I hope this post finds you well. Please enjoy…
Confessions of a $100 Million Mega Millions Jackpot Winner
Can you retrace us to the day you bought the ticket? What were u doing the day u saw you won? Did you run out of the store? What did u do after?
I buy $20 worth of picks whenever the jackpot exceeds $100 million. I always play the same numbers.
That particular day was just a day like any other: I left work, bought my ticket, and went home. It was a few days before the drawing and the drawings happen later in the evening so I check my numbers in the morning.
When I saw that I had won, I signed the back of the ticket and put it back in my wallet and went to work.
When you claim a jackpot you have to do paperwork. You take the lump sum and the lottery commission automatically takes 24% to cover taxes. You can elect to have more withheld, and, because I’m a data analyst and I have a spreadsheet for everything, I knew exactly how much to have them withhold. That was the last time I paid taxes and it totaled more than an average American pays in their entire life. So, I don’t feel too bad about not paying taxes out of pocket anymore.
The winnings come in two different deposits (those big checks aren’t real, it’s a wire transfer). The first deposit is the amount of the jackpot that my state owed me and came about 14 days after the paperwork was done. That day, I went to work, as usual, and when I got the notification on my phone of the deposit, I cleared my browser history on my work computer, left my work ID on my desk, and sent a delayed delivery email to my manager resigning. I walked out of the building and drove to a hotel a few hours away and stayed there for two weeks until the other deposit dropped. I called my lawyer and had her manage moving out of my apartment and putting all of that stuff in storage.
This way of quitting and disappearing is movie-style slick.
I had been slowly clearing out my desk between when I claimed and that day. Two days before I got the first deposit, I had my desk fully cleared out, all of my pictures off my desk, coffee cup out of the break room and all of my stuff out of the office. I had stopped carrying my bag and literally had nothing personal to take out of the office with me.
It’s likely they didn’t even notice I was gone until my email sent.
Did you dump the apartment because your name became public information when the money dropped?
No. My name didn’t become public. I use a trust, behind an LLC, behind an anonymous LLC to claim the winnings.
I dropped the apartment because I was wanted to move.
How did you, as a regular person, set up two LLCs to anonymize the money?
LegalZoom.
My first step was setting up an anonymous LLC in New Mexico. Then I set up an LLC in Ohio using the anonymous LLC in NM as the agent. I used the Ohio LLC to set up a trust with the LLC as the trustee and set up an anonymous LLC in Wyoming as the beneficiary.
These moves allowed me to effectively claim anonymously and the money could never be tracked all the way back to me without a lot of legal wrangling. It’s not litigation proof, but there are enough barriers to delay exposure for long enough to regroup and go deeper.
I’ve since set up more anonymous LLCs and trusts to move my money around. At this point I manage the entire system myself and only have to bring in an accountant once a year to look over the books for any tax liability. I also have a lawyer on retainer in case I need her.
What has been your most extravagant purchase?
I spent $3 million on my farm. 278 acres of rolling hills; about 35% pasture and 65% forested. Plenty of elevation, four significant streams, a developed spring and plenty of wild game.
Any hobbies for which you went completely crazy without $$ limits?
Well, my only persistent hobby over the years has been playing Civilization and watching Star Trek. I still do both of those things. I also play guitar but I bought a nice Taylor at first and that’s the last guitar I bought.
When I bought my farm, I built a pottery studio on one of the hills overlooking the property. It’s not for me though; the woman I dated in college majored in ceramics but she’s been out of my life for a long time. If she ever shows up in my life again, she’s welcome to it.
I have been known to fly to London on occasion to get a four pack of Korean hookers, but it’s not a regular thing.
Why Korean?
Because they are nice, fun, and playful. I’ve tried others. Eastern European hookers are fairly sloppy, not very polite, and seem very entitled. I had a weekend with a couple of Portuguese hookers once but they are rowdy. No shit; they will not stop fucking you until you pass out or the weekend is over.
How has your family, friends and love life been?
I told my family, who proceeded to take me to court to place me in a conservatorship to gain control of my assets. After the judge laughed them out of court, they started spreading rumors and gossip around my hometown about me to ruin my reputation. I haven’t been home since.
Most of my pre-lotto friends don’t speak to me anymore. They started asking me for money and when I told them “no” they would lash out saying things like “It’s not really your money” & “you shouldn’t get to decide what to do with it because you didn’t earn it”. They became bitter, resentful, and spiteful. Some of them asked me to help them “start a business” or “invest in this startup”. I’d ask them for a business plan or for more information and they’d bail.
Your family took you to court?
My parents filed the suit with affidavits from my three siblings as support. They wanted control of my money because, well, it’s mid-eight-figures USD and they are entitled, greedy, white-trash.
If your family had just been played it cool instead of the legal stuff and badmouthing you, is it safe to say they would of been well taken care of?
I would have been fair and generous. I mean, I did the fair and generous thing by telling them. I never had the best relationship with any of them, and really considered myself fortunate for getting out of my childhood alive. They are all toxic in one form or another; narcissists, assholes, Trump Republicans all. But I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.
Turns out, I was wrong.
So, realizing I had the resources to just up and say “Fuck off”, that’s what I did.
Is there anything you couldn’t do previously that you can do now that makes you happy?
Happy? Not really. I was pretty solid on the happiness front before.
I can say with relative certainty that I’m considerably more stress-free. I’ll be the first to admit that going to a job every day was a pain in the ass. I didn’t mind it, but I was only working so that I could retire and stop working.
