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COMMENT: I thought you were nuts when you said the US would break up. I apologize. Today we voted here in Oregon to leave the state and join Idaho. Great forecast.

REPLY: This is always the outcome. But more importantly, this is also just the beginning. The election of Biden was really disastrous. With a slim 50.4% of the vote, he is trying to force the Leftist agenda down the throats of everyone else. This is not a way to run a country. He has no mandate and anyone with common sense would realize this is a very dangerous path he has taken. It amounts to a dictatorship. There should be a 2/3rd majority requirement to change tax codes or anything major. The United States will divide and politics will be the driving force.

Biden’s Presidency Will Be A Catalyst For Secession – And Perhaps Civil War

January 22, 2021

Biden’s Presidency Will Be A Catalyst For Secession – And Perhaps Civil War

Over the past few months I have written a handful of articles which discussed what would probably happen if Joe Biden actually entered the White House and launched his administration. My initial belief was that Trump would refuse to concede and that this would be a trigger for national chaos blamed on conservatives, but I have also noted that Biden’s entry is almost just as disruptive, as it sends a signal to the political left that it is “open season” on anyone that disagrees with their ideology.

Of course, conservatives are not going to simply sit still and be purged and abused, they are going to strike back, and this sets the stage for a number of events and outcomes, some of which are completely unpredictable, even for establishment globalists.

First, though, we need to address how Biden and the globalists are going to create chaos so that they can then demand their own brand of “order”.

In my article ‘A Biden Presidency Will Mean A Faster US Collapse’, published in October, I outlined why the ongoing economic crisis will accelerate in the wake of a Biden takeover. More specifically, I predicted that Biden would implement a federal covid lockdown, probably within the first year of his presidency, similar to the Level 4 lockdowns implemented in Europe and Australia. Biden may lure Americans into complacency with promises of “relief” and less restrictions in his first couple months, but he will then use the rather convenient news of “covid mutations” to bring in even harsher mandates.

Such a lockdown, if Americans submit, would mean an even larger spike in unemployment, a loss of hundreds of thousands of small businesses as well as a huge loss in tax revenues for some states (mostly blue states).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How to Avoid Civil War: Decentralization, Nullification, Secession

December 5, 2019

How to Avoid Civil War: Decentralization, Nullification, Secession

It’s becoming more and more apparent that the United States will not be going back to “business as usual” after Donald Trump leaves office, and it is easy to imagine that the anti-Trump parties will use their return to power as an opportunity to settle scores against the hated rubes and “deplorables” who dared attempt to oppose their betters in Washington, DC, California, and New York.

This ongoing conflict may manifest itself in the culture war through further attacks on people who take religious faith seriously, and on those who hold any social views unpopular among degreed people from major urban centers. The First Amendment will be imperiled like never before with both religious freedom and freedom of speech regarded as vehicles of “hate.” Certainly, the Second Amendment will hang by a thread.

But even more dangerous will be the deep state’s return to a vaunted position of enjoying a near-total absence of opposition from elected officials in the civilian government. The FBI and CIA will go to even greater lengths to ensure the voters are never again “allowed” to elect anyone who doesn’t receive the explicit imprimatur of the American intelligence “community.” The Fourth Amendment will be banished so that the NSA and its friends can spy on every American with impunity. The FBI and CIA will more freely combine the use of surveillance and media leaks to destroy adversaries.

Anyone who objects to the deep state’s wars on either Americans or on foreigners will be denounced as stooges of foreign powers.

These scenarios may seem overly dramatic, but the extremity of the situation is suggested by the fact that Trump — who is only a very mild opponent of the status quo — has received such hysterical opposition. After all, Trump has not dismantled the welfare state. He has not slashed — or even failed to increase — the military budget.

Rajoy Slapped in the Face: Catalonia Elects Pro-Independence Speaker

January 18, 2018

Rajoy Slapped in the Face: Catalonia Elects Pro-Independence Speaker

Spain’s prime minister Mariano Rajoy received a well-deserved slap in the face today. Independents again rule Catalonia.

In October, prime minister Mariano Rajoy took direct control of Catalonia, jailing its leaders and dissolving its parliament after Catalan president Carles Puigdemont declared independence in October. Puigdemont is now in exile in Belgium.

Rajoy forced a new election, but the results are the same.

Catalan Parliament

Back in Control

Today, in a well-deserved slap in the face to prime minister Mariano Rajoy, Pro-Independence Groups Take Back Control of Catalonia’s Parliament.

Pro-independence parties took control of the Catalan parliament on Wednesday in what they hailed as the first step towards restoring the regional government after almost three months of direct rule from Madrid.

