We are sending money to the Taliban. Let one more person try to tell me “We won all of the battles, so we technically didn’t lose to the Taliban.”
Power Grab
Factions and the Power Struggle
In the old Soviet Union, there was a constant power struggle between factions. There were three main centers of power in that country, and after bloody infighting, they wound up in an uneasy truce, sharing the power of the entire nation. That is why the Kremlin was guarded by three different forces, each one loyal to a different faction.
I think that the Conservative Treehouse is on to something. The US government (and to some extent, the political parties) is fractured and the factions are struggling for power. For convenience, let’s just go with what CT began with, but make a few tweaks:
♦ TEAM One – The Department of State is aligned with the CIA. Their media PR firms are the majority of the MSM, most of Big Tech (Facebook, Alphabet, Twitter, etc.), and the Washington Post. Their ideology is favorable to the United Nations. Their internal corruption is generally driven by relationship with foreign actors. Members of Team One: Hillary Clinton, Clinton Global Initiative, Muslim Brotherhood, Samantha Powers, Susan Rice, Cass Sunstein, Brookings Institute, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Council on Foreign Relations, the NFL, NBA, and a majority of the Federal Bureaucracy (Dept of Ed, Energy, HUD, etc).
♦ TEAM Two – The White House is aligned with the Pentagon (DoD) and National Security Council (NSC). Their media PR firms include Fox News, The Wall St Journal, and other “right wing” news sources. New York Times, Politico, etc. Their internal corruption is generally driven by domestic influence. Members of Team Two: Barack Obama, George Bush, Dan Quayle, Mike Pence, Wall St, Big Banks, Multinational Corporations, Defense Contractors, FBI, most of the Judicial Branch, Nancy Pelosi, the “Never Trump” wing of the Republican Party, and Mitch McConnel.
The Trump Presidency really made both teams angry. Since he was not an insider and thus not a part of either team, this represented a threat to both teams. He HAD to go. In a rare show of unity, they united to eliminate the threat he represented. He really wasn’t a great President and had his flaws, but he really pissed off both sides, and this was fun to watch. His Presidency was the last hope of avoiding the takeover of one team or the other, it just came too late.
China has its hands in both teams. They are the funding behind both teams, and are stirring the pot. We know that they are also funding dissidents in this country, so it isn’t so far fetched to think that they are funding BLM and Antifa. China doesn’t care who wins, as long as there is discord in the US. If the US is made weaker, China gets to do what it wants on its side of the world without concern for US interference.
The American people, you will note, are not involved in this power struggle. If they will care enough to get involved remains to be seen.
What I can’t figure out is where some of the more minor players fit. AOC, BLM, and Antifa are good examples of those who appear to not be a part of either team, but still have some influence in the game. Perhaps there is a third team here at play?
economics
401k in an inflationary period
My wife is a high earner with substantial amounts in a profit sharing acct and a 401 acct. If anyone has the words to convince her to at a minimum take some $ off the table I’d appreciate it. She deflects my words like reverting back to mean, things go down, etc.
If you have a 401k with employer matching, she might be correct. Let’s look at a 401kas an example. Her employer matches her contributions, up to 7% of her income. Let’s look at the math to see what happens if she deducts 7% from her pay:
Let’s say she has an income of $50k per year. That means a deduction of $3500 a year. Her employer matches that with another $3500, for a total of $7000 put into her 401k.
Assuming that the two of you have a taxable income between $81,050 and $172,750, your marginal tax rate is 22 percent. What this means is that In exchange for this $7000, her take home pay is only reduced by $2,730 because she doesn’t pay tax on that money, since it is deducted before income taxes are calculated.
So she ‘loses’ $2,730 in take home pay, but turns that into $7,000 in retirement savings, which translates into an instant 154% return on investment.
The larger her employer match, the better off she is. If her employer doesn’t have employer matching for the 401k, the advantage is much less, and inflationary periods really hurt you. In the example above, if there were no employer matching, that $2,730 becomes only $3,500, which lowers the return to 28%, which in this inflationary environment doesn’t help as much the inflation is hurting you.
In my case, once I have worked there for a year, my employer offers a 4% match. I plan on deducting that maximum 4% as soon as I am eligible.
EDIT: Comments have devolved into nonsensical gobbledygook. I normally leave them open, but I’ve had enough. Comments closed.
Education
Fairness, according to the left
This item keeps coming across my aggregator. This third grade teacher has a lesson using bandaids that the left seems to think is brilliant. The conclusion of the lesson is this:
Fair doesn’t mean everyone gets the same thing, fair means that everyone gets what they need to be successful.
No it doesn’t. In real life, not everyone is going to be successful. Some won’t try. Some will try and fail. To hand out materials and benefits to ensure that everyone has the same amount of success is not helping children. It causes them to become lazy and reliant on handouts from a beneficent authority figure. This is how people become cattle, dependent on others for their success.
Instead, teach them to become self reliant. Teach them that anything worth having is worth working for. Teach them that the joy of success after a struggle is something worth striving for.
Military
US Army has a history of trying to take over
General Milley’s actions in refusing to obey the orders of the President, along with the fact that his subordinates knowingly followed along changed the US military from a professional military force under Constitutional authority into an armed mob engaged in a military junta. Make no mistake about it, the four men pictured below engaged in a mutiny against legitimate Constitutional authority.
The framers of the U.S. Constitution worked to ensure the military would be under civilian control. When they wrote the Constitution, they separated the responsibilities for the military, placing the responsibilities firmly in civilian hands. Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution states, “The President shall be the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States when called into the actual Service of the United States.”
