Inches From Insanity

 On my Twitter page. Cousin Ellis. "Ya can't stop what's coming, it ain't all waitin' on you."

I underestimated the damage Obama infused into America. I am sorry we elected him. It wasn't the banker "get out of jail free card" for his donors, it wasn't his health insurer bailout aka ACA, it wasn't his many abuses of power or his cutesy little quips.

I have talked about this traitorous shit ad nauseum. Obama was a tool for American aristocracy. Where does he live? Martha's Vineyard. That's all you really need to know.

The aristocracy has rewarded him well. 

If the aristocracy relied on Obama to safeguard their wealth, then the tradeoff would be greenlighting Obama's plan to destroy the fabric of our country. 

And from Obama's loins sprang every fucked up and distorted alternate reality. Black Lives Matter, cancel culture, woke politics and speech, deviant sex, pedophilia, defund police, Trump derangement, pot sales on every corner, skyrocketing crime rates, drag queens reading to children, and government worship. I won't even go into the covid catastrophe.

You can't lay all that at the feet of Bush or Trump. It was singly sourced. Extended by Biden.

It's like a tidal wave of Godless insanity and moral decay. It feels overwhelming. We cannot stop this.

In the months and years to come, I see this getting worse. If I were younger and single, I'd probably go looking for a warm and friendly country. 

Absent that, I simply prepare. The aristocracy is going to try and keep a lid on this mess but eventually it will boil over. All of the wars, money printing, and lies will find the cesspool of history. I have no idea how badly that landscape will look. Or when. I'm not sure we'll want to see it.

 

A Halloween Story

 I have a Halloween story to tell. It certainly wasn't pretty or enjoyable. But to tell this story, I must reveal an embarrassing moment of my own past. 

Halloween night, 1971 or 1972, I was about half a mile from home and trick or treating. I was 11 or so and every bit a juvenile delinquent on the fast track.

After trick or treating at a house and turning around, I decided to grab a little girl's trick or treat bag. I ran off with it. About an hour later, I returned home. My father was on fire. The little girl and her father had seen me. They had gone to my house and told my father. My father kicked my ass, made me go to the young girl's house and apologize, and then I was instructed to give her all of my candy. That was the last time I went trick or treating. 

It was one of a few humiliating mistakes I would make in the next four or five years. I wish I could tell you that I was this great kid. I wished I could blame something other than myself, but the truth is- I was a juvenile delinquent that knew the difference between right and wrong. My story is one of hard learning and ultimately, redemption.

Last night, Halloween night, we were taking all of our nephews to a different subdivision to go trick or treating. My wife an eternal optimist, left a bowl of candy out with a note which asked kids to take one or two pieces. I told her the contents of the bowl would get wiped out and taken by some kid. She said she didn't think so. We set out the bowl, placed a camera on the porch, and left the subdivision. About half an hour later, some kid maybe 14 or so, sees the unattended candy bowl. He looks around for cameras, fails to see our camera which was mounted low, and then takes most of the contents of the bowl. He left 11 pieces behind.

My wife posted the video of this kid on our town's website. What happened next took me back 15 years.

We received about 40 comments. A few of the comments supported our position and chastised this kid a bit. But the majority of the comments were in support of this poor kid. He was only doing what kids do. Another third of the comments were hateful commentary directed at us for posting the video and shaming this kid. You see...

It was our fault for leaving this bowl of unattended candy out. And some people even called us assholes for shaming this kid for posting video of his conduct.

Eventually we took the whole thread down. Not because we couldn't handle our own with these people, mostly libs, but because one person actually directed hateful, personal, content at this kid. 

What happened as I read those mocking comments- reminded me of why I grew to hate policing. 

My first patrol year, I had caught a kid burglarizing a house down the street. I was looking for 3 items in particular and I felt pretty sure that this kid was responsible and had the items. I sat down with his parents. These people had money. They were from California. The kid lived in his own house on the property, and I explained to his parents that with their permission- I'd like to have a look around their son's house. 

They refused. In fact, they said that their son had exactly the three items I was looking for but that they had been legally purchased. I am staring at them in disbelief. I told them I had serial numbers on two of the items. Then they added this. Our son likes to smoke a little pot, and he grows pot in that house and that they certainly weren't going to allow me to look into his house. It was 1984. I was incredulous. 

There was no way I could lock this house up and get a search warrant. Just not enough cops working that day. I knew I was screwed and that this kid was going to get away with this.

I became jaded in one day on the job.

There wasn't going to be any dad kicking his son's ass, there wasn't going to be return of the stolen property, no apologies. That's when I realized just how fucked up this job was going to be. 

It didn't get any better over the years. In fact, it got a lot worse. The liberal mindset was winning.

So, if you just stay focused on the job and don't care about outcomes- I think you'll be fine. I know cops like this. They don't see the ethical and moral decay around them, and they don't really care. They know how to protect their check. So, when some rich guy's lawyer pulls rank on a local prosecutor and they reduce or dismiss a solid case, they don't care. They just shrug their shoulders. 

It all pays the same. Famous words from one of my early bosses.

I wasn't like that. But if you are going to engage in the ethical philosophy of calling prosecutors on their shit for protecting their own careers- they are going to heap some pain on you. Those fragile little egos aren't used to taking shit from some crazy cop willing to pull out the stops. This led to a lot of fuck you matches over the years. I survived I think- because ultimately, they knew I was right and my heart was in the right place. They still didn't like it much. Each confrontation added a few logs to a fire that one day will consume you.

Over the years I came to believe that entitled rich kids and liberals were simply snobs that think they can impose their opinions on you like they are a matter of fact that only they are aware of. Some will even try to get you canned because you have the gall to tell them that their opinions are ill conceived or wrong. Those little entitled egos don't take kindly to that. Your opinion is always the wrong one.

So you either sign up for ethical and moral integrity or you saddle up with the little rich kids who can buy influence and save your career. Is it really like that? Absolutely.

By the time my career was coming to an end, I was surrounded by liberal, moral decay. It was everywhere. Then a strange thought struck me. Who were these opinionated cowards? Who were these atheistic, abortion craving snobs? With no real moral directive other than what was good for me, my children, or my friends, did they possess any sense of right or wrong beyond their own self interest?

No. They talk a great game of ethics and honesty until it lands in their own living room.

All they cared about was protecting their image, their ego, their gifted careers, and their superficial standing in the community. Any intrusion by law enforcement was met with active resistance. They would try to defame you, attack your beliefs, or characterize you as an uneducated dolt or redneck. Anything to escape taking responsibility for their poor choices and decisions. 

So it's ok to shame people so long as it furthers your agenda. The entitled rich don't care about any moral or ethical dilemma. That is nonsense. Just so long as they get what they want- they'll find an argument to justify it. We see it daily- all over the media and political commentary. 

And it keeps getting worse. These corrupted people have no idea that they are weaving the fabric of their own self destruction. 

So one day, I asked the question. Are you willing to die for people like this? I could see the lynch mob.

So I packed it up and left. That was 15 years ago. I have seen the enemy of our society, our culture- and they are exactly who I thought they were.

It ain't some kid who steals a few items from a house. It's not a kid who takes an entire bowl of candy and leaves none for anyone else. It's not even an idiot who swipes someone else's candy bag. Those are mistakes, even small mistakes, easily corrected with some intervention. Parenting intervention.

The problem is a culture that sees that type of conduct as acceptable or makes excuses for it. It's a complete failure to parent. To take responsibility and teach your children what is right and wrong. That shaming a child is a lot better than bailing them out of jail a few years later. 

The most important job any of us will ever do is raising morally and ethically correct children. I cannot overstate this. When you fail your children you have failed society and you have failed as a parent. The rest of us will feel that sting. I can think of three cases where a shitty parenting job resulted in the deaths of people. Hopefully one of those shitty parenting jobs doesn't cross the centerline and kill one of your family members one day.

I have often wondered what happened to that dope growing, burglar kid from my rookie year. I wonder what kind of kids he churned out. The good news is that I didn't stick around to find out. Trust me when I say- I bet some other poor cops are sorting that out.

Next year, we're probably not going to set any candy out.

/

Three Great Gambling Stories

 At the behest of long time blog reader and friend, MMinWa, I thought you might enjoy three of the greatest gambling moments of my life. Please allow an introduction and disclaimer.

I started gambling on golf at age 12 and continued on for the next 50 years. I managed to lose a semester's college tuition playing two card guts when I bet the pot with a pair of queens and someone at the table turned over a pair of kings. I have gone completely broke on at least three occasions in my lifetime with no visible way of bailing myself out. This is where my disclaimer comes in.

Gambling is all about math. The people who offer gambling opportunities understand this concept well. They have an insurmountable mathematical edge with which they will beat you bloody. In horseracing, the track/house edge can be as high as 30%. In sports parlays, the house edge is 25% or greater. In straight proposition betting, the minimum house edge is 10%. Casino table games rely on math as well giving the house a small to large edge depending on the mathematical skill of the player. Games like Keno, Wheel of Fortune, slot machines, and lotteries are for math challenged idiots. 

That's the way it is. Gambling is an insurmountable mountain with the exception of two situations. One of those situations will be one of the stories I tell you about today. The other is what I refer to as a "spot play" which is an infrequent situation wherein some incredible angle injects itself into the potential wager. One of those situations currently exists between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA. Memphis simply can't beat Dallas the last two years and although on paper Memphis looks like a better team, they get their ass handed to them every time they meet. Now that might change if Luka Doncic is benched or injured but sans that line up change- Dallas gets my wager until the angle evaporates.