Celebrations erupted among flag-waving supporters in Barcelona as Roger Torrent, of the pro-independence Republican Left (ERC), was voted head of the speaker’s committee, the chamber’s decision-making body.

Addressing the chamber, Mr. Torrent denounced the legal proceedings against much of the pro-independence leadership. He said the imprisonment of three parliamentarians – including Oriol Junqueras, the former vice president and ERC leader – was “absolutely unjustified, and impedes them being able to freely exercise their rights”.

Opposition parties had tried to thwart the election of Mr. Torrent with a request – swiftly denied – that the parliament reject delegated votes from the three jailed politicians, whose empty seats were marked with yellow ribbons. Mr. Puigdemont and four former cabinet members in self-imposed exile in Brussels dropped their attempts to vote via delegates after Mariano Rajoy, the Spanish prime minister, warned he would appeal such a move at the Constitutional Court.

Parliament Reconvenes Pro-Independence Groups Win

The BBC reports Catalonia MPs Elect Separatist Speaker as Parliament Reconvenes.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

As US Global Influence Recedes, Secession Demands Grow

January 13, 2018

As US Global Influence Recedes, Secession Demands Grow

One of the more welcomed outcomes of the paring back of the US State Department bureaucracy is the elimination of scores of “status quo enthusiasts.” Since the end of World War II, the State Department’s ranks have been populated by foreign service officers and career diplomats who have championed the international status quo. These minions of Foggy Bottom received encouragement for their protective stance on post-World War II and Cold War in President George H. W. Bush’s speech on September 11, 1990, which was titled, “Toward a New World Order.” Under the “new world order,” regional and global security concerns would supplant democratic independence movements. The immediate effect of this “order” was brutal crackdowns on secession in the periphery of the former Soviet Union, including Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, as well as in Somalia, the Kurdish regions of Iraq and Turkey, Sudan, and Ethiopia. However, in Yugoslavia, which the United States and European Union wanted to see dissolved, secessionists in seven constituent states were encouraged to secede from the federation. That resulted in the bloodiest military conflicts in Europe since World War II.

Leaders of secessionist groups visiting Washington were traditionally shunned by the State Department. These hapless would-be presidents and prime ministers would be lucky to meet with a low-ranking State Department employee. However, if their independence movements were championed by the Central Intelligence Agency, they would get red carpet treatment. Such was the case with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s favorite Balkans “toy boy,” Hashim Thaci, the leader of the terrorist Kosovo Liberation Army and now President of the Republic of Kosovo, which was carved out of Serbia but is still unrecognized by many of the world’s most important nations, including China and Russia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Canadian Separatists

December 27, 2017

Canadian Separatists

COMMENT: I think the danger for Canada is not Quebec leaving because they get 11 billion dollars a year given to them by the federal government, it is the provinces paying the bills that are more likely to leave, western Canada in general but especially Alberta which has been getting hosed. As you noted before resentment is what is produced by giving billions of mostly western Canadian dollars to eastern Canada each year. Now Trudeau is attacking the oil industry that pays the bills, the man is insane and destroying Canada.

REPLY: I am fully aware that the Separatist movement is rising very rapidly in Canada and it is the West v East. Trudeau’s socialist agenda is again imposing the philosophy of class warfare upon the whole of Canada. This only inspires uprising and discontent as we are seeing in Europe. The very same issues were behind the Trump Revolution. The media keeps desperately trying to overthrow Trump as president to save the socialist agenda in the USA.

Understand that this is the death of socialism. As it declines as an economic philosophy, those who are diehard leftists will do whatever they can to take power back.

The Separatist Movements in Canada & One-Size-Fits-All of Marx

December 15, 2017

The Separatist Movements in Canada & One-Size-Fits-All of Marx

Many people are aware of the various attempts of Quebec to separate from Canada. What they are unaware of is the supporters of the Western Independence Party of Alberta. There has been an undertone of the separatist movement in Alberta which actually stems from the Great Depression usurpation of the Federal Reserve by Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Why is the Western Canada separatist movement caused by Roosevelt’s usurpation of the Federal Reserve? Everyone looks to the United States and assumes whatever structure they adopt must be correct. The Euro was crafted because the USA has a single currency. They did not consolidate all the debts and that has created a nightmare. Canada, likewise, assumed the one-size-fits-all policy of Roosevelt and has been paying the price regionally ever since.

So what is the link with the structural usurpation of the Federal Reserve?

