way we look at something, then what we look at changes.
We always have choices.
I have long felt that life is like a series of links in a chain. You might be driving down the road and you hear a song on the radio, or see a picture, and you feel a memory….
Something triggers within you that reminds of a different time and place than where you are right now.
You reflect.
The memories you consider remind you of a totally different time in your life.
Perhaps you lived in a different place. Perhaps you were surrounded by different people. Perhaps a different job or completely different friends. You recognize those memories were constructed like frozen moments in time. They became individual links in the chain in your life.
We never actually realize, in the immediate moment, when one link closes and another link begins. But when we look back, we can clearly see distinct points where things changed, the link closed, and a new link began.
You see, the links are only visible in reflection.
As we reflect, we find parts of the chain in our life where each link closes and connects with the other. A beginning, and an end. At the point where the links are joined, we carry parts of the previous link forward to the next.
For many people those connections are bonded by family, or very strong lifelong relationships. Connections which continue beyond our geographic moments, jobs or temporary acquaintances.
But for everyone, the primary bonding agent brought forward from one link to the next is us, our center, our values and core principles. Our beliefs.
The strength of the steel which comprises the links of our life is forged in the fire of adversity, weakness, challenge, pain, loss, and painful growth. The steel is then cooled with the tears of triumph, hurdles overcome and resolve.
The forging makes the steel stronger and able to withstand the pressures that accompany the additional length. Slowly the chain becomes wiser as it lengthens. Able to reach further, form more significant benefits and become more useful.
Hope replaces fear. Love replaces loneliness. Success replaces adversity. These are successful links began and finished while contributing to the whole.
At times we may manipulate the links with avoidance. We hide from -or choose to avoid- an issue in our effort to begin a new link before the old one was naturally, and spiritually, prepared to be closed.
Eventually, as life continues and the chain lengthens, the weak link can fracture, and we are forced to revisit/repair what we originally chose to avoid.
You see, in life we cannot control the universal laws that guide us. So, if we manipulate circumstances to avoid confronting our own weakness, we cannot fully strengthen our life of links. Eventually, the weakness of our past will impact our future.
So, what principles do we carry from link to link? What core values and beliefs stay with us throughout the journey of our lives? The answers to these questions are what makes us human spiritual beings.
We possess freewill able to make choices about what we do, and how we define our individual humanity; but can we then define ’right’ and ‘wrong’ according to our individual principles? Or are there principles that exceed our influence and definition?
Are there natural laws of right and wrong, good and bad, that cannot be subjected to the determination of man?
These are the bigger questions, perhaps the more important questions; and yet, perhaps the ones we reflect upon the least.
Consider the example of the ‘Law of the farm’ vs. the ‘Law of the School’. Natural principles vs. those made by man.
A student can skip class, take few notes, pay only half attention, then stay up all night cramming for a test and manage a decent grade. It depends on the student’s goal: grades or learning.
The student can choose to manipulate the education, by avoiding the learning and capturing the grade. This is possible in the ‘Law of the School’.
However, a farmer cannot take short cuts. A farmer cannot avoid tending to the soil, preparing the seed, fertilizing and nurturing the crop, and still gain the benefit of an abundant harvest.
The farmer must necessarily do all of the appropriate work in order to benefit from it. Such is the ‘Law of the Farm’, the natural law.
When one considers the weakness remaining within a poorly constructed and manipulated link, perhaps established by selfish choices and driven by avoidance and fear, one can be faithfully assured those who have dealt dishonestly with us will have to visit the issues of their association again.
Conversely, no amount of manipulation or avoidance on our own behalf is going to improve the frailty of any link without first resolving the lack of character which created the weakness.
So, we have choices in our lives. Decisions we each make regarding how we interact and participate in the lives and links of others, as well as how we choose to construct the links that comprise our own lives.
Do we base our sense of purpose around natural principles? Principles based on natural laws of right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies. Do we forge strong links by following our heart, our values?
If we can interact with others absent of a prideful self-driven agenda, or manipulative intent, we can then apply such principles and strength to our endeavors.
If we protect the integrity of the soil upon which we build the foundation of our lives, we can live without regret.
If we fertilize and cherish our crop, and the crop of our neighbor, with honesty and sincere appreciation for the souls we meet along our chosen path, we will live a life of abundance.
If we tend carefully to the consideration of everyone, yet holding true to our values and principles, we can strengthen ourselves amid the face of adversity and disenchantment.