I decided that I wanted more control over how I was living, and so, I bought the farm. I raise chickens, pigs, and rabbits for meat and I supplement that with hunting deer & turkey. I have a three acre pond stocked with catfish and lake trout.
I also take annual trips to Delaware to fish for lobster and to Louisiana to shrimp. I have Apple, pear, plum, pawpaw and persimmon orchards as well as blackberry, blueberry and elderberry groves. I grow my own barley and hops for beer and my own grapes for wine and I have gardens and grain fields to feed myself and my livestock.
I bought a 1971 Hemi Cuda convertible. I also have a beach house in addition to the farm and my house in town.
What’s your daily routine look like? And what do weekends look like now that money is essentially no object for you?
On the daily I wake up, have a coffee, feed the animals, take care of my money, do the rest of my farm chores, and chill.
On a good day on the farm, I can usually get all of my chores done by 3:00 pm and can then sit on the porch or on the patio, smoking weed and drinking some home brew.
If I’m at my house in the suburbs, I’ll wait for one of my neighbors and her daughter/sister to come over for some weed and sexy fun time.
Every day is a weekend. I don’t really pay attention to what day it is unless there’s something on TV I want to watch.
Whats your favorite part of your daily routine?
Settling into the bar in my basement with a beer and a smoke at the end of the day.
Any unexpected things you learned from being wealthier now?
- More money doesn’t make you any happier. I was happy before I won (and pretty good with money anyway.) I already had a retirement portfolio of $1.3 million and was on track to retire in my 50s. The only thing I can say is that my life is just simpler. I don’t owe anything to anyone: my time, my money, my attention, my feelings are all my own and I don’t have to do anything unless I want to.
- More money, more problems. The hustle never stops. I’ve increased my net worth 20% over my payout amount. It takes about 3-4 hours each day to look at my accounts and my investments and figure out what I’m going to do next. I’m constantly on the phone with lawyers, accountants and the agents for my LLCs dealing with administrative bullshit. Granted, I could sit back and just let it all shake out, but the horror stories you see on the news about those lottery winners who lose it all are true (if rare).
- Money talks, wealth whispers. It doesn’t take long at all for people to figure you out if you draw attention to yourself. I don’t show off. While it’s true that I have a beach house in Destin, I don’t ever take anyone with me when I go. I own a 1971 Hemi Cuda convertible, but I don’t drive it everyday.
Is there anything you would have done differently?
- Invest differently. I initially put a lot of my money in real estate, but the margin was too low and I lost a lot of wealth opportunity when I could have been investing in the market. I’ve since reallocated my portfolio to put about 95% of my money in the market (Short term corporate bonds, municipal bonds, large cap dividends, and emerging markets).
How true is it that most lottery winner go broke?
It’s not true at all.
The small minority of large jackpot winners who find themselves on the news because the lost it all are outliers.
If it were a widespread problem you’d hear about it more often, and with the increase in large jackpots, you’d hear about it more recently.
What advice would you give to someone who just won the lottery?
If you ever win a big jackpot, get a lawyer and tell him/her that you want to claim as anonymously as possible and then that you want to hide.
Don’t ever agree to pay the lawyer with a percentage of the winnings. If he/she is legit, they will agree to a set fee contingent upon claiming the jackpot; it should not exceed $100,000.
Then just show them what I did with the anonymous LLCs. It’s perfectly legal and will protect you. If they don’t believe you, find a different lawyer.
Do you think you could ever find true love?
I’ve found true love. I wasn’t emotionally intelligent enough to keep it.
Are you happy?
I’m just as happy as I was before the win.
President Biden continues his walk-back from a war with China
The US doesn’t have enough stockpiles of munitions or the industrial capacity to replenish them for a major military confrontation with China, a US think tank has warned, citing a series of war games it conducted.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has urged the stockpiling of ammo and of materials for producing them, and the offering to producers of better terms so that they have incentive to invest in new facilities.
The CSIS, a nonprofit that lists among its donors major defense contractors, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics, criticized the state of the US defense industry as inadequate for “today’s competitive environment.”
The production base cannot support a protracted, high-intensity conflict, the report released on Monday stated. The country ran low on certain weapons in the simulation, including Javelin and Stinger missiles, 155 mm howitzers and counter-artillery radars, as these had been sent to Ukraine.
In a possible conflict with China over Taiwan, which CSIS assessed may break out with little preparation time, this scenario may replicate.
“In nearly two dozen iterations of a CSIS war game that examined a US-China war in the Taiwan Strait, the United States typically expended more than 5,000 long-range missiles in three weeks of conflict: 4,000 JASSMs, 450 LRASMs, 400 Harpoons, and 400 Tomahawk land-attack missiles (TLAMs),” the report said.
The think tank predicted that LRASMs, Long Range Anti-Ship Missiles, would be of particular importance, considering that the Chinese navy would likely impose a blockade of the self-governed island.
The US used up its inventory of those weapons in the first week in every iteration of the modelled conflict, CSIS noted, adding that the weapon’s production time is two years.
The report identified a number of underlying weaknesses, including the Pentagon’s status as a sole buyer of weapons, and its acquisition rules, which prioritize “efficiency and cost control over speed and capacity.”
Producers don’t enjoy predictable demand for munitions, which could be provided by multiyear contracts, for example, the report explained. So investing seriously in capital and personnel “is not a sound business decision” for them.