When the Fed was created, it was the solution to the Panic of 1907, which was set in motion by the disruption of the internal domestic capital flows caused by the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. The insurance companies were in New York. Consequently, the cash flowed to the West and a shortage developed in the East.

The original structural design of the Fed was to establish 12 branches to manage the capital flows domestically. Interest rates would decline where there was an excess of cash and rise where there was a shortage. This, they believed, would cause capital to move between the branches to balance the national capital flows and economy. Each branch acted independently to manage the capital flows. When crops would come to market, then Kansas would have an excess of cash and rates would decline as we can see from the table showing the rates set by each branch in August 1927.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Europe’s Secession Problems Aren’t Going Away

October 20, 2017

Europe’s Secession Problems Aren’t Going Away

Earlier this week, The New York Times noted that movements for greater local autonomy appear to be spreading throughout Europe. In some ways, the conflict in Catalonia is just the tip of the iceberg. The Times reports:

Coming on the heels of the Catalan vote, the Lombardy and Veneto referendums are yet another signal of the homegrown conflicts that persist in many of the European Union’s member states. Separatist movements are also simmering in Britain — where voters in Scotland rejected independence in a 2014 referendum but continue to debate the issue — as well as France, Germany, Belgium and Romania.

Like Catalonia — and unlike Scotland — the Lombardy and Veneto regions of Italy are among the wealthiest regions, and send enormous amounts of tax revenue to Rome. Italy’s southern regions, which are significantly poorer than northern Italy, have benefited from Northern wealth ever since Italians were all forced into a single nation-state in the late nineteenth century.

This has never been forgotten by Italians from Veneto, many of whom participated in a referendum in 2014 to declare Independence. Naturally, the Italian government in Rome declared the vote invalid. At the time, however, I interviewed one of the organizers Paolo Bernardini about the referendum. (See “Inside Venice’s Secession Movement.”) At the time, secessionists liek Bernardini appeared to be pursuing immediate and total independence from Rome, while remaining inside the EU:

A tiny majority of Veneto people are in favor both of the EU and of the Euro as a currency. So I envisage a little, rich state, playing a major economic and political role in the EU, a stabilizing role. It will interact naturally with other rich and similar states, Bavaria (still part of Germany), Austria, and the Netherlands. It will be a Finland in the Adriatic.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Madrid Gives Catalonia 5 Day Ultimatum To Clarify If It Declared Independence

October 11, 2017

Madrid Gives Catalonia 5 Day Ultimatum To Clarify If It Declared Independence

With Spain’s prime minister having opened earlier in the day the path for Madrid to use a constitutional “nuclear option” to suspend Catalonia’s autonomy, demanding that the regional government makes clear whether it considers itself independent, moments ago Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy gave Catalan President Carles Puigdemont a five day ultimatum to clarify whether he actually declared the region’s independence in his speech devoted to the highly controversial referendum, and another 3 to “rectify it.”

The news comes after Rajoy said earlier on Wednesday that the cabinet of ministers asked for clarification on the issue of autonomous region’s independence. As reported earlier, Rajoy decided to take the first step towards triggering Article 155 of the Spanish constitution, which would give Madrid previously unused powers to take control of Catalonia’s regional government, after an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Rajoy said his formal request for clarity was “necessary when activating Article 155” and would dictate the next steps in the crisis to “offer certainty to the citizens”.

Using Article 155 to suspend Catalan autonomy would deepen the constitutional crisis in Spain since Catalonia held a contested referendum on independence on October 1. Spain’s government says Catalonia’s independence drive is unconstitutional.

The prime minister also said that the “illegal referendum” has failed, adding that Catalan authorities lack the legitimacy to propose a unilateral declaration of independence. He underlined that the vote undermines our democracy, Spanish unity and the Statute of Catalonia.

Meanwhile, as AP reports, there were signs that the government was trying to take some steps to de-escalate the situation. Pedro Sanchez, the head of the opposition socialists, said on Wednesday that his party and the ruling centre-right PP party had agreed to talks to renegotiate laws governing regional autonomy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

You’re On Your Own, by Robert Gore

October 7, 2017

You’re On Your Own, by Robert Gore

ichef.bbci.co.uk

If the world seems incomprehensible now, just wait.

Within a twenty-four-hour span the Catalonian people voted 90 percent in favor of secession from Spain, despite the Spanish government’s effort to violently squelch the referendum, and a man in a Las Vegas hotel room opened fire on a concert, killing fifty-nine and wounding over 500. There’s no tangible connection between the two incidents, but they illustrate incipient forces still gathering steam that are transforming the world.