In short, gambling is a waste of time and money. Fortunately, 50 years of this worthless pursuit has led me to the front row of some of the zaniest stories ever witnessed. These are all very true stories. I saw them and I brook no bullshit. I could probably come up with a hundred of these stories but I have cherry picked these three because they were particularly insane and defied all odds.

The Great Roll

In the late 80's, the best card room in Vegas was probably the Las Vegas Hilton. They had about 35 tables and this was where I first saw Phil Hellmuth when he arrived in Las Vegas. The dealers liked him and he was a genuinely nice guy. You can see what 35 years of card playing can do to someone.

At any rate, I think it was sometime in the fall of '87 when I became involved in one of the greatest crap rolls of all time at the Las Vegas Hilton.

I had busted out of the poker game and when I went to the casino cage with my remaining 30 dollars worth of chips, the line was so long I said screw it. I went to the pit to blast off my remaining chips or so I thought.

I wound up at the craps table. The minimum bet at that table was 5 bucks so I just took my remaining chips and placed the 4,5,6, 9, and 10 in a bet we call 26 across. The point was 8. 

The dice rollers or "shooters" were three young, well dressed, black guys which I believe were from Hawaii. They had the dice. And the greatest roll of the dice I have ever witnessed was about to begin.

The shooter probably rolled at least 10 numbers that I had bet before he made the 8. I remember having about 100 bucks before he made his point so maybe he hit my numbers even more than that. Maybe 13 or 14 numbers excluding 2,3,11, 12. The black guys were "pressing" or doubling all their place bets like mine. So I started doing the same thing.

After at least a half hour had passed, I had 5 or 6 hundred in chips. By that time, I had 25 or 30 bucks on every number. The table was so crammed we were all forced to stand sideways. The casino was getting pissed and the pit bosses were all gaping at our table. People clamored to get into the game but there was no room. The casino strung one of those velvet ropes around us and barred anyone else from getting into this game.

But the real story were those three black guys. Each of them had 5000 dollars, the table limit, placed on every number. So when the shooter threw a 4, each of them received 9000 dollars or 27,000 dollars plus whatever they had bet on the field or the hard ways. It was insane. I could not see how much they had but after an hour- they had to have had a million dollars. They had to chip up to the highest denominations and the table actually went broke. The had to get more chips, at least twice from the vault. The black guys had racks of chips under the table where drinks and ashtrays normally go.

Paying the table sucked and was very slow. It took the craps dealers about two minutes to pay off all the bets before the next roll of the dice could occur. By this time, the pit bosses were becoming assholes. They slowed the game. They grabbed the dice and twirled them between rolls. One of them, an attractive brunette, was actually inventorying chips as I caught her staring at every person's chips and writing amounts down on paper by position. 

When the roll finally ended, I had won 1500 bucks. I was the small chipper on the table by far. There is not a doubt in my mind that the Las Vegas Hilton lost a couple million dollars on that nearly two-hour roll of the dice. When it finally ended, the players at that table knew we had been involved in something miraculous. Some 35 years later, I have never seen anything like that.

As an epilogue to this story, the Las Vegas Hilton fired every employee on the shift that day. This resulted in a long running lawsuit that eventually saw each of one those employees receive 2 million dollars. It took a few years.

God Loves Drunks and Fools 

The following year after the great roll, I was trying to get a seat at a low limit poker game at the Palace Station. The games were full so I wandered out in the casino to find something interesting while I waited for a seat to open after putting my name on the list. I sat at a slot machine right behind the 21 pit and I noticed a middle-aged Mexican guy sit down at an empty table. It was midafternoon.

He had clearly been drinking but I didn't think he was drunk. He bought into the game for 500 bucks. I didn't realize I was about to see another crazy run at the table. The limit was 2000 at this game.

He bet 200 dollars on his very first hand and was dealt 21. He then bet 500 and received another 21. Wow, this is starting to look interesting. He was up 1000 dollars in two hands. He ordered a drink. He bet 1000 this time. I think he just won that hand. Soon he was betting the table limit. Every hand he got seemed to be a 20 or 21. It was an insane run of cards. 

When the cocktail waitress came back- he tried to tip her 500 bucks. The pit boss stepped in and refused to let her accept the tip. Eventually they let her have 75 bucks or three green chips.

This guy's run continued. The pit boss knew this could not continue. They asked the player if he wanted to raise the limits. He said yes and they raised the limit and changed the limit sign to 5000.

He won a few more hands and at his very highest, I think he had something very close to 45,000. In 20 minutes, this guy had turned 500 bucks into a small fortune. He was starting to get drunk and I think he was on his 4th drink- the turnaround time on a guy tipping 75 bucks a drink is about 30 seconds. The cocktail waitress nearly ran back to this table. The Federal Express of cocktails.

Unfortunately, at 5000 bucks a hand, the drunk guy simply didn't know when to quit. When he split 7s for 10 grand total, against a dealer's 9, I knew the end was near. Still, I think he could have left with 25,000 or so but he didn't. In 10 minutes and before they called my name, this guy had lost everything. I will never forget the smug look on the pit boss's face. What a shame.

I often wonder when he went home that night, or perhaps the next day, whether he told his wife "Sorry honey, I had a bad day and lost 500." 

When the Sheep Eat the Wolves

I have so many stories that it's hard to pick just one. Do I tell em about the autistic kid in Tucson or the horrible beat I saw a guy take on a 1500 college football bet? After mulling it over- I landed on this story. Every once in a while, the sheep eat the wolves. This is one of those stories.

Each year, sportsbooks offer what are called "futures bets." These are bets on sports teams to accomplish certain feats. For instance, you can bet on whether a professional baseball team will win the National League pennant or whether they will win the World Series. These odds can range anywhere from 1000-1 to 9/5 depending on a team's record, talent, and opponent. The odds generally change quite a bit as teams are eliminated from contention. That is- when the sportsbook remembers to change them. One day they didn't.

I used to play cards with a little old guy who is still with us and well into his 90's now. He is in the poker hall of fame. I'll call him Dave because that is his name. He is a sharp guy, always looking for any angle to make a buck. He generally makes small sports bets usually 20 bucks or so. Well, until this one day.

I noticed him continually circulating through the sports book, making 500 hundred-to-1000-dollar bets. This was a huge deviation from his normal betting pattern. So, after making another big bet, I took him aside and asked him what the fuck are you doing? Just like that.

Dave explained to me that the year before, before the AFC and NFC championship games in professional football had finished, the sportsbook forgot to take down the futures bets or change them after the divisional round. He said he had made a small killing before they realized their mistake. This year he said he was ready. He had 12 grand with him.

The AFC championship game was between the New England Patriots at plus 225 and the Indianapolis Colts at plus 285. These were the odds to win the AFC championship before they won their respective games. Instead of adjusting the odds or taking the bet down, they left those bets up.

This meant for every 100 dollars you bet on the Patriots you would receive 225 dollars plus your 100 dollars back. The same was true with the Colts. If the Colts won- you would receive 285 bucks for every 100 you wagered plus your bet back.

You could not lose.

Dave bet a total of 12,000 on these two teams. That was 6,000 on each. All I could muster was 4,000 and so I circulated through the betting window making smaller bets so that the employees wouldn't notice. I alternated between cashiers. I managed to get 2000 down on each team before running out of money. I had a friend, a multi-millionaire friend, but could not find him- or I might have sold my house and bet it all that day.

I was kind of worried that they would catch this. The tickets were date and time stamped. I figured at the very worst, the gaming commission would declare the tickets dead and return our money.

That never happened.

The next week, we were in the poker room, Dave and I. Rooting for the Colts of course. Unfortunately, Brady the G.O.A.T. (greatest of all time) and the Patriots won.  

I collected 6500 dollars minus my investment for a 2500-dollar payday.

Dave nailed down 7500 bucks for his efforts minus expenses. Strangely, the following year, Dave said the sportsbook immediately took down the futures betting after the divisional round was over. 

It's not often that the sheep get to eat the wolves. But it sure was fun that day.

 

Alive, One Year Later

 On September 30 of 2021, I was admitted to our local hospital with covid 19. I was released on Oct. 17. I was unvaccinated and remain so.

I wanted to tell my story on behalf of all the people who died and those of us who narrowly survived. 

On March 11 of 2020, my wife and I had just returned from Las Vegas. We had been staying at the Wynn and went to dine at the buffet on the evening of the 10th. They had placed a stand with hand sanitizer on it near the entrance to the restaurant and employees were serving up portions of food rather than allowing patrons to do that. Nobody had masks on. Not yet.

That was when I realized that covid was going to be a giant pain in the ass. 

We returned home the following day and quarantined ourselves. I began to read about covid all over the world nearly every day. I looked at pre existing conditions, mortality rates, read other countries accounts, and dutifully wore my mask when we ventured out. 

My two covid sins. I was 60 years old and 35 pounds overweight. Otherwise, I was in pretty good shape. I have always been on the heavy side due to years of weightlifting when I was younger. I still managed to walk a few miles every day without too much effort.

In the summer of 2020, I realized two things. We were not going to be eligible for the vaccines when they first became available. Secondly, I began reading accounts of doctors in South America who were using Ivermectin with a great deal of success. Ivermectin had been around for 40 years and was safe. I also started reading accounts of doctors in the U.S. using Hydroxychloroquine (Trump used this) and Ivermectin. I found the FLCC website and forwarded some video to my doctor. My doctor prescribed Ivermectin for my wife and I. I also added Vitamin D and zinc to my daily intake. I stored the Ivermectin. That would be my first mistake.

