Just Saying No

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Probably I ought not to commit this to print – much less the ‘Net. But I feel obliged.ear tag

Ok, here it is:

I haven’t renewed the cattle tags for some of my vehicles in several years now. I mean “renewing” the annual registration. That is to say, I have stopped paying the annual tributum the state demands of me in order to maintain my “privilege” to operate these vehicles on the roads I have already paid for.

I figure once is enough.

Especially since it’s many times more than once.

Each time I buy gas, I – like you – pay taxes, highly regressive (50 something cents in taxes on a gallon of fuel that costs $2 or so – tax inclusive – amounts to loan sharkery) which is my weekly contribution toward the costs of building/maintaining the roads.

I’ve also – like most of you –  paid the state title and sales taxes as well as personal property taxes in perpetuity – using whatever funds are left to me after paying federal and state income taxes. Plus the might-as-well-be-taxes (because mandatory and enforced at gunpoint, like taxes) extortion payments I have to make to the insurance mafia. Notwithstanding I’ve never filed a claim in almost 30 years of driving, nor had one filed against me.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The Democrats are playing a very dangerous game by anointing Hillary Clinton as their presidential candidate. She epitomizes the double-dealing of the college-educated elites, those who speak the feel-your-pain language of ordinary men and women, who hold up the bible of political correctness, while selling out the poor and the working class to corporate power.”

Chris Hedges, 2 March 2016


Killer Instincts: When Police Become Judge, Jury and Executioner

Guest Post by John W. Whitehead

Any police officer who shoots to kill is playing with fire.

In that split second of deciding whether to shoot and where to aim, that officer has appointed himself judge, jury and executioner over a fellow citizen. And when an officer fires a killing shot at a fellow citizen not once or twice but three and four and five times, he is no longer a guardian of the people but is acting as a paid assassin. In so doing, he has short-circuited a legal system that was long ago established to protect against such abuses by government agents.

These are hard words, I know, but hard times call for straight talking.

We’ve been dancing around the issue of police shootings for too long now, but we’re about to crash headlong into some harsh realities if we don’t do something to ward off disaster.

You’d better get ready.

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Stucky QOTD: Cabinets

We haven’t sold the house yet.  The most common objection has to do with the kitchen;  it’s either too small (can’t do much about that), or old-fashioned, or “tired”.

— The old-fashioned part probably has to do with the 60’s style pink-ish Formica.

— The “tired” part has to do with the cabinets …. almost all the cabinets have wear-marks right where the hardware is, I suppose from 15 years of grubby fingers rubbing against the wood. (The wood is stained, not painted.)

Today, a kitchen-dude from a kitchens-only shop in town stopped by to give us an estimate on sprucing up the joint.  I told him beforehand that we are selling the place, and are loathe to spend additional monies, and that we want something inexpensive, but without looking cheap-ass.  Well!  …. he quoted us at $11,000 to resurface the cabinets and install granite counter-tops.  Uh huh.  Fuck that shit!!

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James Grant: Negative Interest Rates Will End… Badly

Submitted by Matthew Borin via CFA Institute blog,

Negative interest rates are unsustainable and once investors decide to stop paying for the privilege of holding government debt, a banking crisis could result, says James Grant.

The founder of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer was one of several speakers at the New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA)’ Annual Benjamin Graham Conference to remark on the ramifications of unprecedented loose monetary policy.

Historic Lows

Central banks are treading in uncharted waters. Sidney Homer and Richard Sylla, the authors of A History of Interest Rates, found no instance of negative rates in 5,000 years. Now there are $11.7 trillion invested in negative-yield sovereign debt, including $7.9 trillion in Japanese government bonds and over $1 trillion in both French and German sovereign debt.

Grant posed a tongue-in-cheek question: “If these are the first sub-zero interest rates in 5,000 years, is this not the worst economy since 3,000 BC?”

This is not a bad economy by most measures. Household wealth in the United States has grown steadily since the Great Recession. If these gains were the result of greater productivity, interest rates would not need to stay at historic lows. Grant says they are “a sign of someone’s thumb on the currency.” Negative rates are propping up risk assets. He critiqued US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen’s touting of the bull market in equities as a sign of prosperity by alluding to Brexit voters.

“Asset prices have failed to pacify the world’s unprofitable voters,” Grant said.

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The Most Dangerous Candidate

The blathering that negotiation with Vladimir Putin is more dangerous than backing him into a corner would be laughably absurd if the consequences of the latter weren’t so potentially devastating.

Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic

U.S. Conducts Airstrikes Against ISIS in Libya reads The New York Times’ August 1 headline, capturing virtually everything wrong with US foreign interventionism. Tracing the strands emanating from that headline regrettably requires a deep dive into an ideological and moral cesspool, on which Hillary Clinton luxuriates in a floating lounge chair, sunning herself and sipping a piña colada, evidently not put off by the stench.

What’s ISIS doing in Libya? It’s an offshoot of ISIS in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, which is an offshoot of al Qaeda in Iraq. That group was formed from an embittered core of Sunnis dispossessed of positions and property and jailed by the US government-installed majority Shiite government after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Al Qaeda’s family tree starts with the mujahideen in Afghanistan, who were backed by Presidents Carter and Reagan in their war against the Soviet Union. The goal was to draw the Soviet Union into a protracted and debilitating quagmire.