If we do not hide from, nor ignore our individual and collective faults, we can build the chain of our life with strength, humility, and purpose.
This context returns me to my original thought:
…If God told me a secret today that I was not permitted to share; a secret that today was my last day and yet I could not reveal that knowledge, what would I do?
I realized I would want to SHOUT a message.
I would want each of you to know how much I cherish and appreciate you.
I would want you, the specific and unique person reading this message, to know that you matter in this grand experience of life.
I would want you to know at the essential core and fiber of your being, that you are of great value to those around you; that you have given more than you have taken; that you have deposited far more than you could ever withdraw.
I would want every intersection of my life to know that I am thankful, blessed and overwhelmed with gratitude.
If today was my last day, I would want to send this message with great deliberateness, urgency and love…. And so I have!
Today is not our last day, but I thank our God for this reminder. Act like it might be!
Abiding love to all.
Steadfast,
~ Sundance
.
…”Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference”.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 27, 2023 | Sundance
The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their first quarter estimate of economic growth [DATA HERE] and the result of 1.1% growth shows how the U.S. economy has become dependent on government spending money we don’t have. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculation is a valuation of all goods and services created within the U.S. economy, minus the value of goods and services imported.
Keep in mind that all calculations are in dollar terms. Personal consumption expenditure (PCE) prices increased 4.2% in the first quarter after increasing 3.7% in the fourth quarter. Excluding food and energy, the PCE “core” price index increased 4.9% after increasing 4.4%. Two-thirds of the increased spending on goods was driven by higher prices, only one third by consumers purchasing more stuff.
Looking at Table 2 (the percentage change by sector) the increase in prices provided 2.48% lift to the GDP but the actual purchasing of goods only delivered 1.45%. Meanwhile the decline in inventories subtracted 2.26% from the GDP, a major factor, and domestic investment has dropped subtracting 2.34%.
Government expenditures (+0.81) drove more than 70% of the total GDP growth as national defense spending (Ukraine War) was a major federal component. The local and state government spending increase was driven by higher wage rates. Don’t forget there’s $2.2 trillion in Inflation Reduction Act (Green New Deal) spending that is also within the economy.
Overall, this is a dark picture. Inflation is still raging. Inventories are dropping as consumer purchasing is squeezed, and replacements goods are not being manufactured. Companies are tightening their belts. The federal government is spending to try and assist the economy, but the private sector is contracting economic activity.
When households evaluate their checkbooks, a Biden administration claim of a growing economy falls flat – because the only part of the economy that is growing is the part that fuels the energy and security needs of Europe. Main Street USA is suffering through the massive inflation that Joe Biden has created, and purchases of anything other than necessities have come to a near halt.
Posted originally on the CTH on April 12, 2023 | Sundance
Tucker Carlson played the full interview excerpt where President Donald Trump answered the question about who blew up the Nordstream pipeline. {Direct Rumble Link}. Within the answer, President Trump doesn’t want to undermine the Biden administration, yet we know who was responsible.
What you notice again from the totality of President Trump’s responses and worldview is the unique nature of the honesty. In the most consequential of ways, President Trump was the single most consequential foreign policy president in a generation. We forget that during Trump’s term in office, the headlines about North and South Korea were not about conflict, but rather about the possibility of unification on the Korean peninsula.
Two large elements played out when Trump was in office. First, economic security is national security. Second, “peace is the prize.” Through both elements the Trump Doctrine was born and the effectiveness, while downplayed and ignored, was unmistakable. WATCH:
President Trump executed a clear foreign policy, a unique doctrine of sorts, where national security is achieved by leveraging U.S. economic power. It was a fundamental shift in approaching both allies and adversaries; summarized within the oft repeated phrase: “economic security is national security.”
The Trump Doctrine of using economics to achieve national security objectives was a fundamental paradigm shift. Modern U.S. history provided no easy reference for the effective outcome.
The nature of the Trump foreign policy doctrine, as it became visible, was to hold manipulative influence agents accountable for regional impact(s); and simultaneously work to stop any corrupted influence from oppressing free expression of national values held by the subservient, dis-empowered, people within the nation being influenced.
There were clear examples of this doctrine at work. When President Trump first visited the Middle East, he confronted the international audience with a message about dealing with extremist influence agents. President Trump simply said: “drive them out.”
Toward that end, as Qatar was identified as a financier of extremist ideology, President Trump placed the goal of confrontation upon the Gulf Cooperation Council, not the U.S.