I had hernia surgery in late November 2020. I took a covid test before surgery and tested negative.

In late 2020, local government started opening up various age groups and allowing those groups to get the vaccine. Thinking that I was fully prepared, I passed on getting the vaccine. To be honest, I don't trust anything our government does any more. Time and time again, they have proven to me that they are generally incapable of performing any function that actually benefits society at large beyond the NTSB. Politicians and the deep state work on behalf of the U.S. aristocracy. Just look at the tax code and the military industrial complex and our never-ending war machine. Big pharma? List of withdrawn medications, which were once FDA approved. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs

It took 50 years or so but the United States earned my distrust. They are consistent if nothing else.

I should also mention that I bought Ivermectin for horses at farm stores. 

Around September 24th, I made the big mistake. We went to look at a custom Road King motorcycle listed for sale. The owner of the bike came out of the house, coughing like crazy. I even asked him if he had covid. He said, "I don't have that shit." We kept our distance. He finally quit coughing and my big mistake- I went into a toy hauler he had for sale. It was in that enclosed space where I think we got our dose of covid.

We left for Montana two days later. My wife was getting the chills badly and showered 4 or 5 times a day. I didn't have any symptoms until the day we left Montana, about 6 days later. My temperature was 99.6. I took my first dose of horse Ivermectin. I took 5 doses in 5 days but by day 5 I was in pretty bad shape. My fever was around 101, we were both lethargic, and my oximeter said my oxygen saturation was 83. I fell into the bathtub and could not climb out. We have a nurse in the family and she told my wife to take me to the hospital.

I don't remember too much after that. I remember a giant security guard bear hugging me out of the car and into a wheelchair. I spent the first two days on my stomach and high flow oxygen. It wasn't enough. After a day and a half, one of the doctors roused me and said they wanted to put me on a ventilator. However, I'd seen the 85% death rate in Texas for people on a ventilator. I refused. He told me my life was a coin flip. So, I relented. I woke up ventilated in the ICU.   

The next nine days were the worst days of my life. Strapped to your bed with a hardware store down my throat. One tube went into one nostril and into my lungs. In the other nostril, a tube fed me through my small intestine. I had catheters in both ends. IV's and a heart monitor. Your mouth is always semi open, and I was dying of thirst. You cannot move. You cannot communicate. It's like some horrible movie where you are bound and gagged. Every once in a while, a nurse would come in and rip open the tube into my lungs. I'd be coughing, sometimes uncontrollably, on the verge of choking. Alarms ringing. You can't get up and go to the bathroom.

On day 7, I had had enough. I felt ok. I focused on freeing myself from my fabric bindings. It took an hour or so, and one sprained wrist, but I reached down my throat and extubated myself. I pulled that shit out. My wife shot out of the room and led the cavalry charge of doctors and nurses back into the room. The last thing I remember before they knocked me out and intubated me again, was a doctor asking me if I wanted to die.

Two days later they took me off the vent. The pain was so bad in my wrist from my escape attempt, that I could not sleep. I asked for enough pain meds to knock me out. They gave me that and actually let me sleep through the day for the very first time. 

Another week in the hospital and then they released me. I was in awe how debilitating this ordeal was. I could barely stand. Nurse Ratchet would not let me leave the last day. This was some hateful, lefty, kind of nurse displaying her passive aggressive tendencies. I still remember her name.

A month of forced walking and oxygen came next. I managed only 100 yards the first day. But I continued to work hard. Today, I'd say I am 90%. I have lost some lung capacity and I get winded doing simple tasks like mowing the lawn. But I am here. 

Today, I'm a little bit angry. I'm a little bit angry because I know in my gut that this was a lab created virus in a city with a lab that creates viruses. It nearly killed me and did kill some of my friends. Who benefitted from that? The bankers and big pharma. They stole billions selling us the "cure" to their virus.

I'm angry that there was no investigation. No justice. I am angry that our government wasted billions  and trillions and pushed another lethal concoction called Remdesivir.

I'm angry at the idiot minions, mostly liberal, for victim shaming those of us who contracted this horrible disease. I'm angry they've never apologized for their fearful, misdirected hatred, and the obvious failures and deaths associated with those horrible "vaccines."

I am angry at the cover up of vaccine injuries and deaths. I am angry that they are forcing this poison into our children.

I am angry that I spent 3 weeks in hell fighting this. 

I'm angry that the liberal minions backed an idiot President who was all too happy to fire and dismiss people for simply exercising their human rights. If they had their way, like Hitler and the jews, FDR and the Japanese Americans, and this time the Australians- we'd have all been put in concentration camps. Co-exist my ass. 

But I'm grateful because we smoked all these cowards out. 

And I am so very grateful for God, my family, and my fellow critical thinkers. People who can actually think for themselves. 

In the age of such vast deceit, it's hard to see clearly. But you must. Your life may depend on it.

That's what I've learned, one year later.

 

It's Time To Protect Yourself

 About 10 years ago, I bought 5 ounces of gold for about 6000 dollars. Today, gold closed at 1668 dollars an ounce. That means my 6000-dollar investment is now worth 8340 dollars.

Did I make money? The answer, quite obviously, is no.

For many years, I used to ask friends and family a simple question. Where does money come from? 

Nobody knew the answer. I used to get all sorts of crazy answers. The U.S. Mint. The bank. My employer gives me checks. I don't know.

When I told people that money was loaned into existence, they rarely ever asked me a follow up question. The topic just didn't appeal to them nor did they seem too interested in listening to any explanation from me. I'm ok with that. 

In the early 70's, runaway inflation began in earnest. From 9% in '73, to 16% in '74, to a staggering 24% in 1975. That is a cumulative 49% rise in prices in 3 years.

To be fair, those were the inflation rates for the UK. In the U.S. the dollar was the reserve currency, allegedly backed by 8,000 tons of gold nobody has seen for 70 years. Inflation rates, around 10% smoothed per year, persisted from '72 to '80.  

Please try to remember that if you have 10% inflation for 8 years, it is cumulative. You will be suffering from an 80% rise in prices. Prices generally do not go back down once inflation is stopped. They just level out.

When I was 12 years old, I remember an old man in the checkout line at Bernie's pharmacy in Butte, Mt. I was buying a 10 cent Butterfinger candy bar. He told me that one day that Butterfinger would cost over a dollar. I thought he was nuts. That was 1973.

I wished I had been more curious. I wish now that I would have asked him why. But I was a kid, not too inclined to listen to random old men. Not unlike those people I used to question about where money came from. Not interested.

You know what scares me? We are just at the beginning of this inflationary event. The FED Reserve Bank is cornered. Based on the current inflation rate they should have already jacked up rates twice as much as they have. Inflation doesn't just magically stop on it's own. The central banks create it with excessive, cheap lending and only they can stop it.  People are still taking out 6 and 7% loans here. The creation of money continues. People simply don't remember the history from 50 years ago. 

I remember. The 70's were bad. If we are in for a repeat of the 70's then I think it will be worse this time. We are at the beginning and looking for help from political cowards like Biden, Yellen, and Powell. 

Imagine sitting there with 50k in the bank and watching it's value erode. You get some paltry interest rate that doesn't come close to compensating you for the dollar destruction that is going to occur over the next 5-10 years. Are you prepared to watch your 50k worth of 2022 dollars get cut in half? That's what's going to happen. The best CD rate I could find yesterday was 2.75 percent. Laughable. A 2.75 interest rate still leaves you with a 7% inflation loss. Just for this year.

In 2004, my truck cost 30k. In 2022, my truck costs 200% more. 90k. That's dollar destruction.

I have plenty of reserves. Generators, fuel, food storage, water, prescriptions for 2 years, plenty of guns and ammo. Although I'm not sure you ever have enough ammo. I have plenty of silver and 125 pounds of copper.

How do you protect your money against a government and a central bank hell bent on destroying what's left of our currency?

Gold. 

At 1670 dollars, gold is a screaming buy. I used to allocate 20% of short term net assets (cash) to gold. I am currently upping my personal allocation to 40% gold. That's right. Remember that 50% rise in inflation that Britain experienced in from '73 to '75? Half of your buying power wiped out in 3 years time. It happened here in the 70's and trust me, Jay Powell is a steer. He doesn't have the nuts Paul Volcker had. Volcker raised the Fed funds rate to 20%. The prime rate went to 21.5%. 

You want to stop inflation? You have to aggressively hike rates and stop lending dead in it's tracks. Our central bank can't do this. Can you imagine having to finance 31 trillion in debt into that kind of scenario? The U.S. will be completely exposed as the bankrupt country that we are. We couldn't service the debt interest into those kinds of rates. It would be in the trillions annually.

Now do you understand why they hired 87,000 IRS agents?

How much money did my gold make? Nothing. I haven't sold it. If I did I'd be trading it for the same worthless currency I am trying to protect myself from. I never bought gold to make money. I bought it for currency destruction and I am currently buying more. Don't worry about the 100 dollar premium you'll have to pay the brokers per ounce. A hundred bucks will seem like nothing- especially if they quit selling gold. I've seen them run out.

Remember gold is inverse of the USD/inflation. The more buying power is lost with the USD- the higher the price of gold will climb.