No government, military force, or intelligence unit has figured out how to stop those determined to kill large numbers of people if the killers are willing to forfeit their own lives. Nor will they. Individuals and small groups have the capability to amass and use large amounts of lethal weaponry, killing military and civilian targets in a guerrilla war, or victims on the deadly end of their random bullets or bombs.

Arguments that this can stopped by limiting access to weaponry are specious, serving only as cover for further expansion of government and curtailment of individual liberty. The trend towards cheaper, more widely distributed killing power stretches back to the invention of gun powder. Guns can now be manufactured at home with 3D printers. The cows left the barn long ago.

Standing in opposition to the forces of decentralized violence are the forces of centralized violence, governments. Catalonia offers a useful illustration. Violence was the government’s loud and clear cry that it had no other argument for preventing Catalonian succession. The wealthy region pays a disproportionate share of Spain’s taxes and gets less back than it puts in. Catalans are a distinct ethnic subgroup, attenuating any so-called blood ties between Catalonia and Spain. Suppression was only partially successful and 90 percent of those Catalonians who voted chose independence.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Kurdish Referendum Roils the Mideast

October 7, 2017

Kurdish Referendum Roils the Mideast

The Kurdish referendum seeking independence from Iraq has created more uncertainty in the turbulent Mideast with Israel appearing to see value in the new chaos, reports ex-British diplomat Alastair Crooke.

One week after Kurdish leader Masud Barzani held his referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq (with both the referendum and independence being contrary to the Iraqi constitution), the blowback has been fierce, angry and almost universal.

A map showing how Kurdish “territory” spills over into several Mideast nations.

What may have been conceived as a clever ploy by Masud’s eldest son, Masrour, to bolster the Barzani family’s flagging popularity by posing as a nationalist leader looks increasingly like a misstep. (Michel Rubin of AEI, has noted that “some [U.S.] Congressional staff and leaders with whom [Masrour] has met, came away from their meeting convinced that Masrour sought independence more to be heir apparent, in what will become hereditary [Kurdish] leadership, than out of sincere nationalistic concerns.”)

And now, presidential and parliamentary elections — hastily called in the wake of the Oct. 3 death of former Iraqi President and Kurdish political leader Jalal Talibani — have descended into a mess. Rather than settle “the succession” upon his eldest son, Masud Barzani may instead have opened a wider struggle over leadership of the Kurdish people.

Yes, the KRG is reported as being a democracy, but in practice it is run, explains, Michael Rubin, as a (corrupt) family enterprise in which “both the Barzanis (and Talabanis) confuse personal, party, and public funds.” Rubin explains: “Masud Barzani is president and lives in a palace complex in a resort inherited from Saddam Hussein. His nephew, Nechirvan Barzani, is prime minister. His uncle, Hoshyar Zebari, was Iraq’s foreign minister and is now finance minister. Masud’s eldest son, Masrour Barzani, leads the intelligence service; and his second son, Mansour is a general, as is Masud’s brother Wajy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Madrid Waged Cyber-War & Catalonia Votes Overwhelmingly to Leave Spain

October 7, 2017

Madrid Waged Cyber-War & Catalonia Votes Overwhelmingly to Leave Spain

Catalonia voted overwhelmingly to secede from Spain. Of course, the hard line invasion of riot police who beat and threatened the people discouraged many from showing up with the turnout being only 43%. The fascist government in Spain has demonstrated to the entire world that there is a major country risk in dealing with Spain. Any government that uses force against democracy will do whatever it takes to sustain power as the economy gets wose going into 2021.

Hundreds of people were injured by riot police attempting to prevent voting, and this has only caused outrage and further protests solidifying the resolve to separate from such a fascist government. Both Canada and Britain allowed separatist votes. Why Spain deemed the vote illegal was clear that they knew they would vote to leave.

Madrid even waged a cyber-war against Catalonia. They sought to shut down the internet and even ordered Google to shut down traffic coming from Catalonia. Madrid has shown the future civil war tactic will be to shut down the internet to prevent communication.

Catalonia’s parliament may well now declare independence; Madrid could decide to impose direct rule on the region and the police have been transformed into terrorists resembling the imported Russian police in Ukraine. Barcelona is perhaps the most beautiful city in Europe. Obviously, Madrid will be off the tourist agenda in the years ahead.

The Catalan Chain Reaction

October 6, 2017

The Catalan Chain Reaction

Catalonia’s drive for “independence” has unleashed a chain reaction of viral social media support that’s frighteningly resurrected civil war-era rhetoric, but the most dangerous consequences of this domino effect are yet to come if the separatists are ultimately successful in their quest.