The U.S. role was clearly outlined as supporting the confrontation. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates needed to confront the toxic regional influence; the U.S. would support their objective. That’s what happened.
Another example: To confront the extremism creating the turmoil in Afghanistan, President Trump placed the burden of bringing the Taliban to the table of governance upon primary influence agent Pakistan.
Here again, with U.S. support. Pakistan was the leading influence agent over the Taliban in Afghanistan; the Trump administration correctly established the responsibility and gave clear expectations for U.S. support.
If Pakistan doesn’t change their influence objective toward a more constructive alignment with a nationally representative Afghanistan government, it was Pakistan who will be held accountable.
Again, the correct and effective appropriation of responsibility upon the influence agent who can initiate the solution, Pakistan.
The process of accurate regional assignment of influence comes with disconcerting sunlight. Often these influences are not discussed openly. However, for President Trump the lack of honesty is only a crutch to continue enabling poor actors. This is a consistent theme throughout all of President Trump’s foreign policy engagements.
The European Union is a collective co-dependent enabler to the corrupt influences of Iran. Therefore, the assignment of responsibility to change the status was placed upon the EU.
The U.S. would fully support the EU effort, but as seen in the withdrawal from the Iran Deal, President Trump would not enable growth of toxic behavior. The U.S. stands with the people of Iran, but the U.S. will not support the enabling of Iranian oppression, terrorism and/or dangerous military expansion that will ultimately destabilize the region.
President Trump made the policy clear, then held the EU accountable for helping to influence change. Again, we saw the Trump Doctrine at work.
Perhaps the most obvious application of the Trump Doctrine was found in how the U.S. administration approached the challenging behavior of North Korea. Rather than continuing a decades-long policy of ignoring the influence of China, President Trump directly assigned primary responsibility for a DPRK reset to Beijing.
China held, and holds, all influence upon North Korea and has long treated the DPRK as a proxy province to do the bidding of Beijing’s communist old guard.
By directly confronting the influence agent and admitting openly for the world to see (albeit with jaw-dropping tactical sanction diplomacy) President Trump positioned the U.S. to support a peace objective on the entire Korean peninsula and simultaneously forced China to openly display their closely guarded influence.
While the Red Dragon -vs- Panda influence dynamic was quietly playing out in the background, the benefit of this new and strategic approach brought the possibility of peace between the two Koreas’ closer than ever in history.
No longer was it outlandish to think of North Korea joining with the rest of the world in achieving a better quality of life for its people.
Not only was President Trump openly sharing a willingness to engage in a new and dynamic future for North Korea, but his approach is removing the toxic influences that have held down the possibility for generations.
By leveraging China (through economics) to stop manipulating North Korea, President Trump was opening a door of possibilities for the North Korean people. This is what I meant when I said Trump was providing North Korea with an opportunity to create an authentic version of itself.
What ultimately came from the opportunity President Trump constructed was lost in the 2020 U.S. election outcome. However, the opportunity itself was stunning progress creating a reasonable pathway to prosperity for the North Korean people.
Chairman Kim Jong-un had the opportunity to be the most trans-formative leader within Asia in generations; but it was always only an ‘opportunity’ that could exist if President Trump remained in place to provide it.
Whether Kim Jong-un could embrace openness, free markets and prosperity was never seen. But we saw the opportunity that was nonexistent without Trump’s guiding hand to create it.
♦The commonality in those foreign policy engagements was the strategic placement of responsibility upon the primary influence agent; and a clear understanding upon those nation(s) of influence, that all forward efforts must ultimately provide positive results for people impacted who lack the ability to create positive influence themselves.
One of the reasons President Trump was able to take this approach was specifically because he was beholden to no outside influence himself.
It is only from the position of complete independence that accurate assignments based on the underlying truth can be made; and that took us to the ultimate confrontations – the trillion-dollar confrontations.
A U.S. foreign policy that provides the opportunity for fully realized national authenticity was a paradigm shift amid a world that had grown accustomed to corrupt globalists, bankers and financial elites who have established a business model by dictating terms to national leaders they control and influence.
We had/have our own frame of reference with K-Street lobbyists in Washington DC. Much of President Trump’s global trade reset was based on confronting these multinational influence agents.
When you take the influence of corporate/financial brokers out of foreign policy, all of a sudden, those global influence peddlers are worthless. Absent of their ability to provide any benefit, nations no longer purchase these brokered services.
As soon as influence brokers are dispatched, national politicians become accountable to the voices of their citizens. When representing the voices of citizens becomes the primary political driver of national policy, the authentic image of the nation is allowed to surface.