When the zombie minions of America finally wake up and realize that they only way they can insure their savings against currency destruction is gold- the second greatest gold rush in American history will begin. It would be nice to see you get there first.

It's the only way you can protect yourself. It's an insurance policy against a government that has been screwing it's citizens since the Vietnam War.

Here's a great piece from Alistair Macleod. He explains it in great detail. I stole his 1970 UK inflation numbers. https://www.goldmoney.com/research/gold-has-never-been-so-attractive

The Big Ugly is Here- Living Through the Law of War- A Must Read and a Must Watch

 For many years now, decades actually, I have had a friend named "Compleat Patriot."

Compleat Patriot has tried to explain to me that the United States has been organized as a corporation operating under various forms of law. I must admit I have never fully understood what he has been trying to tell me. 

Today I finally discovered what he has been trying to explain to me all of these years. My sister sent me a link.

This makes sense. Please watch. 38 minutes. Clif High, Predictive Linguistics.

Brighteon

87,000 IRS Agents Are Coming for You

 Let me introduce this topic with an IRS story of my own. 

About 5 years ago, my wife cashed in an annuity that had reached maturity. It was a tax free annuity which was purchased with already taxed money. In other words, it was like a savings account where you deposit money and the only tax bill you receive is on the interest.

About 18 months ago, I get one of those soft audit letters in the mail informing me that we owe 14 thousand dollars in back taxes and penalties. We did not report it as income because it wasn't.

So then we have to dig out the 1099. In the box where tax amounts are written in, it says "no tax." I forward that to the IRS thinking that will be the end of that.

About 3 months later, the IRS sends another letter. This is an agree or deny letter for 4000. The IRS says, you are right but you should have added it as income for the year.

To that I replied, "If I close out a savings or checking account, do we list that as income as well?"

This forces me to contact my accountant, refile that year's taxes, and wait for the next round of financial abuse. A couple months ago, I get a letter telling me that my tax liability is ZERO. This is what I had to go through. 

Please note that I am an outspoken MAGA style conservative, now criminalized by President Biden in the Red Sermon. Is that a coincidence? Hard to say.   

This is what I do know. The IRS can perform some sort of half ass audit on me via the mail. It was my duty to prove my innocence. I have no idea of what the process is exactly, but I do know that no strangers showed up at my door. No agents.

Now I'm no expert in these matters for sure- but if the government was only going to audit billionaires and mult-millionaires, I figure they could do that with an additional 500 agents. 

So what do they need the additional 86,500 agents for?

For you. 

They've already hijacked your deductions for out-of-pocket medical expenses, losses due to casualty and crime, mortgage interest is virtually nonexistent, and you can't even deduct state or local taxes that you are forced to pay. They are coming after charitable contributions next.

They are going to look at your bank accounts, your transactions, your lifestyle, and your Obamacare. They are going to pay home visits. look at books, look at businesses. You have a cash transaction business like a laundromat, car wash, auto repair, or RV park? Best of luck.

Deductions, business expenses, depreciation, offshore and foreign accounts, Obamacare subsidies.

You have a wife and kids, house, with no visible income? Plan on a visit.

This is an army. It is 40,000 people stronger than the TSA when they launched that bureaucracy. 

I honestly can't believe that people are not discussing this. This is an opening shot across the bow from a government that has literally spent us into oblivion. And the only collateral this government has is it's ability to squeeze the collective nuts of every American here and abroad.

All that remains is whether they are going to target conservatives or everyone.

This government makes the Mafia look reasonable.

Pidgeon and Me

 I met Pidgeon in my very early 20's, shortly after becoming a sheriff's deputy. He was the investigator for our police department.

Pidgeon probably shouldn't have been a cop. He was a funny man, kind of impulsive, and prone to do things outside the box of normalcy. He was a straight shooter and honest. He swore like a sailor, another trait I admired deeply. I think that's why I liked him so much. I think I found someone even more impulsive than I was. Latching onto Pidgeon for a role model cop/mentor probably wasn't the best choice I ever made- but that's what I did.

Very early on in my patrol career, Pidgeon and I went to a burglar alarm. It was a very audible alarm installed in a jewelry store. It was absolutely shrieking so loud that it was damaging my ears. Pidgeon it seemed, was having the same problem I was having as we waited through eternity for the owner to arrive. Pidgeon finally had enough, took matters into his own hands and decided to simply destroy the alarm and the wires connecting it to the audible speakers. It worked. No more shrieking.

The owner showed up about 15 minutes later, none too happy with Pidgeon's handiwork. That afternoon, I found myself in the Sheriff's Office explaining what happened. The Sheriff pretended to be angry with us and ultimately the office paid for the repair of the alarm system. I think that incident cemented our friendship. 

For the next four years, Pidgeon and I worked together. It was probably the best four years I spent in law enforcement. I learned a few things about Pidgeon. He hated enforcing traffic laws and was quite proud of the fact that he had the same 25 ticket, ticket book, that he had been issued when he came to our department 7 years earlier. 

I also learned that you did not point your finger at Pidgeon. That set him off. One day at an early morning domestic dispute, there was a foot or so of freshly fallen snow. The angry man half of the relationship emerged from the cabin before we could get to the front door. The angry guy pointed his finger in Pidgeon's face and told us to leave. Pidgeon stripped the car keys from the guy's hand and launched them about 25 yards away in the deep snow. "Go find em!" Pidgeon yelled.

Another time, we were looking for a stolen truck which was being operated by a man from France. He had quit his ranch job and run off with the owner's truck. We scoured the valley and eventually found the guy at a restaurant. We needed the keys to the truck. The French guy came outside and pointed at Pidgeon. I don't recall what he said. Pidgeon immediately became incensed and read this guy the riot act. Pidgeon said we were taking this truck, asked for the keys, and told the guy to get the fuck out of there.

Most of us would have been happy to leave and escape jail. Not the French guy. He kept asking Pidgeon what his name was. As though the French guy was going to call our boss and complain. He kept repeating Pidgeon's name back, calling him "Peeejon." Exasperated, Pidgeon just looked at him and yelled, "tell em I am the old motherfucker with the glasses!" They guy never called our office.

Trying to intimidate Pidgeon always ended in failure. It just wasn't a good move.

A couple of years before he retired, Pidgeon was driving past a scuffle between an unruly drunk motorist and one of our younger cops. Pidgeon hit the brakes of his truck, jumped out in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops, and grabbed the guy so that our bewildered patrolman could cuff him.

Pidgeon was a notorious speeder. I lost count of how many times he had been stopped. Once he got a ticket from the neighboring sheriff's office by the Sheriff himself. He was pissed. Pat wasn't a hypocrite- he didn't ever give anyone a speeding ticket. I think he was angry that the neighboring Sheriff gave him that ticket.

Now Pidgeon had to drive through this guy's county, a very vacant one, once a week about two in the morning. Pidgeon had a second job, a delivery job. When that employer bought a van with a 440 engine, Pidgeon knew that would be the last ticket he would ever get in that county. About a year later, Pidgeon was driving back home from the delivery job at about 15-20 over the speed limit. The Sheriff saw him, pulled out, and began the pursuit. Pidgeon mashed the accelerator to the floor and outran him- losing him at the county line. 

I laughed out loud when he told me the story. Vintage Pidgeon.

I helped emcee Pidgeon's retirement party. I couldn't tell many of the stories because there were many children present and any good story about Pidgeon had plenty of profanity. But I told a few of them.

Sadly, Pidgeon passed away about a year and half ago.  I spent a little time with him but not nearly enough.

I often think how Pidgeon shaped my life as a police officer. In our time, we didn't have a policy manual to guide every single decision we did or what we could say. We used whatever judgement we had and tried to make the best decisions. Often we did this in a vacuum by ourselves. Pidge locked up a few bad guys. He let many minor offenders go. He had a sense of right or wrong and he saw the big picture. If you could get past the salty language, a minor eruption and some bad judgement here or there, Pidge was a pretty good guy. 

He was a character. I don't see these kinds of people anymore. Today, we have these cardboard cutouts for cops, guided by policy on every matter. Thankfully they still give the cops the same discretion we once had- that discretion has contributed quite nicely to my nearly clean, driving record since retirement. Pidge would have liked that.

 

The Unvaccinated

 

“Even if I were pollinated and fully vaccinated, I would admire the unvaccinated for withstanding the greatest pressure I have ever seen, even from partners, parents, children, friends, colleagues and doctors.

People who were capable of such personality, courage and critical ability are undoubtedly the best of humanity. They are everywhere, in all ages, levels of education, states and ideas. They are of a special kind; they are the soldiers that every army of light wants to have in its ranks. They are the parents that every child wants to have and the children that every parent dreams of having. They are beings above the average of their societies, they are the essence of the people who have built all cultures and conquered horizons. They are there, next to you, they look normal, but they are superheroes.

They did what others could not, they were the tree that withstood the hurricane of insults, discrimination and social exclusion. And they did it because they thought they were alone, and believed they were the only ones.
Banned from their families’ tables at Christmas, they never saw anything so cruel. They lost their jobs, let their careers sink, had no more money … but they didn’t care. They suffered immeasurable discrimination, denunciation, betrayal and humiliation … but they kept going.

Never before in humanity has there been such a “casting”, now we know who are the best on planet Earth. Women, men, old, young, rich, poor, of all races or religions, the unvaccinated, the chosen of the invisible ark, the only ones who managed to resist when everything collapsed.
That’s you, you passed an unimaginable test that many of the toughest Marines, Commandos, Green Berets, astronauts and geniuses could not withstand.
You are made of the stuff of the greatest who ever lived, those heroes born among ordinary men who glow in the dark.”