The US regulations for weapons exports mean that getting through the pipeline takes extra months, even years. Some advanced weapons offered by China and Russia get a competitive edge because of this, and due to their lower prices, the report said.
Taiwan missile failure
Recently, the Taiwanese XF-3 missile theodolite, known as the “carrier killer” by the Taiwan military, failed.
It was sent to the Swiss Leica company for repair. The Swiss Leica company transferred it to the Asian maintenance center, which is located in Qingdao, Shandong, China.
Finally, it was sent back to Taiwan from Qingdao, Shandong.
Part of Taiwan’s most advanced missile sent to mainland China for repairs The island’s top military research unit said it had determined that no data had been leaked or malware installed on the optical instrument
This strange part of Taiwan can be summed up in one sentence: The civil officials are indolent and the military officers frivolous.
Taiwanese don’t have any hope for the Taiwanese army!
Any Taiwanese who has served as a soldier in Taiwan knows that once the Taiwanese soldiers encounter the PLA they will only be slaughtered unilaterally.
TRADING HALTED IN NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE AFTER OPENING PLUMMET – “GLITCH?”
At the 9:30 AM opening of the New York Stock Exchange today, Tuesday, January 24, a number of VERY LARGE stocks suddenly PLUMMETED at least twelve percent (12%) triggering Regulatory Halting of trades in those stocks. Huge corporations like Exxon, AT&T, Verizon, Wells Fargo Bank, Morgan Stanley, and also some 40 other stocks on the S&P 500, all had to be HALTED by market regulators. Something big seems to be up . . .
Let me take just a moment to remind you of COVERT INTEL which I reported to Subscribers on January 15. That COVERT INTEL said:
I don’t know what to make of this, but the subject is one which is important, so I’m passing this along to all of you, just in case.
I was contacted this morning by a source in the financial industry. Below is PRECISELY what he told me:
"Almost a Trillion dollars has hit the blockchain in just 72 hours as the Federal Government has a big announcement to make on January 20, about the Banking system, over possibly an issue of solvency. The S&P this week will likely see 20-40% falls and banks all get their share prices hit as the rumors start to circulate over what is about to happen." The original link to this COVERT INTEL story is HERE
Of course, none of that actually took place during the week it was forecast . . . but here we are, the very NEXT week, and WHAM, this . . . . “Glitch???” hits the markets at the opening bell.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I had gotten Covert Intel which I reported to all of you on January 15 (Story Here) I would just chalk today’s moves up to a “glitch.” Somehow, though, given what I reported on the 15th, I don’t think today’s move was a glitch . . . at all.
The stocks that were suspended from trading briefly today include:
When trading RESUMED, the stocks all __seemed__ to “bounce back up” but right now, no one knows WHY they plummeted and no one knows WHY they rebounded so fast. Did the markets “cancel” the sell orders? We don’t know. Where those sell orders invalid? We don’t know.
What if they were, in fact, all valid??????? We just don’t know. The people in the markets who know . . . aren’t saying anything. That bothers me a lot.
If they could point to a glitch and say “here’s what caused it” that would be good. Them not saying anything seems to me, to be bad.
As most of my regular readers know, I went into hospital Monday for Angioplasty, to deal with new clogs in my coronary arteries. I reported to my readers that for a month or so, I’ve been getting pains in my chest similar to the ones I got before my first heart attack, and I went to my Cardiologist who told me we had better go in with a camera and take a look.
I got that procedure done yesterday. I was on the operating table for two hours as Docs probed my heart arteries, found serious new blockages, and ultimately had to insert a now-second stent in my Left Anterior Descending artery to re-establish good blood flow. They also had to Angioplasty several other arteries to stretch them with a balloon-type device, to get them flowing better. So I had real heart issues . . . again.
I was released from hospital around 9:00 AM today, and was on my way home when all this stuff hit with the Stock Market.
Now, I admit I am behind the curve as far as looking into what’s really going on, because of my hospital situation, but no matter how you view it, glitch or otherwise, this is serious.
I am reaching out to my Intel contacts and will report what I am told on tonight’s radio show beginning at 9:00 PM eastern US time.
Woman Dies In Crash; Taught About Love, Spirits, And The Law Of Attraction (NDE)
Interesting description of the “movie film frames” as time “slowed down”…
Funny Cartoons From The New Yorker That Will Definitely Crack You Up
The New Yorker is known for showcasing some of the funniest satirical illustrations in print today, and these are some of the best ones.
Seven (7) B-52’s Recorded Flying over Long Island out to the Atlantic Ocean toward Europe
A young guy on Long Island who video records aircraft and does Astronomy hobby work, went out of his house of Long Island today to video a 747 taking off. As he turned his camera west, he caught SEVEN (7) US Air Force B-52’s flying eastward out into the Atlantic toward Europe .
We know that at least four (4) B-52’s will be participating with an Israeli military drill wherein they “simulate” bombing Iran nuclear facilities, so if any of these planes are heading there, then where are the others going? Ukraine?
Tex-Mex Chili Cheese Supreme
A delicious layered Tex-Mex casserole using three different cheeses.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 medium green bell pepper, seeded and chopped
- 1 clove garlic, minced
- 1 (15.5 ounce) can kidney beans, drained
- 1 (16 ounce) can tomatoes, with juice, coarsely chopped
- 1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon chili powder, or to taste
- 1 (15 ounce) carton Wisconsin ricotta cheese
- 2 cups shredded Wisconsin Monterey Jack cheese
- 1 (4 ounce) can diced green chiles
- 1 bunch green onions, finely chopped
- 3 large eggs, beaten
- 1 (8 ounce) bag tortilla chips
- 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded Sharp Wisconsin cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Heat oil in skillet over medium high heat. Sauté green bell pepper and garlic until tender.