In western, or what we would call ‘more democratized systems of government‘, the consequence of removing multinational corporate and financial influence peddlers presents two options for the governing authority occupying political office:
♦ One option was to refuse to allow the authentic voice of a nationalist citizenry to rise. Essentially to commit to a retention of the status quo; an elitist view; a globalist perspective. This requires shifting to a more openly authoritarian system of government within both the economic and social spheres. Those who control the reins of power refuse to acquiesce to a changed landscape.
♦The second option is to allow the authentic and organic rise of nationalism. To accept the voices of the middle-class majority; to structure the economic and social landscape in a manner that allows the underlying identity to surface naturally.
Fortunately, we are living in a time of great history, and we had multiple examples surfacing around the world. Prior national elections in Poland, Hungary, Italy, Brazil and right here in the U.S. via Donald Trump highlighted responses to dysfunctional multiculturalism and financial influences from corrupt elites within the institutions of globalist advocacy: The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Two specific reference points played out in real time. One was the U.K. and voices of the British people who voted to Brexit the European Union. The second was Mexico, and the July 1st, 2018, election of Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (aka AMLO), a nationalist.
In the U.K. we saw the government turning more authoritarian and distancing itself from the voices of the majority who chose to rebuke the collective association of the EU. Initially, the U.K. government took a harsher approach toward suppressing opposition, and as a consequence oppressing free speech and civil liberties. [Insert the example of Tommy Robinson here – there are many others.]
This did not come as a surprise to those who follow the arc of history when the collective global elite are challenged or rejected. Globalism can only thrive amid a class structure where the elites, though few in number, have more controlling power over the direction of government.
It is not accidental the EU has appointed officials and unelected bureaucrats in Brussels as the primary decision-making authority. By its very nature the EU collective requires a central planning authority who can act independent of the underlying national voices.
As the Trump Doctrine clashed with the European global elite, the withdrawal of the U.S. financial underwriting created a natural problem. Subsidies are needed to retain multiculturalism. If a national citizenry has to pay for the indulgent decisions of the influence class, a crisis becomes only a matter of time.
Wealth distribution requires a host.
Since the end of World War II, the U.S. had been a bottomless treasury for EU subsidy. The payments have been direct and indirect. The indirect have been via U.S. military bases providing security, the NATO alliance, and also by U.S. trade policy permitting one-way tariff systems. Both forms of indirect payment were being reversed as part of the modern Trump Doctrine.
Similarly, in Mexico the Trump Doctrine extended toward changed trade policies, this time via NAFTA.
The restructuring of NAFTA into the USMCA disfavors multinational corporations and financial holdings who have exploited structural loopholes that were designed into the original agreement.
With President Trump confronting the NAFTA fatal flaw, and absent of the ability of corporations to influence the direction of the administration, the trade deal ultimately presented the same outcome for Mexico as it does the EU – LESS DOLLARS.
However, in Mexico, the larger systems of government were not as strongly structured to withstand the withdrawal of billions of U.S. dollars. The government of Mexico is not in the same position as the EU and cannot double-down on more oppressive controls. Therefore, the authentic voice of the Mexican people was more likely to rise.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) is a nationalist, but he is not a free-market capitalist. AMLO is more akin to soft-socialist approach with a view that when the central governing authority is constrained, and operates in the best interests of its citizens, equity can be achieved.
The fabric of socialism runs naturally through the DNA strain of Mexico, and indeed much of South America. This is one of the reasons why previous Mexican governments were so corrupt. Multinational corporations always find it easier to exploit socialist minded government officials.
When bribery and graft are the natural way of business engagement, the multinationals will exploit every opportunity to maximize profit. Withdraw the benefit (loophole exploitation) to the financial systems, and the bribery and graft dries up quickly. A bottom-up nationalist like AMLO, is the ultimate beneficiary.
The authentic-sense of the Mexican people rises in the persona of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – who actually does personify the underlying nature of the classic Mexican class-struggle.
Thus, we saw two similar yet distinct outcomes of the Trump Doctrine. Within a highly structured U.K. parliamentary government the leadership becomes more authoritarian and rebukes the electorate; and in Mexico a less structured government becomes more nationalist, more prideful, and embraces the underlying nature of the electorate.
It is not accidental the historic nature of the U.K. is a monarchy (top down), and the historic nature of Mexico is populist (bottom up). Revolution notwithstanding, both countries responded to the Trump doctrine by returning to their roots.