-Author unknown

Watching the Predicted Collapse of the U.S. Dollar in Real Time

 I live in a quiet little town in the western United States not too far from California.

We are suffering a tremendous influx of California residents into our area as the California population tries to escape sky rocketing taxes, ridiculous real estate pricing, crime, and a communist Governor and state legislature.

The people in my area are convinced that the Californians are to blame for disrupting their quiet lifestyle, choking our streets, and driving taxes up. I see the plates too, but I know better.

Californians fleeing here are the manifestation of a much larger problem. They are the symptoms not the disease.

In 2008-2009, about the time I began writing on FG, we saw the Federal Government hijack a trillion or so from US taxpayer coffers and bail out their campaign donor banker friends. If that weren't bad enough, they passed the Affordable Care Act to bail out the closely connected health insurance industry which was on the verge of complete collapse also.

Then we saw a federal government go completely off the rails- creating trillions and spending them without restraint. That left us looking like this.

Bear in mind this chart is 10 years old. The new line would look far worse.

I have this kind of crazy, US history, economics, equity trading background despite the fact that I spent my younger years, 24 of them, in law enforcement. I am a voracious reader as well and I comprehend and capture most of what I have read.

So when you read this blog, I am well aware of the history of the civil war greenback, the US dollar, how the Federal Reserve Bank came into existence, how they caused a depression 16 years later, how FDR seized US citizen's gold, and once he had it, he revalued it. I know how the dollar became the world's reserve currency, how Nixon removed the gold standard and replaced it with the petro dollar. From there on in, the early 70's, all of your congressmen and Presidents have spent us into oblivion. Some caused far more damage. Clinton signing free trade agreements, removing all of the banking obstacles put into place after the Great Depression, caused the Great Recession. Just 8 years later.

Throughout the history of the United States, particularly from 1913 forward, we have been plundered by that central bank and by politicians to such an extent- that we are now bankrupt. The dollar is worthless. It is backed by nothing. A share of stock, a piece of paper, goes for 1000 bucks. A puny little house that cost 10,000 in 1950, is now worth 400,000. A candy bar I bought as a child for 10 cents, now is 1.50. That's 1500% for a candy bar.

I am in amazement that you can still buy gold right now for 1850 dollars USD. That is a steal. Were it to be completely valued, given true price discovery and removal of all of the manipulations of investment bankers in the futures market, gold should be worth 30,000 or up. 

This latest bill, the Inflation Reduction Act, is a lie and deception on the greatest scale. Watching these journalism idiots and sycophants trumpet that piece of shit as a panacea, showcases just how stupid and out of touch with history most of those writers are.

Why do you think they need 87,000 IRS agents? Because they are desperate. They can't pay for all of this spending they've done for decades but they are going to try.

It's going to suck bad. They have already wrung every deduction they can out of a standard 1040 and it is going to get worse. Much, much worse. Absolute government thievery and exploitation to avoid all of that debt defaulting. This will get very bad. I wish it could go some other way but there is no political courage out there. 

Don't blame people as they try to flee to somewhere they can afford, some place safer, where the government boot is not on your throat. Watch California. It is going to shit. It has always been the canary in the US coal mine.

At this point all you can do is prepare. Eliminate as much debt as possible. Keep cash and gold on hand. Ammunition and guns. Prescription meds. A food and water supply. Fuel and generators. God and family. 

People should see this for what it is. A complete implosion of the USD with Nero fiddling in Washington. What a shame. This was a great country once but there is no intervention, no stopping this now.

 

President Trump Discovers What a Pretext Search Is

Police Chief here. Wrote many affidavits and search warrants. Executed same. Left receipts for seized property. Now noting the clusterfuck at Mar A Lago. People now rendering opinions about what happened to President Trump. Most of it is conjecture. 

So what I'm saying is simply this. Verified and corroborated facts tend to be the best evidence to establish truth- beyond that everything else is just an opinion.

I don't care whether a person has 20 years' worth of credentials and experience- in the absence of verified and corroborated facts or evidence- anything an "expert" utters may or may not be bullshit. I take a real jaundiced view of all those lawyers wearing FBI garments.

Now it doesn't take a college degree to determine what the truth is. Or what the truth isn't. Which leads me to today's topic.

The search of Mar-A-Lago, Trump's estate, was predicated upon some missing documents presumably from NARA, the National Archives.  I am in awe that an entire FBI field office had the audacity to do this and kick all of Trump's lawyers out while they searched. Talk about using a cannon to kill a mouse.

NARA. https://www.usa.gov/federal-agencies/national-archives-and-records-administration

A pretext search occurs when you have a set of proven facts or reasonable suspicion that a crime has occurred. You write an affidavit, set it before some pre-selected friendly judge, and get it signed. In this case, the items to be described were unreturned documents from the National Archives. The judge was an Obama appointee who once defended Jeffrey "I didn't kill myself" Epstein, pedophile.

Unreturned or misappropriated documents?? Really?? Big effing deal. Obama and Bill Clinton took all kinds of NARA documents. Are we to expect a search warrant for them in the coming days?

That was the pretext the DOJ/FBI used to obtain the warrant. They could care less about that nonsense. What they are really after are incriminating documents having to do with something else. Maybe Jan. 6. Maybe tax evasion. Maybe other serious crimes. What they were really looking for had nothing to do with the National Archives. They are hoping to find evidence of some other serious crime that they can use to get rid of Trump for good. 

A search warrant affiant has to particularly describe the items being searched for in the search warrant affidavit. You must also leave a receipt for the property that was seized. 

Now there is well established law that says you can't look for a stolen microwave in a kitchen drawer. So what you must do if you really want in that drawer, is that you must state in your search warrant that you are searching for proof of residency, occupancy, power, gas, cable bills, or some other item that may be small enough to fit in that drawer.

What if you stumble upon ledgers, bank accounts, or other documents that incriminate the suspect for other crimes? Can you seize them? Yes, and you can photo them or write down what's on them and leave those items behind if you are trying to be a little sneaky about it.

The rule is- as long as you were legally entitled to open that drawer in the first place, anything you spot that is evidence of another crime or contraband can be seized as evidence. Even if you just "stumbled onto it" by mistake. 

Did I use pretexts to search for evidence of other crimes? Yes, but not intentionally per se. We just knew from experience that we were likely to uncover evidence from other crimes because it happened so often. We generally wrote affidavits that would allow us to search for the tiniest piece of contraband anywhere in a house, property, or storage unit and that allowed access virtually anywhere. Sometimes we found a checking account number, a storage unit key, or something else we could use for additional evidence or other crimes.

So in essence, 30 members of an armed FBI field office, were able to look anywhere they wanted to inside or outside of Mar-A-Lago as they searched for "missing documents."

They used a perfectly legal method to go on a fishing expedition which may or may not yield results evidence of other crimes.

Here's the problem with that. Everyone in the legal community might already suspect this was nothing but a pretext search. People, citizens, do not like the idea of cops abusing the law to conduct pretext searches. Not only do many people see the pretext search as dishonest, it violates a sense of fair play.

People have had it with this never-ending Trump witch hunt. They are tired of the deep state and media. We've had 2 unsuccessful impeachments, the Russia hoax, the Mueller nonsense, the tax return bullshit, and I am sure I am missing some other stuff.

I think this latest round is going to spectacularly backfire. We're not talking about some run of the mill low level drug dealer being abused in a search warrant. This is the President of the United States.

The Dems have crossed the point of no return. They better have Trump dead to rights this time or all hell is about to break loose.

 

Why Welfare Fails

 I have a brother-in-law who has been living on government welfare for the last 6 years. This wouldn't be particularly amazing if he didn't have a wife and three kids. His wife doesn't work either. He is not disabled nor is his wife. They simply found a way to escape the regular, routine, work life.

Near as I can tell he gets about 1100 a month on his EBT card. He currently has 3100 in rollover credit on the card. The government also gives him 500 a month in what they call "EBT cash." This is money you can withdraw from an ATM for any purpose. He has also been receiving 750 a month in child tax credits. 

Thus far we have about 29k a year in direct payments. He gets a 6k "tax refund" each year.  He and his family receive medicare from the state. I'm not sure what else they do to game the system but 35k a year is simply the base case. If they work, they work for unreported cash.

The sum total of welfare I have taken directly from the government works out to about 4 weeks of food stamps in 1981. I also received 2 weeks of unemployment between jobs in 1984. About 800 bucks. In both instances, I found a job and ended those payments.

Some members of the cop hating community like to point out that my retirement is funded with tax money. Partly true and mostly false. I paid into the retirement system for 25 years. The city matched that with a slightly higher payment which amounted to nearly 20% of my salary per month. Those 25 years were in all likelihood, the greatest years of stock market investing and returns. Those years began in 1983 and ended in 2007. Once long ago, I calculated that the 20% sent into our state retirement system, compounded over 25 years amounted to 1.4 million. If I make it to 90, I'll break even in inflated dollars. Most won't.

Welfare was never meant to be a way of living. A way of life. It was initially meant to get people back on their feet again and stop shortly thereafter when folks became self-sufficient again.

Back in my working days as a police officer, we had 4 government subsidized housing projects which amounted to around 400 units in all. The vast majority of our calls for service were at these highly dense, low-income dwellings. Noise complaints, drug dealing, domestic fights, child abuse, theft. 