- Add kidney beans. Set aside.
- In saucepan, combine tomatoes, tomato sauce and chili powder. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
- Add to kidney bean mixture. Combine ricotta and Monterey Jack cheeses, chiles, onions and eggs.
- Spread 1/4 of cheese mixture evenly in greased 13 x 9 x 2-inch glass baking dish.
- Arrange 1/4 of chips over cheese.
- Spread 1/4 of tomato mixture over chips. Repeat layer 3 more times.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake at 325 degrees F (160 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes.
- Remove foil and top with cheddar cheese and bake 10 to 15 minutes more.
- Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
People Who Were Taught Abstinence Only Education Reveal The Ridiculous Things They Were Taught About Sex
1. We had a teacher unwrap a piece of candy and pass it around the room. The last person was asked if they would eat the candy after everyone had touched it. This was meant to symbolize purity or some shit but was foiled when my friend ate the candy lmao
2. The teacher said that you can only really love one sexual partner and that’s why it’s so important that your spouse be your first and only partner. One of my classmates raised her hand and said, “My mom died when I was a baby and my dad’s been married to my stepmom for ten years. Does that mean he only loves one of them?”
The teacher just looked uncomfortable and moved on to how premarital sex causes depression.
3. I was given a diagram of the female anatomy in which the clitoris had been erased– as in someone went into MS paint and whited it out on a line drawing of the exterior of the vulva. The urethra, vagina, labia, anus were labelled, and then at the top of the labia, it was whited out.
4. Don’t shower while on your period, you will stop bleeding and then you will have gyno problems. Girls that wear thongs are going to damage their genitals.
5. My church based sex ed claimed that foreplay involved things like reciting poetry to one another or playing the violin together.
I guess their plan was for us to be so bad at foreplay we’d never have sex.
6. When your penis touches a girl’s private parts she gets pregnant.
7. That you only have a finite amount of love to give and if you give it away to people before you’re married you won’t have any left for your partner
8. Condoms have microscopic holes and don’t actually prevent pregnancy and definitely will not stop you from getting AIDS because the virus is so small it will magically go through the latex.
9. The school loved to teach “Sex will always result in pregnancy, and with abortion being the unforgivable sin you’re damned if you get pregnant, same if you terminate it, and a load of other sh*t…
They changed things after a kid whos folks knew the teacher asked if it happens every time, why don’t you have one?
(she had been having fertility issues for awhile)
- Yes the teacher lost her cool and sent him to the office. We never got told anything aside from they were pulling the class? I mean lets be real, it was a small town about 15yrs ago at a religious school, word got out and they had to do damage control.
- and yes, this kid was ruthless when he wanted to be
10. That the actual vagina opening is as small as the tip of a pencil. I also never knew women didn’t pee from their vaginas until I was 16. I’m 19 now and learned more from shitposts on the internet than I ever had in school.
11. The instructor gave all the boys in the class chewing gum and let them chew on it for a few minutes. Then she asked them if any of them wanted to share. Of course none did. Then she asked if they didn’t want to share gum, why would they want to share sex partners?
This was in a co-ed class so all the girls in the class got to see too.
12. I can’t think of anything cuh-razy, but I think it’s because we generally weren’t told much at all. They tried to scare us – condoms aren’t effective, chances are super high you’ll get an STD or get pregnant, watch this horrific slide show of worst-case-scenario STDs and then watch this video of crying women who regret the abortion they got after getting pregnant from their first sexual encounter.
But most topics were just vaguely circled. Some super uncomfortable, young youth pastor came and “educated” us, but he would only refer to genitalia as the “underwear zone.” We were able to write questions on a slip of paper to be answered anonymously, but he only read about 10% of them and deemed the rest inappropriate.
Shocker, we had a lot of teenage pregnancies.
13. We were shown a video where a lady said she could tell if a girl was a virgin just by looking into her eyes. The implication was that premarital sex causes your spirit to die so that you become just a shell with nothing to offer.
I’m sure you can guess that she didn’t say the same applied for the boys, as if teenage girls are the only ones to blame for anyone having premarital sex.
14. I was in an all girls Abstinence class in middle school and they said you will get pregnant if you have sex before marriage. They never mentioned protection
9th grade year, I took another sexual education class and the class was once again only speaking about abstinence and how you will get pregnant if you decide not to wait. Unlike in middle school, they briefly spoke ONLY about condoms and the teacher basically stated they don’t work. I’m a senior rn and throughout highschool, I’ve seen many pregnant girls.
Schools need to understand that only speaking about abstinence is NOT the approach to take. People aren’t going to wait until marriage so instead of scaring young folks, just teach them HOW to be safe.
15. That every time I (a girl) had sex I was giving away a part of my soul. So each sex partner whittled away bits of my soul. If I had sex before marriage my god-given husband would only get a tiny scrap instead of a full half and thus wouldn’t be able to love me as much as he would if I’d waited? Honestly it’s pretty confusing. This was taught in my Christian private school.
16. Condoms don’t always work so it’s better to not use them.
If you ejaculate on a girl (yes, “on”) she will get pregnant. Regardless of if you had sex or not.
