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Author: HP McLovincraft
Seeker of rabbit holes. Pessimist. Libertine. Contrarian. Your huckleberry. Possibly true tales of sanity-blasting horror also known as abject reality. Prepare yourself. Veteran of a thousand psychic wars. I have seen the fnords. Deplatformed on Tumblr and Twitter.
The Inflation Hot Potato
They began, of course, with one of the most chaotic and intense years in recent American history. After a global pandemic brought almost all aspects of life to a halt, cities erupted in nationwide riots for much of the summer, and a seemingly endless stream of scandals and stunts like the Hunter Biden laptop drove the politically-active public to exhaustion; after all that, Joe Biden won the presidency.
Biden—the old-fashioned, centrist, familiar vice president from the Obama years—was supposed to represent a repudiation of the chaos of the Trump years, and of 2020 especially. The “adults were back in charge,” and politics could finally get boring again. Or so many thought.
Instead, the Biden years saw the government’s heavy-handed pandemic response drag on, the outbreak of war in Ukraine and, later, Gaza, and the consequences of the bipartisan economic response to the covid pandemic slam into the already-exhausted country in the form of a forty-year-high rate of price inflation.
The high prices especially drove many voters to abandon the Democrats in the 2022 midterms—although the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade earlier that year drove high Democratic turnout, which greatly minimized the expected “Red Wave.” Still, in 2024, voters seemed to snap all the way back in the other direction and handed Trump and the Republican Party the White House and both houses of Congress. And now, only two years later, Trump’s approval rating is at a historic low, and not only Democrats but even “democratic socialists” are enjoying all the political momentum, as we saw in Tuesday’s elections.
It can be tempting to chalk these dramatic political swings up to any one of the many stories that dominate the news cycle at the moment. Or, on the other side, to some seemingly inexplicable global forces of chaos that seem to be driving all aspects of public life these last few years.
But, in truth, there’s a very clear explanation for the political whiplash we’ve been experiencing in these last few elections: inflation.
Now, too often, any discussion of inflation becomes hyper-focused on one unusually high driver of last month’s CPI report or a slightly better-than-expected month-over-month reading in the core PCE.
But that is not how most people have experienced and are experiencing inflation.
To better understand how inflation has changed our politics, we have to zoom out.
As we cover here a lot, inflation has been a ubiquitous and escalating problem in this country for a long time. Prices naturally fall as economies grow. It’s only because the political class was able to take control of the monetary and banking system over the last fifty to a hundred years that the sort of permanent price inflation we’re supposed to consider normal is even possible.
In other words, inflation isn’t a new problem. But, back in 2019, it was mostly a background issue. Prices were rising, but slowly. And the entire field of “respectable,” establishment-friendly economists were telling everyone that the 2 percent inflation rate was optimal. Those obsessed with politics were focused on non-economic stories like the Trump impeachment, while the politically-disinterested majority were focused on their own lives.
But then covid started to spread, and state and local governments across the US began locking down the country with the full support of the federal government. And a primary aspect of that federal support came from the Federal Reserve.
The Digital Euro Is Being Built Before Europe Approves It
The European Central Bank (ECB) is preparing the ground for a digital euro, even though the law that would allow the digital money to be introduced has not yet been passed.
On October 30, the ECB published two contracts it has signed with network service providers who will connect banks and payment firms to the digital euro platform.
The ECB chose Nexi Payments with Deutsche Telekom Business Solutions, and a group consisting of Telefónica and Indra. The first contract started on September 28 and covers the pilot phase, while the ECB said that both will be ready to go live, “as of 2029,” should the digital euro be introduced that year.
The ECB also promises that the digital euro will offer “a high level of security and privacy.” But privacy, in particular, is something that many observers doubt the ECB’s digital currency will be able to deliver.
The bank itself says that offline payments will offer “a cash-like level of privacy,” while online transactions are a different story: “PSPs would be able to identify users for the purpose of compliance with anti-money laundering rules,” the ECB said.
True, the ECB adds, “the Eurosystem would not be able to directly link digital euro transactions to specific individuals.” But this is little consolation, since the banks will be able to do that.
The ECB’s president, Christine Lagarde, told members of the European Parliament (MEPs) in 2023 that “not anonymity, but privacy is protected” by the digital euro. She dismissed as a “conspiracy theory” the fear that the new currency will give the state control over people’s purchases, and said that the data should be made available to the authorities “upon request.”
Cash – the only real competitor the ECB’s digital currency will have, at least initially – leaves no record of purchases with anyone.
The ECB has repeatedly said that it is targeting “a potential first issuance of the digital euro during 2029, assuming the digital euro Regulation is adopted in 2026.” A 12-month pilot is planned for the second half of 2027.
The ECB’s announcement of the contracts with the two groups of companies was preceded by the Council’s statement in December 2025 that the digital euro is a matter of “strategic autonomy” for Europe, while the ECB says it will “complement cash, not replace it.”
The ECB has not yet announced the exact amount of digital euro that people will be allowed to hold, and the bank says that this is still to be decided.
In December 2025, the EU Council said that the limits “will be set by the ECB, but must respect an overall ceiling agreed by the Council which will be reviewed at least every two years.”
The ECB said that it had tested hypothetical limits of up to €3,000 per person, but that no figure had been fixed.