I often referred to those projects like prisons- without the fence. People were incarcerated there until their release date. We were the guards.

So why does welfare fail? It fails because the government is supplying the bottom half of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food, shelter, and health care. Often, they supply money in the form of EBT cash and unemployment. When you satisfy the most pressing needs of most people- you rob those people of their ambition and motivation. The welfare culture steals any willingness to work or escape their situation. People are more than happy to spend their days drinking, smoking dope, screwing, and receiving payments from the government.

The other problem of course is that this behemoth of a government simply cannot administrate any of these programs in any strict sense of the word. There is not some well-defined drop date where the government applies the rule- These payments last a year. After that they are done. We are not here to provide you with some cradle to grave subsistence living. 

That system can only get worse with millions of people flooding across our southern border.

So ideally, a functioning government would not be in the welfare business to begin with. Forced to intervene on behalf of the long term mentally ill or disabled- I could see state government in that business. But this idea of robbing millions of healthy people of utility and a sense of self-worth must stop. People get trapped in those prisons and they become a burden to society. Many never leave and their children see nothing wrong with that way of life. Thus, the cycle repeats.

Give a man a fish, he eats tonight. Teach a man to fish, he eats for a lifetime. 

Economic Gibberish, 66 Paragraphs Worth, by Michael Hudson

They call it the dismal science for a reason. 

Tonight I tried to wade through an essay entitled:

Michael Hudson: The End of Western Civilization – Why It Lacks Resilience, and What Will Take Its Place

Getting through the 66 paragraphs consumed about an hour of my time. It is certainly not written for a 9th grade level, so it takes a lot of deciphering, wordsmithing, and a dictionary to get through it. 

This is the kind of highbrow nonsense that appeals to a certain segment of the educated elite in this country and when you finish it and read through the comments- you get a feel for them. Somehow, I can see these people holding wineglasses in a study somewhere discussing the 100 IQs of the working class and below, smugly confident that the future of the world will rely on members of their caste.

It is essentially a 66 paragraph opinion based on a few different philosophies, schools of thought, history, politics, and some economic theory. But mostly history. Hudson is sort of the Charles Darwin of economics as he boldly states his evolutionary theory of how the world will look in the decades to come.

Why do I bring it up here? 

I couldn't help but think of an old phrase about teachers and professors. Those who do the work do it, those who cannot- become teachers. Teachers with an excellent resume like Hudson who are desperately trying to parlay a resume into book sales. 

One of the things I try to do when reading opinions, is I try to find truth and utility. Truth is kind of a moving target but utility- that's the question. What purpose does reading this serve? Can I effect an outcome? Can I benefit from reading this? Can I stand in a study somewhere holding a glass of wine while sounding intelligent and plotting a course for world harmony?

It's all bullshit. The only difference between these fools and the drywall crew, is that the drywall crew is infinitely more interesting. They might even talk about women or motorcycles. They might even mention a work tip to help you repair a wall. That is utility.

A lot of times, I'll read an opinion and you can just see the truth. It drips. You don't have to wade through the historical record or some writer's credentials. You know what you are reading is accurate. It makes sense because you have a shared experience with the writer.

Not this.

Let me give you the Cliff Notes version. The aristocracy, or rentier class, or oligarchy owns just about everything of value in western civilization. They are also using their money and influence to impact politicians and politics (taxes) that will benefit them. Ultimately the oligarchy in our country will fail just as Rome failed unless we adopt strategies similar to China's government controlled socialist system. In that economic model the government controls the flow of credit, the infrastructure, health care, transportation and communication as essential human rights. That way the greedy oligarchs can't spend us into oblivion. (Our new benevolent, socialist modeled, government will save us.)

Unbelievable. 

For 15 years, right here on FG, I've been writing about this shit. It isn't rocket science. The best players at the table always get the chips. Wipe the slate clean, restart the game, and the best players will get the chips again.

We have all of the tools we need to fix the system. What we lack is political courage. We lack political will. We fail to enforce the rule of law. We have let the FED destroy our country just as surely as the founding fathers predicted that a central bank would enslave us all. We have done precisely what they warned us not to do. Since at least 1913, the FED has been lending us into oblivion- without any visible restraint.

What we need is courage. That is all we've ever needed. 

However, if you think a giant socialist government is the answer, here's a link to Hudson's thoughts. Grab your wineglass.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/07/michael-hudson-the-end-of-western-civilization-why-it-lacks-resilience-and-what-will-take-its-place.html

Gun Review, Taurus G2C@.40 Cal. and... Idiots at the Range

 I have been looking for a concealable gun with more oomph than a 9mm. I have a beautiful little Kimber Micro 9mm with a built-in laser but it only carries 7 rounds.

It is a fine shooting gun, but it has three problems. With the laser that little gun is now running near 1000 bucks off the shelf. The other problem I have with the Micro 9 is that it is built just like a .45 caliber 1911. It is single action sans the back strap safety. So in a tense situation it will do as long as you remember to cock the hammer. I simply can't carry it cocked although it has an external safety. I am not a fan of the 9mm round in general. In a pinch, I want a gun that will fire just as quickly as I pull the trigger.

I set out to solve three problems. Find a concealable gun in the more powerful, .40 caliber. Increase the number of rounds. Do all those things inexpensively. That is how I landed on the Taurus G2C. I read a lot of reviews and I watched a couple of You Tube videos. Everyone seemed to like it. No jamming and a lifetime warranty. They also have a newer G3C but I stuck with the G2 because it looked smaller. I found it at Cabela's for 249.00. I also had 80 bucks' worth of points on my Cabela's card so buying this gun with tax was only about 180 bucks.

It comes with two mags which hold ten rounds each. It has an external safety, a chambered round indicator, and it comes apart very easily for cleaning. I picked it up a few days ago and took it to the range today.

The range was vacant when I arrived. Nobody was there, which is good because it's a bit on the small side. Since I was the only one there, I set my target up mid-range rather than the firing line. I am not going to be shooting a handgun from 50 yards away.

Just as I set up my target, the angry guy shows up. Now I've been shooting at ranges, many much nicer than this one, all of my life. Maybe 200 range days in all. This guy shows up and tells me to move my truck. No hello, no kiss my ass, no "how long ya got?" I told him I'd move the truck when I was through which was only going to be a couple of magazines worth of shooting, maybe 5 minutes if that. Then he tells me I am past the firing line and tells me to move my truck again. I said I know, this ain't my first time on a range. I am not moving shit until I am done. This pisses the rangemaster off and he started swearing at me because I would not comply with his demands. 

So you know this wasn't going to turn out well. I cycled a couple of mags through and left. 

The world it seems is full of assholes like this. I have gone to ranges and patiently waited for people to finish. I don't really want to shoot with strangers near me anyway. If this guy would have just STFU to begin with, I would have been done before he could even set up.

Yea I got his license plate number. 

I went to another location without any assholes. My wife shot the gun and we cycled about 50 rounds through it. Wadcutters, copper jacketed rounds, and hollow points. It performed well. I took it home and cleaned it with four other handguns. It was easy to disassemble and clean.

I am going to buy a viridian laser for it which is another 60 bucks. 

All in all, I've never been a Taurus fan. But this gun checks all the boxes for me. For 250 bucks it's hard to beat and it was pretty accurate. I'd recommend it. 

No More Mr. Nice Guy

 I found this comment on a blog that I read daily and thought I would steal it. It addresses the government's response to covid 19. Here it is:

Never forget what "they" did to us in 2020 and what they still want to do to us. Businesses were forced to close, some of them permanently. Children missed milestones. Weddings were delayed. Funerals were limited. My dear dad wasn't allowed to hug his grandchildren before he died. All based on the pretense of stopping the spread of an airborne virus, which was always impossible.

The problem with that comment is the rampant apathy displayed by most people. You may not forget. Yea, so what? Words without deeds.

The problem with conservatives is that when we don't like something, we simply don't do it. We keep to ourselves.

When liberals don't like something, they ridicule, ostracize, try to censor and exclude, try to form a likeminded majority and force you into cowering. When you won't submit to their belief system, they will eventually try to pass laws to make you comply.

That is the glaring difference between liberals and conservatives.

So the problem then becomes, when are conservtaives and the good people of this country going to grow a backbone? When are you going to take a stand? Or have all become people like Mitch McConnell or Mitt Romney?

Do we just let the liberal left destroy every value system we have? 

There is no bigger proponent of the Four Agreements and agreement two, "take nothing personal" than me. That works great most of the time. But not in this case. The enemy is overrunning the fence.

It is time for civil disobedience. I cannot distinguish the left from our government. I am no longer going to take this abuse from the cancel culture left and our complicit government. I am not going to let them or their numbers intimidate me. I am tired of drag queens reading to kids in taxpayer paid for venues, I am tired of them trampling our history and our rights. Tired of the left intimidating justices and forcing their unproven masks and vaccines on me. I am tired of stolen elections with no investigation. I am tired of this idiot President and his criminal son. I am tired of executive orders which are simply edicts designed to circumvent Congress. Where ever I find the radical left who dumped this burning bag of dogshit on our doorstep, we're going to have a confrontation. I am sick of their shit.

Washington Commanders. Cleveland Guardians. I feel like Alice in Wonderland.

What would Jesus do? Turn the other cheek? I don't think I'm going to reach that level of enlightenment. Not in this life anyway.