Boys get so horny sometimes they can’t control themselves. So girls, it’s up to you to remove temptation for the boys.
Birth control pills disrupt a girl’s hormones so badly she will become barren.
17. I was taught in school that self pleasure was also a sin. So as a young girl discovering her body, every time I masterbated, I’d cry because I thought I was going to hell.
I don’t know how many times I prayed to God asking for forgiveness.
18. Being raised in a Catholic country, we actually had “Religion” class in high-school (2 hrs per week). In that class, the teacher (sometimes a priest, sometimes a highly devout teacher) would touch on sex. Here is one thing I heard repeatedly:
“How will your spouse feel about your love, if you loved so many people before? Will it be as meaningful? It cheapens your love for your spouse”
Sometimes they would talk about molecular structure of a condom and HIV virus:
“Don’t have sex even with a condom – the microscopic holes in rubber are 20-100 times larger than HIV virus so you can still get it”
Active Duty NATO-Country Troops Found Beheaded and Hands Cut-off in Soledar Ukraine
Russian troops making successful progress into Soledar, Ukraine, are coming upon hideous scenes. Former ACTIVE-DUTY NATO TROOPS, with their HEADS and HANDS CUT-OFF to prevent/Delay their identification. Ukraine is desperate to conceal NATO active troops fighting Russians.
The brief video below contains horrifying and graphic images of the dead bodies of NATO active duty troops, beheaded and without hands. The video shows gruesome and horrifying images of actual death. Viewer discretion is strongly advised.
Here’s How People From The Past Imagined The Future
Let’s face it – most of us would like to see what the future holds. And while that’s not really possible, it did not stop some people in the past from trying – often with some pretty optimistic results.
When it comes to predictions of the future, it’s a hit-or-miss situation – while some people actually managed to predict it rather accurately, many of them look pretty hilarious today. From rolling bakeries to luxurious flying hotels – check out a collection of future predictions from the past in the gallery below!
Sloppy Joe Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 2 pounds ground beef
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups ketchup
- 1 teaspoon Slap Ya Mama Original Blend Cajun Seasoning
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup Love Corn Corn Nuts
- 1 cup Fritos,slightly crushed
- 1 cup Cheddar cheese, shredded
- 1/2 cup green onions, chopped
Instructions
- Heat oven to 400 degrees F, and lightly grease a 9 x 13-inch pan.
- Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and cook the ground beef with the onions and garlic until cooked through about 5-7 minutes. Break the ground beef into crumbles as it cooks.
- Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl add ketchup, Slap Ya Mama Original Blend Cajun Seasoning, chili powder, brown sugar and Worcestershire. Mix until well combined.
- Pour the sloppy joe sauce into the cooked ground beef and mix until it is completely coated. Then pour the sloppy joe mixture into the prepared pan.
- Top with Love Corn Corn Nuts, Fritos, and shredded Cheddar cheese.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the cheese, is melted and bubbly.
- Take out of the oven and top with green onions. Serve and enjoy!
Yield: 6 servings | Total time: 35 min
U.S. General Predicts WAR With China By 2025!
Well, fellas. It’s been nice while it lasted.
Sit back, relax and enjoy a race to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The only question is who will get there first: the EU, NATO, or both.
One may be excused to imagine all sorts of amusement games unrolling at the HQ of the Russian General Staff as The Empire and NATO go literally bonkers. What crazy stunt will they come up with next – short of WWIII?
Here is a delightful put down of NATO’s dementia praecox. Everything so far has failed, from “crippling sanctions” to all sorts of wunderwaffen, while the whole Global South marvels at the exploits of Wagner PMC – now configured as the planet’s top urban fighting machine.
CIA mouthpiece Washington Post duly released how Washington, once again, had the Liver Sausage Chancellor Scholz for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The idea was floated by Secretary of State Tony Blinken: let’s announce we will deliver M1 Abrams to Ukraine in a hazy, unspecified future, thus providing cover for Scholz to release the Leopards now.
Don’t you just love German sovereignty in action?
Every military analyst with an IQ over room temperature knows all those Leopards will be duly incinerated – or better yet, captured, and dissected by Russian military specialists.
So what happens next is yet another vector of the – very successful so far – U.S.-unleashed German de-industrualization racket: the Americans will invade the German industrial military complex with their “much improved” Abrams – which may perhaps arrive in 2024, when only a rump Ukraine may still exist, or never arrive at all. So no need for the Abrams to prove themselves in actual combat – as in being captured and/or incinerated.
Rumors in Washington advance that the U.S. “strategy” in Ukraine – extensively detailed by endless think tank reports – had to be adapted. It’s not about “defeating Russia” anymore, but providing Kiev with the means to “scare” Russia. The Russian General Staff must be trembling in their boots.
Meanwhile, in real life, nearly every possible scenario gamed in Washington and Brussels finishes with NATO like a giant, armoured version of Wile E. Coyote plunging to the depths of the Grand Canyon. And that happens even if the much ballyhooded “Big Arrow” Russian offensive starts in a few days or weeks, or never starts at all.
Arguably the Russian General Staff has concluded a long time ago there’s no point in reducing Ukraine to rubble in a matter of hours – something they could easily accomplish. Thus the fabled mincing machine approach – offering no excuses for NATO to “escalate” (which they continue to do anyway, as Jens “War is Peace” Stoltenberg is so fond of parroting).