REMINDER April, 2018 – SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korean President Moon Jae-in said U.S. President Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the standoff with North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, a South Korean official said on Monday.
“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. What we need is only peace,” Moon told a meeting of senior secretaries, according to a presidential Blue House official who briefed media.
Moon and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Friday pledged at a summit to end hostilities between their countries and work toward the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean peninsula.
It is remarkable to contemplate what might have been….
In a Truth Social post earlier today [LINK HERE], President Donald Trump announced a leak from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office indicates he will be arrested next Tuesday.
While there has been some attention to the “protest, take our nation back” element to the statement, in totality that reference point appears to be misinterpreted. President Trump is not calling for a protest in response to his arrest per se’; to me, he appears to be calling upon “protest” in relation to the totality of the corrupt and manipulative state of our nation as a result of the radical leftists tearing our nation apart.
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
~ Thomas Paine, The Crisis No. I (written 19 December 1776, published 23 December 1776)
We are engaged in a battle that is much larger than a modern political conflict. Behind the lies, manipulations and schemes of the corrupt political class, there is a spiritual battle on a larger dynamic. There is a spiritual war among all people. A conflict between light and dark, morality and corruption, right and wrong, truth and lies, decency and incivility.
The opposition arguments are weak and based on lies and deceptions. Steel your resolve to the landscape that surrounds us, but do not let yourself become victim to dark imaginings. There is protection around Donald John Trump that even he could never explain.
Steadfast in this conflict, we will not fail.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 18, 2023 | Sundance
I got to thinking about the raw unadjusted temperature station data. Despite the many flaws in individual weather stations making up the US Historical Climate Network (USHCN), as revealed by Anthony Watts’ SurfaceStations project, the USHCN is arguably one of the best country networks. So I thought I’d take a look at what it reveals.
The data is available here, with further information about the dataset here. The page says:
UNITED STATES HISTORICAL CLIMATOLOGY NETWORK (USHCN) Daily Dataset M.J. Menne, C.N. Williams, Jr., and R.S. Vose National Climatic Data Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
These files comprise CDIAC’s most current version of USHCN daily data.
These appear to be the raw, unhomogenized, unadjusted daily data files. Works for me. I started by looking at the lengths of the various records.
Figure 1. Lengths of the 1,218 USHCN temperature records. The picture shows a “Stevenson Screen”, the enclosure used to protect the instruments from direct sunlight so that they are measuring actual air temperature.
This is good news. 97.4% of the temperature records are longer than 30 years, and 99.7% are longer than 20 years. So I chose to use them all.
Next, I considered the trends of the minimum and maximum temperatures. I purposely did not consider the mean (average) trend, for a simple reason. We experience the daily maximum and minimum temperatures, the warmest and coldest times of the day. But nobody ever experiences an average temperature. It’s a mathematical construct. And I wanted to look at what we actually can sense and feel.
First I considered minimum temperatures. I began by looking at which stations were warming and which were cooling. Figure 2 shows that result.
Figure 2. USHCN minimum temperature trends by station. White is cooling, red is warming.
Interesting. Clearly, “global” warming isn’t. The minimum temperature at 30% of the USHCN stations is getting colder, not warmer. However, overall, the median trend is still warming. Here’s a histogram of the minimum temperature trends.
Figure 3. Histogram of 1,218 USHCN minimum temperature trends. See Menne et al. for estimates of what the various adjustments would do to this raw data.
Overall, the daily minimum temperatures have been warming. However, they’re only warming at a median rate of 1.1°C per century … hardly noticeable. And I have to say that I’m not terrified of warmer nights, particularly since most of the warmer nights are occurring in the winter. In my youth, I spent a couple of winter nights sleeping on a piece of cardboard on the street in New York, with newspapers wrapped around my legs under my pants for warmth.
I can assure you that I would have welcomed a warmer nighttime temperature …
The truth that climate alarmists don’t want you to notice is that extreme cold kills far more people than extreme warmth. A study in the British Medical Journal The Lancet showed that from 2000 to 2019, extreme cold killed about four and a half million people per year, and extreme warmth only killed a half million.
Figure 4. Excess deaths from extreme heat and cold, 2000-2019
So I’m not worried about an increase in minimum temperatures—that can only reduce mortality for plants, animals, and humanoids alike.
But what about maximum temperatures? Here are the trends of the USHCN stations as in Figure 2, but for maximum temperatures.
Figure 5. USHCN maximum temperature trends by station. White is cooling, red is warming.