Oddly enough, Milley isn’t the first US military officer to attempt to overthrow the US government. In the early days of the Republic, before the concept of civilian control of the military sank in, some military officers actively plotted against the government.
General James Wilkinson was the senior military officer from June 15, 1800 to January 27, 1812. He fought in the Revolutionary War and outfitted the Continental Army. Wilkinson became a key figure in the plan to induce what was then the “southwest United States” to form a separate nation allied with Spain. He took an oath of allegiance to Spain, spied for his secret new patron, and received an annual Spanish pension of $4,000. He was the governor of the Louisiana Territory from 1805 to 1806.
He continued as the ranking officer in the Army through 1812, when his incompetence and scheming were finally recognized and he was relieved.
The fact that Milley unilaterally decided to disobey the orders of the Commander in Chief, along with his immediate subordinates means that the US military is no longer under civilian control. Not only that, but this also means that no one who is in the military has any obligation to obey the orders of their superiors.
Milley disobeyed orders repeatedly. He did so in 2019 when he lied to the President about troop strength in Syria. He refused orders in 2020 when ordered to deploy the National Guard to stop BLM rioters in the Capitol.
When Marine Lt Colonel Scheller resigned his commission, he cited a loss of trust and confidence in his superiors’ ability to lead. When Army Lt Colonel Hague resigned HIS commission, he complained of “an ideologically Marxist takeover of the United States government at their upper echelons.” It appears as though they both knew more than the rest of the American public were led to believe.
As I have said before, we haven’t even begun to see yet how bad things can get. As the wheels continue to fall off, things will get worse and worse. Sooner or later, some military units will mutiny. That’s when things get sporty.
That is exactly why the Biden administration freaked out when they began to think that the rank and file of the US military may not be following orders any longer.
COVID
COVID
A brand new study says that “almost half of those hospitalized with COVID-19 have mild or asymptomatic cases.” Yes, I agree. This is my experience at my hospital.
I think the reason for this is that the hospital tests every single patient who is admitted for COVID, even if they come in for something that is not related to the disease in any way. More than half of the patients in my hospital are COVID positive, but only about ten percent are severe cases, and another ten percent are moderate cases. The remainder- about 8o percent of them, are mild or asymptomatic.
Anecdote: When my nephew and his girlfriend went to the hospital so she could give birth to my grand-niece, they were both tested. Both were COVID positive, but asymptomatic.
Power Grab
I was right
Now it comes out that I have been right about the US President being ousted by a coup from within our government. The entire thing was orchestrated by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the Speaker of the House, in concert with, and at the direction of, the Chinese government.
In July 2020, I warned that there was an apparent Communist insurgency attempting to overthrow the US government in what appeared to be a coup that was following the CIA’s insurgency manual. (That manual can be found on the “Training Manuals” link at the top of the page)
I posted about this coup for months. In fact, I was talking about it as early as 2019.
In December, I posted that opinion over at the “View from North Central Idaho” and other bloggers laughed it off.
On January 7, I made the following observations:
- Trump had his email and Social Media access cut off because the Obamas ordered it.
- The Vice President ordered the activation of the National Guard
- Republicans quickly abandoned and distanced themselves from President Trump
I saw this and came to the conclusion that the only way the orders given by Pence would be lawful was that President Trump had successfully been deposed and overthrown in a coup.
Time magazine later admitted to rigging the election.
“General Li, I want to assure you that the American government is stable and everything is going to be okay,” Milley said. “We are not going to attack or conduct any kinetic operations against you.”
“General Li, you and I have known each other for now five years,” Milley added. “If we’re going to attack, I’m going to call you ahead of time. It’s not going to be a surprise.”
After the calls, Milley ordered his top service chiefs to monitor everything “all the time,” contacted Paul Nakasone, director of the National Security Agency, and said, “Needles up … keep watching, scan,” and told then-CIA Director Gina Haspel, “Aggressively watch everything, 360.”
“Milley was overseeing the mobilization of America’s national security state without the knowledge of the American people or the rest of the world,” the book states.
The US government has fallen. We are now fully owned and administered by the Chinese Communist Party.
Uncategorized
Huge money movement
The National Debt stands at $28.4 trillion as of September 10. When Biden took office 233 days earlier, the debt stood at $27.7 trillion. That is $3 billion borrowed per day, every day of this Presidency, or $34,700 a second. If you want to look at it as money per citizen, the US has borrowed $2,111 for every single person in the nation since Jan 20.
The US government used to publish the public debt to the penny going back decades. They don’t anymore. Some time since Biden was inaugurated, the website has been moved to a new site, and it now only goes back 5 years. Coincidentally to the beginning of the Trump administration.
The Fed has been monetizing the debt for over a decade. Since the debt is being turned into cash, the official public debt is just the tip of the iceberg. Take a look at the increase in the money supply. The M1 money supply is the amount of US dollars in circulation in cash and bank accounts that aren’t savings accounts. The M2 money supply is M1 plus what is in savings accounts, but not including retirement accounts like 401k.
Note that the amount of money in circulation (M1) went from $4.289 trillion to $19.445 trillion in just 16 months. That is an increase of $15.2 trillion. The amount in M2 went from $16.076 trillion to $20.564 trillion, an increase of about $4.5 trillion.
So not only did $4.5 trillion get created out of thin air, but $11 trillion shifted from savings to circulation. This means that Americans are cleaning out their savings accounts.