The trick is that NATO’s escalation overdrive, as it happens, is somewhat controlled by the Russian General Staff, which is always calculating which optimal maneuvers will consume NATO’s military hardware faster. Call it a Russian version of the popular axiom “frog in a boiling pot doesn’t realize it’s being cooked until it croaks.”
Attacking Russia-China-Iran
Absolute desperation is now graphically extrapolating into attacks on Iran. Both Russia and China have Iran as their key ally in West Asia for the whole, complex process of Eurasia integration; strategic partnerships interlink the trio.
So attacking the Ministry of Defense in Isfahan with drones – total fail – and bombing an IRGC convoy of humanitarian aid crossing from Iraq to Syria is a serious U.S.-Israel-coordinated provocation.
Essentially these are also attacks against Russia and China. Israel cannot lift its hand or foot without U.S. permission. Iranian intel may be able to establish how the Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con cabal in charge of U.S. foreign policy authorized if not ordered these attacks, which of course are directly connected to NATO’s desperation in Ukraine.
When in doubt, just come back to Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski: “Potentially, the most dangerous scenario would be a grand coalition of China, Russia and perhaps, Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by contemporary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc.”
And mirroring Ukraine/Russia there’s of course Taiwan/China.
As Credit Suisse strategist Zoltan Pozsar has extensively explained, if Taiwan manufactures chips for U.S. missiles Washington then sends to Taiwan for its “self-defense”, but Taiwan needs to wait because the missiles are needed in Ukraine instead, or chips can’t be shipped to the U.S. owing to a possible sea and air blockade imposed by China, the Americans will be operationally ill-equipped to support their two-front war against peer competitors Russia and China.
Bye bye Pax Americana. It’s the fear, actually paranoia, of a destroyed Taiwan – and the destruction in every scenario would be provoked by the Americans themselves – that has led the Straussian neo-con and neoliberal-con cabal to demand their chips be Made in USA.
On the energy front, since U.S. energy costs are low, Washington gambled that much of the deindustrialization of Germany would revert to American benefit. Yet since Iranian, Russian and Venezuelan oil prices are lower than the U.S., not much production may be shifting to the Hegemon: it will go to China.
To the bottom of the Grand Canyon!
The January 10 joint declaration between EU-NATO graphically shows how the EU is no more than the P.R. arm of NATO.
This NATO-EU joint mission consists in using all economic, political and military means to make sure the “jungle” always behaves according to the “rules-based international order” and accepts to be plundered ad infinitum by the “blooming garden”.
So in the end what’s left of “Europe”, when it’s NATO – actually Washington – that really rules?
“Europe”, according to relentless propaganda, means defending “our values” – as in peace, democracy and prosperity. The trick is that unelected elites forced the implicit identification of this imagined, practically sacred “Europe” with the European Union. And that’s how the EU has acquired a mythical identity.
Of course, in real life the EU – as in the real, politically organized “Europe” – has performed as a toxic instrument of division among European peoples.
Instead of peace, it has invested in all-out rabid war against Russia. The EU is arguably the most democratically irresponsible institution on the planet: spend a day in Brussels and you understand everything. And instead of prosperity, the EU has institutionalized austerity.
So sit back, relax and enjoy a race to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. The only question is who will get there first: the EU, NATO, or both.
Comics With Twisted Endings For People With A Dark Sense Of Humor
If there were fifty shades of darkness in comics, these would be next-level dark. French art director and comic artist Rémi Lascault has been shaking the online world with his very dark jokes since 2017 and 60.4K followers on Instagram can’t get enough.
Lascault’s four-panel comics don’t need any dialogue to put the unexpected grim twist at the end that will probably make you feel a little bad for laughing. The artist describes his style as “rough,” and says that the most challenging part is “coming up with the right stupid joke and twisting it in a not-so-stupid way.” As a result, we get witty comics that seem normal in the first two panels and quickly go to absurd, weird, and somewhat creepy places.
These comics were designed especially for people with dark humor, so consume at your own risk! And if it’s not dark enough for you, check out more of the artist’s ideas in his previous posts here and here.
Trainload of U.S. Heavy Armor Moving East (Ukraine?)
The brief video below shows a VERY long train of US military armor heading east in Kansas, possibly for Europe (Ukraine). Self-propelled artillery, M1 Abrams Tanks, and scores of Bradley Fighting vehicles, are clearly visible.
While the destination is unknown, Europe/Ukraine seems likely.
Washington, DC is clearly moving to a war footing, while the American people are being kept blissfully unaware.
Davos annual meeting comes across as rather outdated and obsolete with its now heavily tarnished global image all the more so.
While geopolitics is threatening to deal a heavy blow and most probably demolish the world created in the cauldrons of Davos, as has the Financial Times voiced their concerns, and surely not without a series of justifiable reasons, one of the unexpected leaders of the Global South, Indian PM Narenda Modi, rebelliously self-confident, said in his address to the world: “Our time is yet to come. We are all those who are not the Collective West ‘made to Davos measure”. Moreover, even the U.S. CNN couldn’t help noticing, this year’s Davos meeting (aka the Davos annual “gab fest” as Rowan Dean, Sky News Australia famously called it) has attracted a record number of visits but its relevance appears to be dwindling and slowly but surely vanishing into political void. Davos annual meeting comes across as rather outdated and obsolete with its now heavily tarnished global image all the more so.