I see a lot more white. Recall from Figure 2 that 30% of minimum temperature stations are cooling. But with maximum temperatures, about half of them are cooling (49.2%).
And here is the histogram of maximum temperatures. Basically, half warming, half cooling.
Figure 6. Histogram of 1,218 USHCN maximum temperature trends.
For maximum temperatures, the overall median trend is a trivial 0.07°C per century … color me unimpressed.
Call me crazy, but I say this is not any kind of an “existential threat”, “problem of the century”, or “climate emergency” as is often claimed by climate alarmists. Instead, it is a mild warming of the nights and no warming of the days. In fact, there’s no “climate emergency” at all.
And if you are suffering from what the American Psychiatric Association describes as “the mental health consequences of events linked to a changing global climate including mild stress and distress, high-risk coping behavior such as increased alcohol use and, occasionally, mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress” … well, I’d suggest you find a new excuse for your alcoholism, anxiety, or depression. That dog won’t hunt.
My very best to everyone from a very rainy California. When we had drought over the last couple of years, people blamed evil “climate change” … and now that we’re getting lots of rain, guess what people are blaming?
Yep, you guessed it.
w.
As Always: I ask that when you comment you quote the exact words you’re discussing. This avoids endless misunderstandings.
Adjustments: This raw data I’ve used above is often subjected to several different adjustments, as discussed here. One of the largest adjustments is for the time of observation, usually referred to as TOBS. The effect of the TOBS adjustment is to increase the overall trend in maximum temperatures by about 0.15°C per century (±0.02) and in minimum temperatures by about 0.22°C per century (±0.02). So if you wish, you can add those values to the trends shown above. Me, I’m not too fussed about an adjustment of a tenth or two of a degree per century, I’m not even sure if the network can measure to that level of precision. And it certainly is not perceptible to humans.
There are also adjustments for “homogeneity”, for station moves, instrument changes, and changes in conditions surrounding the instrument site.
Are these adjustments all valid? Unknown. For example, the adjustments for “homgeneity” assume that one station’s record should be similar to a nearby station … but a look at the maps above show that’s not the case. I know that where I live, it very rarely freezes. But less than a quarter mile (1/8 km) away, on the opposite side of the hill, it freezes a half-dozen times a year or so … homogeneous? I don’t think so.
The underlying problem is that in almost all cases there is no overlap in the pre- and post-change records. This makes it very difficult to determine the effects of the changes directly, and so indirect methods have to be used. There’s a description of the method for the TOBS adjustment here.
This also makes it very hard to estimate the effect of the adjustments. For example:
To calculate the effect of the TOB adjustments on the HCN version 2 temperature trends, the monthly TOB adjusted temperatures at each HCN station were converted to an anomaly relative to the 1961–90 station mean. Anomalies were then interpolated to the nodes of a 0.25° × 0.25° latitude–longitude grid using the method described by Willmott et al. (1985). Finally, gridpoint values were area weighted into a mean anomaly for the CONUS for each month and year. The process was then repeated for the unadjusted temperature data, and a difference series was formed between the TOB adjusted and unadjusted data.
To avoid all of that uncertainty, I’ve used the raw unadjusted data.
Addendum Regarding The Title: There’s an Aesop’s Fable, #35:
“A Man had lost his way in a wood one bitter winter’s night. As he was roaming about, a Satyr came up to him, and finding that he had lost his way, promised to give him a lodging for the night, and guide him out of the forest in the morning. As he went along to the Satyr’s cell, the Man raised both his hands to his mouth and kept on blowing at them. ‘What do you do that for?’ said the Satyr. ‘My hands are numb with the cold,’ said the Man, ‘and my breath warms them.’ After this they arrived at the Satyr’s home, and soon the Satyr put a smoking dish of porridge before him. But when the Man raised his spoon to his mouth he began blowing upon it. ‘And what do you do that for?’ said the Satyr. ‘The porridge is too hot, and my breath will cool it.’ ‘Out you go,’ said the Satyr, ‘I will have nought to do with a man who can blow hot and cold with the same breath.’”
The actual moral of the story is not the usual one that people draw from the fable, that the Man is fickle and the Satyr can’t trust him.
The Man is not fickle. His breath is always the same temperature … but what’s changing are the temperatures of his surroundings, just as they have been changing since time immemorial.
Posted originally on Rumble on March 4, 2023 The U.S. Coast Guard says migrant interdiction operations have reached a breaking point. One America’s Taylor Tinsley has the latest.
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