Patrick's Notebook

from TheMostImportantNews.com

You may have noticed that a lot of people get offended by what I write. It is not something that I am purposely setting out to do, and I actually endeavor to get along with everyone as much as I can. But it is undeniable that my articles about our ongoing economic collapse directly contradict a lot of the narratives that are constantly being pushed by the mainstream media and many of our political, business and religious leaders. There are so many people out there that want to believe that the future is going to be exceedingly bright, and even though 2020 has been a horrific economic catastrophe so far, there are a lot of optimists that believe that it is just a temporary blip on the road to tremendous prosperity.

It would actually be wonderful if they were right.

But they aren’t.

At this point, everyone should be able to clearly see that we have entered a new economic depression. And I wish that I could tell you that a “recovery” was right around the corner, but I can’t.

On Thursday, we got yet another sign that this downturn is here for the long haul. According to the Labor Department, approximately 1.2 million Americans filed new claims for unemployment benefits last week…

Four months after the COVID-19 pandemic largely shut down the economy and left millions of Americans out of work, employers continue to lay off workers at a historic pace.

About 1.2 million people last week filed initial applications for unemployment insurance – a rough measure of layoffs – the Labor Department said Thursday, down substantially from 1.4 million the previous week and the lowest level since March.

Initially, I thought that this was good news. » Read the rest of this entry «

witten by Jon Miltimore

The top medical experts in the world can’t decide if masks are helpful in reducing the spread of COVID-19 or just make things worseFrom left to right: Professor Henning Bundgaard, Tamara van Ark, Anders Tegnell | Composite image by FEE

Denmark boasts one of the lowest COVID-19 death rates in the world. As of August 4, the Danes have suffered 616 COVID-19 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.

That’s less than one-third of the number of Danes who die from pneumonia or influenza in a given year.

Despite this success, Danish leaders recently found themselves on the defensive. The reason is that Danes aren’t wearing face masks, and local authorities for the most part aren’t even recommending them.

This prompted Berlingske, the country’s oldest newspaper, to complain that Danes had positioned themselves “to the right of Trump.”

“The whole world is wearing face masks, even Donald Trump,” Berlingske pointed out. » Read the rest of this entry «

written by John V. Denson

“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment….It was a mistake to ever drop it.”

Every year during the first two weeks of August the mass news media and many politicians at the national level trot out the “patriotic” political myth that the dropping of the two atomic bombs on Japan in August of 1945 caused them to surrender, and thereby saved the lives of anywhere from five hundred thousand to 1 million American soldiers, who did not have to invade the islands. Opinion polls over the last fifty years show that American citizens overwhelmingly (between 80 and 90 percent) believe this false history which, of course, makes them feel better about killing hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians (mostly women and children) and saving American lives to accomplish the ending of the war.

The best book, in my opinion, to explode this myth is The Decision to Use the Bomb by Gar Alperovitz, because it not only explains the real reasons the bombs were dropped, but also gives a detailed history of how and why the myth was created that this slaughter of innocent civilians was justified, and therefore morally acceptable. The essential problem starts with President Franklin Roosevelt’s policy of unconditional surrender, which was reluctantly adopted by Churchill and Stalin, and which President Truman decided to adopt when he succeeded Roosevelt in April of 1945. Hanson Baldwin was the principal writer for the New York Times who covered World War II and he wrote an important book immediately after the war entitled Great Mistakes of the War. Baldwin concludes that the unconditional surrender policy

was perhaps the biggest political mistake of the war….Unconditional surrender was an open invitation to unconditional resistance; it discouraged opposition to Hitler, probably lengthened the war, cost us lives, and helped to lead to the present aborted peace.

» Read the rest of this entry «

written by Paul Joseph Watson

“I have a lot of enemies out there”

Remarks made by President Trump during a speech have prompted speculation after he referred to having a lot of rich enemies and told the audience, “This may be the last time you’ll see me for a while.”

The comments were made during an address Trump gave at the Whirlpool Corporation Manufacturing Plant in Clyde, Ohio.

The context of the remarks was an executive order that will mandate U.S. government agencies purchase all essential drugs from American sources.

Trump blamed the American political class for the fact that drugs are cheaper to buy in other countries Canada even if they are made by the same company.