The overwhelming fear this year’s WEF in Davos is frantically obsessing about internalizes the fact that the long-lasting period of peace and prosperity and global economic integrations is regrettably drawing to an end – not even the Financial Times try to handle the perils of their own pessimism in that they seem to specify to the smallest minutiae, who did prosper in that famous and infamous Collective West in the period of global integration, which has existed so far but is in a terribly precarious position now.
The conflict in Ukraine has shown the ways the war can suddenly sever the ties in economic relations on the foundations of which the globalization has been built so far. The European Union seems to be drastically reducing the import of Russian energy supplies and in so doing it further foments the inflation in Europe and renders some of its industries grotesquely uncompetitive and regrettably redundant. The politicians and industrial moguls are now casting scrutinizing looks along the horizon and beyond, in their comically concerted effort to possibly spot the next ominously pernicious threat. It sounds only too eerie that the London-based newspaper forecasts with a proverbial admonishing finger in midair. The U.S. channel says that this year in Davos, one cannot help noticing the absence of U.S. President Biden, the French President Emanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on one hand and the leaders of India and China Xi and Modi on the other. Some of them were obliged not to attend because of the backlash on their home turfs because Davos has become the toxic symbol of inequality and brutally merciless international capitalism.
There is surely a very good reason for this tarnished reputation, because in the last two years apparently, 1% of the richest of the rich have accumulated even two times bigger “new riches” than the rest of the world altogether. Those leaders who believe this is “not OK” such as Xi and Modi, did not attend Davos because they were otherwise engaged and they had to prioritize. But to get back to truly serious world leaders, PM Modi was absent for a good reason because instead of WEF, he addressed his audience in the Voice of the Global South Summit. Unlike that overwhelmingly pathetic pessimism in Davos, Modi’s voice was brimming with rebellious optimism. It is blatantly obvious that the world is in the grip of the global crisis. It is difficult to foresee how long this state of uncertainty will last – Modi started his elaboration and then went on to get across what is to come next. “We shall have the biggest share in this in the future. Three quarters of mankind live in our countries and we need to have an impact commensurate with that share and number. Therefore, whilst the eight decade long global governance behind us is gradually changing, we need to aspire to shape the emerging world order. The peoples and nations in the global South should not be deprived of the fruits of the global development out of purely selfish reasons. It is incumbent on all of us together to reconstruct our common political and financial governance. Only that can multiply our opportunities and increase prosperity”. All that, Modi points out, may happen with the respect for all nations, rule of law and peaceable resolution of all differences and disputes and the reform of international institutions, including that of the UN, so as to render them more relevant.
By the way, Russia has publicly supported this request by India to be granted the continual seat in the UN Security Council. “Despite the challenges the world is facing I remain an optimist,” Modi sends a clear resounding message. “Our time is coming. In the past century we have been helping each other in our struggle against foreign governance. We can do that again in this century so as to create the new world order, which will in turn ensure the well – being of our citizens” – says Modi. And not only him. An almost identical message was sent from Cairo, Egypt. After a meeting with the Arab League officials, the new Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang said “We have agreed to work together towards creating the new world order based on the rule of law and equality of the whole humanity, dedication to human values of the whole civilization together with their adamant refusing to politicize human rights issues and their (ab)use as a mere political ploy to interfere in the internal affairs of individual sovereign countries.” He did not utter this out loud and there was no need to do any such thing other than in this Qin Gang’s filigree diplomatic style, though it was blatantly obvious who Qin Gang was referring to.
Truth be told, the clear signs of the new non-Western world order are rapidly proliferating. Not only that 85 % of mankind have not joined “the Collective Biden” sanctions against Russia but as an example, thanks to these sanctions, India is now importing 33 times more from Russia than before. Iran, regardless of the U.S. sanctions on them, is now exporting more of its oil than before the sanctions. And the Republic of South Africa, as one very good but a somewhat different example, is dismissing the raging wrath expressed by the Collective West because of their (i.e. South African) marine military exercises with Russia recently. But as its key point, after Xi Jinping announced in Ryadh recently that China will be paying Saudi Arabia for Saudi oil in yuan, the Saudi Finance Minister confirms with a dollop of irony from Davos that the situation is abundantly clear that they will not sell oil exclusively in U.S. dollars. And, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs, Naledi Pandor reveals that more or less since 2014 the BRICS countries have been working hard on creating an alternative to the dollar system. All the projections tend to indicate that by 2030 China and India economies will be the biggest economies in the world and Russia will graciously overtake the economies of Germany and Japan.
The new world order is not a mere buzzword for the idle ones any more. One cannot but wonder who will shape it and in what manner: economically, financially and politically. Will the Collective West do their diabolical best to prevent that from happening by resorting to what they have always done: the truly global world war and possibly aided with nukes?
She Discovered We Are In A Matrix Like Simulation During Her Near-Death Experience
She is so articulate! Her ability to explain her experiences is maybe the best I have listened to.
Bride-To-Be’s ‘Monster-In-Law’ Won’t Allow Her To Wear The Makeup She Wants And Her Future Husband Is On His Mother’s Side
Some people have dreamed about their wedding from when they are little and almost have it all planned in their heads. Even if you don’t particularly care about the ceremony, you still have preferences for color, style and other things.
While those decisions should be made by the future groom and bride as it is their wedding, sometimes parents get overly involved. But this woman not only has to bear her mother-in-law who proclaimed herself as the wedding supervisor, but her husband isn’t on her side either. They got in a fight over what makeup she should wear and she now thinks that she might have overreacted over a minor detail.