It's time to call for "broken arrow." The leftists are inside the wire.

https://youtu.be/ImPMKmdFl7Q

The Insanity of the Uvalde Massacre and Response (Yes, I Offer a Solution)

 The story I'm about to tell you is absolutely true. It is the result of my 24 years of police service in a town somewhat smaller than Uvalde, Texas. 

As I watched the horrible non response of Uvalde police officers last week to a school shooting that left 21 dead and a subsequent conclusion carried out by a Border Patrol swat team a full hour after the shooting began, I simply stared in amazement. I couldn't get enough of this story. If you want the raw definition of the term "clusterf**k", I can think of no better example than the Uvalde massacre. 

Early on in my career, I was involved in a couple of armed standoffs. These are barricaded suspects who are armed and refuse to come out and be arrested or evaluated. In a rural, small town setting, these standoffs often do not go well. In one of them, the suspect jumped out the back window and got away. Because of my failures at resolving issues like this in any sort of professional way, I became intrigued with solving the problem. This is doubly difficult in a small town agency where the absolute total amount of officers available can range from only 4 to 8 on duty and nearby at any given time. So I set about the task of handling barricaded suspects effectively and even more importantly, I searched for and found a winning solution for resolving hostage taking events and responding to an active shooter in any one of our 3 schools. Those two scenarios require different police strategies but have some overlap.

Fully staffed on any given school day meant a total of 4 officers. That's the Chief, a supervisor, a patrolman, and a school resource officer. Typical small town policing- but you should be able to muster at least 3 responders even in very rural places.

I read everything I could get my hands on. SWAT style teams were essentially useless for immediate response. Not only did they have a terrible track record, they had never prevented a loss of life at a school shooting. It simply takes too long to assemble them for that specific purpose. That's not to say SWAT teams have no purpose. They just can't arrive fast enough to prevent a loss of life within a school because school shooters have the element of surprise on their side. 

So it was obvious to me that the officers on duty, on any given day, were the ones that were going to have to train and drill. They would be the first responders.

My first stop was a hostage negotiating school. It was there that I learned the nuances of negotiation and most importantly, controlling exits and entrances. 

It was about this time that I first listened to Colonel Grossman of "Killology" talk. Grossman was highly critical with the response at the Columbine shooting. 

Grossman offered up a strategy where four people, armed with semi automatic rifles and perhaps a shot gun, could form a diamond formation, sweeping hallways and rooms. Two men would remain in a hallway while two would sweep a room and move on.  The man at the rear would face the rear to prevent any flanking attack. Responders would have helmets, ballistic shields and vests, and the appropriate firearms in squad cars.

This solution would work for a small agency. The manpower and the armament are adequate for the job. But I think the most key component of all is to train and drill, including at least two live drills per year. You can also train for the unknown. Suspects who chain doors from the inside, trip wires and bombs and counter surveillance. 

Not only does training acclimate responders with the school floorplan and other contingent problems of the response- it serves notice to would be school shooters that law enforcement are prepared. It has a deterrent effect. It also bolsters the confidence of responders. 

We have emergency operation plans for all sorts of disasters- yet here we are 3 decades in- and there are still jurisdictions with no definable plan. Those places would be better off just handing out pistols to school personnel every morning.*

It is interesting to note that the Uvalde school had a security guard who was not present when the shooting began. Do you think the shooter knew that? Of course he did.

I used to work with a police officer, later a Sheriff, who was always critical of anything he deemed as "armchair quarterbacking." Yet it is those failures with a decades long phenomenon of school shooters, that gives us our best education. We know what doesn't work. We've seen that.

Find something that will work. 

So tilting the odds in favor of the responders is tactically sound. We have a superior number of responders, well armed and protected, confident in their abilities to carry out this mission if the need ever arises and overcoming the fear of a one on one gun battle. Ask General Custer about superior numbers.

In an odd sort of way, I was never able to implement this type of emergency response. I had all the pieces in place, yet I retired in 2007. I checked to see if this type of response was ever seriously considered or implemented. I am sorry to say it was not. That's fine. Like Uvalde, it probably won't happen there. "Passing out the pistols, Archie Bunker style of enforcement" here:

https://youtu.be/-lDb0Dn8OXE

The Scrap Heap of History

 Late last week, I watched the documentary movie, "2000 Mules."

The movie's arrival was greeted with very little fanfare. Here was substantial proof, video and electronic tracking that at a very minimum identified 2000 people stuffing unmanned ballot boxes. There are electronic ID's on the phones, the owners of the phones can be identified and tracked from stash houses, the stash houses can be identified, people should be investigated and prosecuted.

The election of 2020 was completely stolen. All we had to do was see what happened before and after we went to bed on election night. The evidence is clear. All that remains is whether or not any of the felons who participated in this fraud will be prosecuted. 

I doubt it. 

We've already seen the ethical and moral decadence. Religious decay. Family decay. Governmental decay.

I watched President Obama give thousands of fraud committing bankers a free pass. Then he turned right around and came up with the ACA, a clever bailout for the health insurance industry. Obama ushered in the end phase. The phase where the chief executive simply ignores the rule of law and proves it doesn't matter.

That phase begins when you subvert the rule of law, ignoring it, while imposing the rule of man. The rule of man is subjective. Those in power will pick and choose who and what they will do. They will justify whatever means achieves their ends. We have already seen this. We have seen intrusions into our rights, seizures without due process, investigative bodies ignoring bribery and corruption easily discoverable on a laptop, and criminals like Hillary Clinton with her whole manufactured fraud v Donald Trump go unprosecuted. The civil rights violations alone are horrendous.

The unbelievable, undeniable, apathy that pervades our culture enabled this. We deserve this.

You don't have to wait to see how this ends. Our republic is imploding right in front of your eyes. They have destroyed the law, they have destroyed our currency, they have destroyed American jobs, ignored borders, ignored the law in favor of a bunch of purple haired, gender confused, culture canceling idiots.

What level of pain must we endure? It's hard to say. Shortages, outages, denial of health care now in the government's hands, a weaponized IRS seizing your assets, it's hard to say.

Think of our Republic in decline, a process which cannot be saved. There is no unifying intervention, no way of stopping what is about to come. The Republic was a grand experiment that is coming to an end. It's a shame we are here, literally watching it, powerless to stop it. 

It's a sad ending. Many of us are realizing how the Romans must have felt in those final days. Relegated to the scrap heap of history.  

The Chickens are Coming Home to Roost- You Are Witnessing It in Real Time

 This morning, as I do most mornings, I brew coffee and then I read the daily nonsense on sites like ZeroHedge. Then I check the markets. Today, every indicator was red. Indices, oil, gold. Everything was down.

Then I see some ridiculous mainstream article stating that the FED was responsible for the freefall and the end of the stock market business cycle. Like that is something new.

You see I forget. I forget that most people under the age of 45 have never seen a real inflation driven, stock market crash. Oh they saw that 2008 shitshow wherein our bought off leadership rescued crooked banks and bankers, then health insurance companies. Where the Bernank and the FED printed money hand over fist. Where cash holders bought mortgages for pennies on the dollar and have since become greedy slumlords renting shacks for a couple thousand a month.

So those 40 somethings might have seen that. They might even remember what happened.

But what they've never seen is an inflation driven crash. They've never seen 16% mortgages and the DOW Jones below 1000. Zero jobs. 

But I have.

Jimmy Carter might have been a nice man but he was a horrible President. He simply didn't have the leadership skills and bold decision making it took to navigate this country off the rocks of the Vietnam War and the impeachment of President Nixon. 

Biden is an absolute trainwreck of a man.

We have been sold out. Our country's manufacturing was sold out to China by terrible political governance and American corporations that seek cheap labor with few restrictions. We produce bupkis.

Our currency is being destroyed in front of our eyes. 

The FED has little recourse. When you are 31 trillion in debt- raising interest means you have to refinance at least half that 31 trillion debt into higher and higher rates. That of course will mean printing even more money to pay debt holders their interest while an army of IRS agents tries to squeeze every last cent out of the public.

I've been talking about this since 2009. That was 13 years ago. I had no idea that they would continue this insane spending, money printing, and inflation denial episode for so long. But they did.

So how bad can this get? I think it can go from bad to awful. I am worried about supply chain disruptions. So I keep adding to my food and water storage. Also storing fuel and getting a second generator. It's too late to buy ammunition. The stuff is insanely expensive and there are only two manufacturers left in the US.

The other day, I saw a pickup advertised at 95,000. It is the same truck I own which cost 34,000 in 2004. A 200% increase in 18 years- that's about 12% per year annualized on that one item. That's not because the truck is so much more valuable- that's because the dollar is becoming worthless. They've destroyed the dollar supply be diluting it with 13 years of QE and spending. 

It's here. The chickens are coming home to roost. Getting a real sense of how the Romans must have felt as their empire crumbled.

Israel, our big ally, is dumping the dollar. https://quoththeraven.substack.com/p/king-dollars-demise-israel-dumps?s=r

Prepping for the Long Emergency

 I would like to start here:

The Normalcy Bias. The assumption that since a disaster has never occurred- that it never will occur. It can result in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs.

People are creatures of habit and denial. We haven't had a real, bona fide, disaster since 1929. We haven't had a theft of elections and an idiot as corrupt or as bad as Joe Biden, either.