Trump: “I have a lot of rich enemies. You won’t see me for awhile.” pic.twitter.com/8AmaiENezf

— Mike ░▒▓█ マイケル (@northexpedition) August 6, 2020

“So I have a lot of enemies out there. This may be the last time you’ll see me for a while. A lot of very, very rich enemies, but they are not happy with what I’m doing,” said Trump. » Read the rest of this entry «

from aljazeera.com

Hiroshima mayor urges nations to reject self-centred nationalism on 75th anniversary of attack that killed over 140,000Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui delivers a speech during the 75th-anniversary memorial service for atomic bomb victims at the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima on August 6, 2020

Bells have tolled in Japan’s Hiroshima for the 75th anniversary of the world’s first atomic bombing, with ceremonies downsized due to the coronavirus pandemic and the city’s mayor urging nations to reject self-centred nationalism and commit to nuclear disarmament more seriously.

Though thousands usually pack the Peace Park in central Hiroshima to pray, sing and lay paper cranes as a symbol of peace, entrance to Thursday’s memorial ceremony was sharply limited, with only survivors, relatives and a handful of foreign dignitaries allowed to attend.

Participants, many of them dressed in black and wearing face masks, stood for a moment of silence at 8:15 am, the exact time that the atomic bomb, nicknamed “Little Boy”, exploded on August 6, 1945, obliterating Hiroshima and killing 140,000 of an estimated population of 350,000.

Thousands more died later of injuries and radiation-related illnesses.

“On August 6, 1945, a single atomic bomb destroyed our city. Rumour at the time had it that ‘nothing will grow here for 75 years,'” Mayor Kazumi Matsui said in a speech afterwards.

“And yet, Hiroshima recovered, becoming a symbol of peace.” » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Michael Snyder

Nothing that you do on your phone is private. In this day and age, most of us have become extremely dependent on our phones, and most Americans never even realize that these extremely sophisticated little devices are gathering mountains of information on each one of us. Your phone knows what you look like, it knows the sound of your voice, it knows where you have been, it knows where you have shopped, it knows your Internet searches and it knows what you like to do in your free time. In fact, your phone literally knows thousands of things about you, and all of that information is bought and sold every single day without you knowing. And as you will see below, there are lots of companies out there that use information collected from our phones to create secret “surveillance scores” that are used for a whole host of alarming purposes.

It is really important to understand that your phone is a surveillance device. The reason why the advertisements on your phone seem so perfectly tailored for you is because of all the information that your phone has gathered on you previously. » Read the rest of this entry «

written by Stephen Karganovic

A recent off-hand remark by one of America’s oligarchs points toward a new methodology for undermining what is left of international law and order. Speaking in earnest or in jest, nobody really knows, but smart money would certainly bet on the former, when admonished that the Bolivian coup that toppled President Evo Morales last year “wasn’t in the best interests of the Bolivian people,” Elon Musk, the Tesla electric car magnate, brazenly tweeted: “We will coup whoever we want. Deal with it!”

There is, of course, room for plausible deniability here because Musk was responding to another tweet calling the U.S. government, not Musk directly, to account for “organizing a coup against Evo Morales in Bolivia so you could obtain the lithium there.” Musk’s “we” response could theoretically be interpreted as not a personal confession of responsibility for the dastardly deed but, rather, a good citizen’s loyal expression of support for his country’s foreign policy. Charitably speaking such a reading is possible. But speaking more realistically Musk, although associated in the public mind with a pioneering electric car design, did in fact have a very vital interest in the Bolivian regime change operation. Electric cars, to put it very simply, run on lithium batteries, and Bolivia just happens to be a major supplier of that ore. No lithium, no Tesla or any other electric vehicles.

To fill in some more blanks, it also happens that just weeks before the coup in November of 2019, President Morales issued a decree essentially nationalizing Bolivia’s mineral wealth, including lithium deposits. Bolivia watchers, of course, could see it coming for some time. The politically artless President disclosed his audacious game-plan to empower the Bolivian people to enjoy the benefits of their country’s wealth two years before. Just read and weep at his naiveté: “Bolivian President Evo Morales sees a prosperous future for his currently impoverished South American nation, pinning his hopes on the rapid rise in the global price of this valuable resource. ‘We will develop a huge lithium industry, over $800 million have already been made available,’ Morales told the German DPA news agency.” » Read the rest of this entry «