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Where’s the Rest of Hillary’s Sarin?

Guest Post from Single Dude Travel

The Two Faces of Hillary Clinton by Ben GarrisonThe other day I was reflecting on the precarious condition of the world right now, and a question came to me:

What happened to the rest of the Sarin gas the Syrian rebels had in 2013? Where is it, how much is there, and who has it?

Let’s back up a moment and set the stage. Obama and Clinton wanted a war with Syria and to get rid of Assad. The US took down Gaddafi for their usual reasons of power hungry world domination. Here’s how Hillary summed that one up:

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Germany’s Migrant Rape Crisis Spirals Out Of Control

Submitted by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

  • Germany’s migrant rape crisis has now spread to cities and towns in all 16 of Germany’s federal states. Germany now finds itself in a vicious circle: most of the perpetrators are never found, and the few who are frequently receive lenient sentences. Only one in 10 rapes in Germany is reported and just 8% of rape trials result in convictions, according to Minister of Justice Heiko Maas.
  • Up to 90% of the sex crimes committed in Germany in 2014 do not appear in the official statistics, according to André Schulz, the head of the Association of Criminal Police.
  • “There are strict instructions from the top not to report offenses committed by refugees. It is extraordinary that certain offenders are deliberately NOT being reported about and the information is being classified as confidential.” — High-ranking police official in Frankfurt, quoted in Bild.

Sexual violence in Germany has reached epidemic proportions since Chancellor Angela Merkel allowed into the country more than one million mostly male migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Gatestone Institute first reported Germany’s migrant rape crisis in September 2015, when Merkel opened up the German border to tens of thousands of migrants stranded in Hungary. A follow-up report was published in March 2016, in the aftermath of mass attacks against German women by mobs of migrants in Cologne, Hamburg and other German cities.

Germany’s migrant rape crisis has now spread to cities and towns in all 16 of Germany’s federal states. Germany is effectively under siege; public spaces are becoming increasingly perilous. Police have warned about a potential breakdown of public order this summer, when young male migrants are likely to see women lightly dressed.

During the month of July 2016, hundreds of German women and children were sexually assaulted by migrants (see Appendix below). The youngest victim was nine; the oldest, 79. Attacks occurred at beaches, bike trails, cemeteries, discotheques, grocery stores, music festivals, parking garages, playgrounds, schools, shopping malls, taxis, public transportation (buses, trams, intercity express trains and subways), public parks, public squares, public swimming pools and public restrooms. Predators are lurking everywhere; safety nowhere.

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ANOTHER REASON TO VOTE FOR TRUMP – NEOCONS HATE HIM

Every time a group of establishment hacks jointly attack Trump as reckless or dangerous, you know he is on the right path. These 50 statist, nazi neocons are the reason we are bogged down in endless wars around the globe. They insist we police the world with our military, intimidating any and all who don’t follow our orders. These 50 scumbags work for the military industrial complex and have been ordered to stop Trump at all costs. Know your enemy.

Via Newsmax

50 Top GOP National Security Officials Sign Letter Opposing Trump

Image: 50 Top GOP National Security Officials Sign Letter Opposing Trump

(AP Images)

By Greg Richter   |   Monday, 08 Aug 2016 06:51 PM

Fifty of the country’s top Republican national security officials have signed a letter saying they do not support their party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

The New York Times first reported the letter, which was signed by people who worked under Republican administrations from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush. Those signing the letter include former Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, former NSA and CIA Director Michael Hayden and former Homeland Security Security secretaries Michael Chertoff and Tom Ridge.

Trump, the letter writers argue, “would be the most reckless president in American history.”

“None of us will vote for Donald Trump,” they say, though they acknowledge that many Americans have concerns with the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, as well.

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SHTF Arrives Early, Now What?

Hat tip Darknlovely

Guest Post by Capitalist Eric

Things have been rather exciting over the last year, as we swing into the final months of the Constitutional Republic formerly known as the United States of America. And so I’ve been watching a lot, reading, thinking about all of this… While I work through current problems in my own life. And a very interesting question came up, which is the point of this post. The problem is that, to adequately answer the question, requires quite a bit of time to set up the background, so the answer makes sense. So here goes…

The MSM is thrashing around as they slowly die of lost legitimacy

In the last year, the veneer of decency and honesty has been completely stripped away from our uniquely American “fifth column,” the media, whose responsibility it was to monitor and report on the corruption of government. Instead, they have been utterly exposed as the lying scum most people suspected them of being. They’re just willing propaganda outlets for the government, like Pravda or TASS were, for the Soviet Union. White is now black, up is down, wrong is right.

lying media

And of course, the media pimps for their political whores, manipulates polling data which affects “their guy” winning or losing. The most obvious results regarding the press: only 6% of the population still trusts the media. Literally, the public trust used-car salesmen more than they trust reporters. As we used to say in the Navy, they’re “lower than whale shit.” Pretty much.

The media manipulation initially provided cover to the corrupt government, but has now backfired;

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