The Nostalgia Narrative

The Catalan “independence” cause has taken the world by storm, thrown into the global spotlight by the heavily publicized referendum earlier this week and Madrid’s forceful response to this unconstitutional measure. Supporters all across the world have been energized by the recent events and have taken to describing them in civil war-era terms as a battle between “democracy” and “fascism”. Furthermore, they also accuse the Rajoy government of being “Francoists”, as they do the country’s post-Franco 1978 Constitution which returned Catalonia’s autonomy in an even more robust way than before and even bestowed this privilege to the rest of the country as well.

Although it can be safely presumed that Spain naturally retained some of the “Francoist” members of its permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) after the death of their movement’s eponymous leader, it’s an exaggeration to refer to the constitution and the present government as “Francoists” in the sense of what the term stereotypically implies. Rather, the improper use of such polarizing civil war-era terms demonstrates that the separatists are trying to capitalize on the revolutionary nostalgia that their domestic and foreign supporters have for reliving the 1936-1939 anarcho-communist experiment via a simulacrum, one which plays out differently depending on their audience.

Two Simulacra

As it relates to the Catalans themselves, this is meant to force them into the false binary choice between “standing with their ancestors against fascism” or “betraying their motherland for the Francoists”.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Catalonia’s Referendum Unmasks Authoritarianism in Spain

October 5, 2017

Catalonia’s Referendum Unmasks Authoritarianism in Spain

Monica Clua Losada, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

I have long worried about the rise of authoritarianism in the European Union.

The Spanish government’s violent crackdown during the Catalonia referendum on Oct. 1 is the latest crisis to challenge EU institutions. Several member states are facing serious questions about territorial sovereignty. Just look to the Scottish referendum to leave the U.K. and questions opened up by the Brexit vote over the Irish border.

Catalonia experienced a level of police brutality not often seen in developed democracies. More than 800 people were injured, more than 100 of whom were hospitalized. Yet, in a rare televised appearance, King Felipe VI expressed full support for the Spanish government’s actions.

As a scholar of Spanish politics, I fear this creates the possibility for more repression and even the abolition of Catalonia’s autonomy.

Why has the Spanish government reacted with such a severe crackdown? To answer that question, it might useful to go back more than 40 years.

Franco’s legacy

When Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died in 1975, pro-democracy forces feared a new military coup. So they carefully crafted Spain’s 1978 Constitution to ensure stability, rather than create a radical change from authoritarianism.

The transition to democracy involved increasing political freedom for groups that had opposed Franco and had been persecuted by his dictatorship. But it also incorporated existing authoritarian groups and officials into the state. They included the Francoist military, the church and state structures that existed during the dictatorship – such as the judiciary, the police and the civil service.

Is Spain in danger of returning to the authoritarian days of the Franco dictatorship?
Zoeken Fotocollectie, Dutch National Archives, CC BY

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Catalonia Chaos Begins to Squeeze Spain’s Financial Markets

October 5, 2017

Catalonia Chaos Begins to Squeeze Spain’s Financial Markets

Bank shares plunge. Money is already on the move.

Spain’s biggest political crisis of a generation, which has led to the complete breakdown of communication and understanding between its government in Madrid and the separatist region of Catalonia, is finally beginning to take its toll on the country’s financial markets.

Spain’s benchmark index, the Ibex 35, slumped nearly 3% following its worst day of trading since the Brexit vote last June. Spain’s 10-year risk premium — the differential between the yield on its 10-year bonds and the yield on Germany’s 10-year bonds — soared to 129 basis points. And that’s despite the fact that the ECB continues to buy Spanish debt hand over fist.

But it is the banks that have borne the brunt of the pain this week. On Monday, the first trading day after the independence referendum, they lost €4.84 billion in market value. Over the past five trading days, shares of the two biggest Catalan-based banks, Caixabank and Banco de Sabadell, have plunged respectively, 9% and 13%.

So tense is the situation that the CEOs of each bank felt compelled to release a statement today reassuring customers that they have all the means and tools necessary to protect their interests. Their contingency plans include the option of abandoning their base of operations in Catalonia and moving elsewhere — to Madrid in the case of Sabadell and Mallorca in the case of Caixabank.

But it wasn’t just Catalan banks that were caught up in today’s rout. Important Spanish banks with somewhat less exposure to Catalonia also saw their shares plunge. Santander, Spain’s only global systemically important bank, was down 3.8% on the day’s trading; BBVA, Spain’s second bank which has important operations in Catalonia after acquiring the failed saving bank Catalunya Caixa in 2015, fell 3.6%; and Bankia was also down 3.6%.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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