More info: Reddit
Woman is getting married and after compromising on what dress she should wear, she is not stepping down about her makeup
The Original Poster (OP) is the future bride and she wasn’t planning on marrying her fiancé any time soon, but when the couple told his parents that she is pregnant, they wanted it to happen immediately. Most probably it has to do with the fact that the family is conservative, as the woman described it.
The parents not only want the couple to get married as soon as possible, but the OP’s mother-in-law wants to know about every decision so she can make sure nothing could be seen as “offensive.”
Bored Panda reached out to Scott R. Braithwaite, Ph.D., a Professor at Department of Psychology at Brigham Young University and a researcher whose main interests center on preventing marital distress and divorce as well as enhancing marital health, which involves an intervention called ePREP that he developed.
The Professor explained to us what may be the reasons behind the parents wanting to be so involved in their children’s weddings. The question we should be asking is whether weddings are for the couple or for their parents, “The answer people give probably depends mostly on whether they are the couple or whether they are the parents. In any case, parents often see a wedding as a public report card signaling how they did as parents. Because of this, they are eager to manage the situation so that they come across looking as successful as possible.”
The groom’s family is conservative and his mom is supervising the wedding to avoid any decisions that could offend anyone
At first the mother-in-law warned the bride-to-be not to show too much skin with her wedding dress, but when she tried to control what makeup the woman will be wearing, the OP was not willing to step down.
The problem is that it was OP’s husband who pointed out that his mom wouldn’t like the bold makeup looks that the woman preferred. When she saw what her MIL suggested, they were very natural looks that didn’t even include eyeshadow or noticeable lipstick.
The husband demanded a compromise because he felt that she would look like a clown and embarrass them both in front of everyone. Because it was not only her face, as there is no distinction between “mine” and “yours” in marriage, according to him.
Professor Braithwaite comments on the man’s understanding of marriage as many people in the comments were quite concerned about this view, “In an ideal situation, both partners retain their individual sense of self but choose to come together to create a new whole that is greater than the sum of its parts—that is interdependence. This process is complicated and can lead to a lot of growing pains as a couple moves from the independence of single life to the interdependence of marriage. A risk in this process is losing one’s sense of self, which can lead to dependence. Dependence seems romantic but is unhealthy. It leads to an enmeshed relationship where it’s not clear when one partner ends, and the other begins.”
Firstly, she didn’t like the dress as she thought it revealed too much and the bride agreed to change it.
These little disagreements may be surfacing only because everyone is irritated and stressed about the upcoming wedding, but it’s hard to say what actually is going on their minds, but “The idea that the husband is aligning with his mother and not his wife is a little concerning, even if the wife is being undiplomatic.”
It could be that there is a deeper issue and Scott R. Braithwaite adds “Good communication about what’s really going on is probably important in the situation. They are quibbling over technical details when something more significant is happening deep below the surface.” So he would suggest the couple to figure out how to talk about those issues instead of focusing in problem-solving to improve the situation.
But when the mother-in-law also sent in the makeup looks she envisioned the bride wearing, the woman was upset that they were too natural and not her style
Although a wedding is a union between two people, it usually involves more relatives. The father will accompany his daughter to the altar and will have the first dance with her. Sisters and brothers usually become bridesmaids and groomsmen. Your aunt and cousins help you to choose which dress looks good on you, etc.
But sometimes relatives want to be more involved than the bride and groom would want, especially their parents. And naturally, that leads to conflicts, because even if you are not planning anything big or extravagant, they will have a different opinion on something.
What is worse, her future husband agreed with his mother and didn’t want her to look like a clown and embarrass them both.
It is easier when you and your partner are on the same page, but if one of them sides with their parent, it becomes even more difficult. Conscious Rethink suggests that this is the first problem to be solved: “You need to make it very clear to your husband that the two of you are a united team, and that you need to make decisions for yourselves, regardless of what his parents might think or want.”
From there, it is easier to tell the parents your opinion and disagree with them. “Just know that the more you and your husband can stand up and stand firm, the more his parents will eventually get the message. They may resent you somewhat for it, but unless they are particularly toxic individuals, they should back down sooner or later.”
It is unclear if the parents in the story are particularly toxic and if the husband sides with his mom because he is used to not fighting with her or if he actually agrees with her. However, people in the comments made their assumptions and believe that the bride should run.
The first red flag is that OP’s future husband sides with his mom, so it means that she will have to deal with her interfering with their relationship all the time. They were also weirded out how the man remarked that in marriage, the wife’s body belongs to him when she tried to argue that it’s her face and she can do whatever she wants with it.
When the OP asked if she was wrong to call her fiancé delusional, people thought that it was the exact word that best describes him. Do you agree? Do you think that this behavior before marriage is an indication of what waits after? Let us know in the comments.
People didn’t think that the woman would be happy in this marriage and that her mother-in-law’s behavior is just the beginning
MM Final Comments…
Who you marry will be the greatest influence on your life.
They can either destroy you completely or raise you up to heights that you are even unable to dream of.
Choose wisely.
93491905 531413910891764 8697246626223226880 YEP.
Hi Tas. What’s with the three sets of numbers? Did I miss something again?
That video of the decapitated NATO troops is absolutely horrendous: it’s something I would expect in Brazil, in drug cartels, from terrorist groups in the middle east.
Seeing this in Ukraine is a plenary example of how fucked up and far-gone that country has become, and it’s not because of the Russians.