This week I read an article by a writer I have a lot of respect for. He is smart and credible. He writes "The Burning Platform." He thinks our country could see serious supply chain disruption and a currency devaluation the likes of which we have never seen. And soon.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2022/04/06/crash-positions/

I have written many pieces on preparing for the inevitable disaster. I have struggled with even bothering to prepare because it takes a financial commitment for an event which most likely will not occur in my lifetime. I thought that- until I saw how people reacted when covid struck. Man, after seeing the pandemonium and wiped out store shelves- you don't need to convince me any further.

When Russia collapsed, it did so without warning. People woke up with a worthless currency that banks would not even allow them to withdraw. It was seized and vastly devalued. In fact, we have similar laws that allow banks to seize your deposits. Your money is not your money. It is theirs.

So what should you do? Should you ignore the possibilities? 

I wanted to tell you what I have done. If disaster never comes to pass, and I surely hope it does not, we will have the preparations to pass down to our kids and grandkids.

So everything I am telling you today is something I have done, accomplished, or will finish this week.

Money. I have withdrawn almost all of my cash except for an IRS payment next week. At least the bank can't seize my money- it's not like I was making any interest anyway.

I am upping my allotment of precious metals. I am taking a 20% stake. Gold, platinum and silver. I own 30 pounds of nickel. Another 80 pounds of copper. You will only see precious metals fall once, badly, as people liquidate in a crash. Getting them after that point- is not guaranteed. You will have to barter with something else if you don't prepare.

I have plenty of guns and ammo. I may add another heavy rifle soon. Probably .30.06 or 7mm. Savage rifles are accurate and reasonably priced.

Consider a large gun safe bolted to the floor for guns, ammo, valuables.

Generator. I bought a dual fuel generator that supplies 6000 watts. I have another smaller generator which generates 2000 watts. I bought storage for 100 pounds of propane in 30 lb bottles, 3 of those and I have four small 4.6 pound bottles. Fifty gallons of gas in 6 containers with a pump and siphon hose. I can use a transfer switch or run separate lines for the generators. I've looked at solar generators for the long haul but those things are expensive given the wattage they produce.

I am confident in a power emergency, I can supply power for 2 weeks with what I have on hand. The big generator is something I hope I never need. I also have a 7500 watt power cord with (4) 3 prong plugins at the end to handle freezers, fridges, routers, lights. I've been trying to find an electrician to install a transfer switch or a Generlink.

I saw a fascinating little piece the other night about the exploding costs of electricity in California. The author alluded to the fact that at current rates- charging your electric vehicle would soon approximate the cost at a gas pump. It dawned on me that I would not want to live in a state with electrical grid problems and a hostage population needing their car charged with exploding rates. It might make my 60k car unusable.

https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/

Cameras. Motion detectors. My property will be under surveillance. Batteries. The cameras are web activated which means I need a router w power, phones, and a means to store energy.

Oil. Filters. Batteries. A years prescription of drugs. Detergent. Soap. Toothpaste. Toilet paper.

Food and water. You simply cannot have enough of either. I think 50 cases or 400 gallons of water is a minimum. I keep buying food in cases. Shelf stable almond milk will last a year. Anytime I see chili for a buck a can or soup for 1.50, I buy it- several cases worth. Everything I have can be rotated and used as it expires.

I have wanted to buy a defensible piece of ground in the middle of nowhere with some topsoil where I could grow food or raise small livestock. I haven't been able to find what I want.

I don't have any armored vehicles or mustard gas masks with dual filtration systems nor have I built any gun turrets at casa de Frankenstein.  

This is what I have done. I feel confident that I can survive awhile without too much help.

It Starts Slowly and Ends Suddenly

I joined Clusterfuck Nation this week, James Kunstler's blog. Every once in a while, you stumble across someone who thinks and writes just like you do. 

This week the NY Times authenticated the Hunter Biden laptop story which had been buried by the liberal press prior to the presidential election and subsequently declared Russian disinformation by friendly liberal stooges desperate to get rid of Trump. https://nypost.com/2022/03/17/hunter-bidens-infamous-laptop-confirmed-in-new-york-times-report/

So in addition to smoking crack, screwing your dead brother's wife, having children with strippers, soliciting bribes, receiving over 1 million dollars for sitting on the Burisma board in the Ukraine, getting 3.5 million from a female Russian oligarch, and tax evasion- Hunter Biden abandoned a laptop that corroborates much of this shit. https://nypost.com/2020/09/23/hunter-biden-received-3-5m-from-russian-billionaire-report/

The FBI has had the fucking thing since 2019 and I suppose we are all left wondering how it takes the FBI three years to investigate a body of crimes that any competent cop could do in a month or two.

The short answer is that they are political hacks and if they sit on this laptop long enough- they will hope it all goes away so this numbskull can remain out of jail. Maybe the statute of limitations will run out. But you know damn well that the "big guy" has sent the message. Corruption rolls down hill and the only way to stop corruption is to engage in career suicide. 

I don't know what level of corruption you must rise to or achieve to eventually get the attention of law enforcement. Apparently if you are one of these Biden crooks, on par with the Clinton crooks, you can get away with anything from pedophilia to million dollar bribes. 

We all know that the cowardly prosecutors in this country will do anything to keep out of harm's way. 

We are a top down executive branch. If the president is corrupt- then everything below him becomes corrupt. Forget ethics and morality, we've lost all that. Forget the rule of law. We don't enforce law anymore unless it's some defenseless guy in a trailer park. The FBI is shit. Now we are finding out that the CIA have sponsored bio-labs all over the world, not just the 30 in the Ukraine.

Our currency is debauched, we owe 31 trillion in debt with no end in sight. Our tax code is such a fucking complex disaster that only the aristocracy (who are quite happy with it) can sort it out with teams of accountants and lawyers. Inflation is close to 15% a year, fuel prices have doubled, and the rest of the world knows we are in trouble. Supply chains are breaking and who knows the collateral damage the drooler in chief can accomplish in the Ukraine. Look what he's done in a year. The leaderless group exercise continues.

Slowly is turning into quickly. It's time to prepare. I will tell you what I have been doing in the coming days.

The Man Who Stared Down Corn Pop

 Remember our President telling the story of confronting the bad ass, "Corn Pop" at the swimming pool?

I do. Whenever I hear stories like this, I know two things. The guy telling the story is full of shit and very likely, a pussy. 

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/corn-pop-joe-biden-memes/

Unfortunately, the idiots always out themselves and also unfortunately, this key piece of wisdom is known by a lot of people including former KGB heads now running giant countries.

I'll tell you this much. Not only has Biden never accomplished one useful thing in his life but now we have a complete moron trying to stop Putin's incursions into a friendly country.

I am in complete awe that Americans heisted an election and instead of installing someone decent and useful- they landed on Biden.

I am sure the people of the Ukraine will not be hoping for help from Joe. They probably heard the Corn Pop story too.

So sit back, grab your beer and pretzels, and watch this idiot make statements and decisions. Before it's over, we'll be praying for the return of Jimmy Carter.

The Great Super Bowl Sunday Post and Additional Bullshit

 I grew up playing virtually every sport. We didn't have soccer in the 70's and I thank God for that.

What we did have was flag football and then tackle football. We had baseball and basketball. And track. And golf.

I loved playing sports and despite the fact I was virtually talent free, I continued to engage in sports. When I could no longer freely engage in sports while maintaining an ever-increasing interest in sports, the next best thing was to bet sports.

I had a wonderful week of sports wagering this week. I went 5-2 last night even after the Memphis Grizzlies squandered a 35 point lead. Which brings me to Super Bowl Sunday. Second only to Christmas to my way of holiday thinking.

In the old days, I gave up the Christmas party in lieu of the Super Bowl party. Much alcohol was consumed at these events which included our own version of halftime. We played Kiss at extraordinary volume and included "Detroit Rock City" and "Lick It Up" until people in the neighboring town began to complain. 

So much fun. So little time. My ex hated that day even more than she hated me.

Which brings me to Superbowl Sunday. (Full disclosure, I have 100 each bet on Cincinnati +4 and the total game score above 48.5.)

I take a scientific approach to sports betting. I compare every position. And then injuries. And then the "what have you done for me lately" methodology. Followed by my secret Super Bowl test question.

Is Chase a better receiver than Kupp? The Rams certainly have a better defense. I give the nod in quarterbacks to Joe Burrow. Running backs? Even. Home field advantage? Rams. But it's "the what have you done for me recently?" methodology that had me siding with the Bengals.

The Bengals knocked off the AFC champion Titans at home. Then they went in and beat the Kansas City Chiefs at home after KC had miraculously beat the Bills. I wanted to see the Bills in the Super Bowl in the worst way.

The Rams beat Tampa Bay badly. Brady looked horrible all day long for the Bucs and then retired. The Rams went home to face a San Francisco team who had beaten them 6 times in a row. They managed to squeak by a 3 point win.

Who had it tougher in the playoffs? Advantage, Cincinnati. 

Who had quality wins and losses in the regular season? The Rams. In fact, all of their losses were top tier opponents. Cinncinati lost to the Bears and Jets. Horrible teams.

So the Rams should prevail in a playoff season full of close calls but I see the Bengals covering the points in a close game. I'd be shocked to see either team run away with this. I am also bothered by the fact that all of the gambling steam is on the Bengals right now.

I view the Superbowl differently than my day-to-day wagering. For me this is simply cast-off money on a game where there is no material advantage anywhere. I wouldn't even bet this game in a free contest where today- I took the over in the Minnesota-Pacers game.

So enjoy the national spectacle today. It will be back to the bad news grind tomorrow.