California’s Sky-High Minimum Wage Claims Another Victim as Major Outback Steakhouse Franchisee Is Forced to File for Bankruptcy
There are plenty of ideas that sound wonderful until somebody actually has to figure out how to pay for them. Unfortunately, California seems determined to keep learning that lesson the painfully expensive way.
Another business has run into serious financial trouble, and this time, one of America’s familiar restaurant brands is caught in the middle.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Cerca Trova Restaurant Group, a major Outback Steakhouse franchisee operating 61 locations, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday.
The company cited mounting food and labor costs, declining customer traffic, and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
While the franchisee operates restaurants in several states, California’s increasingly expensive labor requirements have made matters particularly difficult.
More than half of Cerca Trova’s employees work in California, where the general minimum wage increased to $16.90 an hour at the beginning of 2026.
Fast food employers are expected to receive an even higher $20 hourly minimum, although Outback is not classified as a fast food establishment under the law, per the New York Post.
Swiss Financial Regulator Gives Green Light to Country’s First Bitcoin ETF
Swiss financial regulator FINMA has approved the country’s first bitcoin exchange-traded fund for retail investors.
The watchdog said Tuesday that the approval comes as people in Switzerland express a growing interest in crypto — particularly bitcoin.
Bitcoin ETFs — particularly in the U.S. — have widened the scope of investors who can buy and sell the leading cryptocurrency. Via shares that trade on the stock exchange, investors can buy exposure to the biggest cryptocurrency in a safe and regulated way.
“As early as 2021, FINMA authorised a fund for qualified investors that invests primarily in a basket of cryptocurrencies,” the announcement read.
“As Bitcoin has a long trading history and a particularly high trading volume compared with other cryptocurrencies, FINMA has approved an exemption from the applicable risk diversification rules in this case.”
It added: “At the same time, FINMA emphasises that investments in Bitcoin — even through an approved ETF — remain highly risky.”
The announcement did not reveal which asset manager or bank would debut the product. Switzerland already has crypto ETFs limited to institutional or qualified investors on the market.
In the U.S., bitcoin ETFs had the most successful debut in the history of investment vehicles when approved in 2024.
Now, traders, institutions, and retail investors can quickly buy shares that track the price of the leading cryptocurrency and not worry about exchanges or storage of the digital coin.
The funds, managed by Wall Street giants like BlackRock, Fidelity, and Morgan Stanley, manage over $97 billion in assets, according to CoinGlass data.
Kellie-Jay Keen charged under Communications Act over ‘grossly offensive’ X post about Islam
Kellie-Jay Keen, the British women’s rights campaigner also known as Posie Parker, says she has been charged by the Metropolitan Police under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003 over a post she made on X between June 23 and June 25. She is due to enter a plea at Westminster Magistrates’ Court at 10 a.m. on December 4.
Keen announced the charge in a video on October 30. Reading the charge sheet, she said she was accused of having, “between the 23rd and the 25th of June, sent by means of public electronic communications network, a message that was grossly offensive.”
Section 127(1) covers a message “that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.” The maximum penalty is six months in prison, a fine, or both.
Keen has not said which post is charged. In August she recorded a call, reported by the free speech and privacy site Reclaim The Net, in which a Met officer read three of her June posts back to her.
One, posted over a video purporting to show Muslims in Manchester, read “There’s nothing about this scene that doesn’t scream backward regressive sub normal culture.” Another, over a clip of Baroness Warsi, read “No one needs foreign money to understand the threat Islam poses to every last one of us.”
Asked who the offence was against, the officer said “somebody who’s read those tweets has taken offense to them and made the report.” He said the case had gone to the Crown Prosecution Service “for early advice.”
Before a voluntary police interview in September, she wrote on her Substack, “We do not have a blasphemy law in this country, and we should be extremely wary of recreating one through public order or communications offences.”
The Free Speech Union, a British group that defends people punished for their speech, is defending her. “In a free society, no religion or cultural practice should be immune from criticism,” it said, as quoted by Reclaim The Net.
The writer Paul Embery, in a post dated November 3, said Keen is asking supporters to gather outside the court.
The charge is an accusation, not a finding.
Biden’s COVID Censorship Machinery ‘Built to Last,’ New Documents Show
The Biden administration’s surgeon general created a “misinformation tiger team” to place “maximum pressure” on social media platforms to censor COVID-19 “misinformation.”
But newly surfaced documents show that the team also had bigger plans: establish a permanent censorship apparatus targeting health and medical “misinformation.”
The documents, published last month by the Daily Caller News Foundation, show that former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s team developed COVID-19 talking points for Murthy, which advised him to “avoid” discussing concerns about vaccine safety or the regulatory process for rolling out the vaccines to the public.
The talking points also included suggesting that the unvaccinated “present problems” for themselves, family members and colleagues, and advising Murthy to present the COVID-19 shots as the only public health intervention that would “stop the spread.”
Murthy’s team also instructed him to respond to questions about the censorship of online content questioning COVID-19 vaccines, mandates and lockdowns as the “opposite” of “cancel culture.” The team told Murthy to tell the public that removing “misinformation” would give people unfettered access to “science and evidence-based health information.”
Federal government’s censorship ‘machinery was built to last’
The documents were obtained in 2021 through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Protect the Public’s Trust, a nonpartisan watchdog group.
The Daily Caller described the revelations as an example of the Biden administration’s “Censorship-Industrial Complex” — one with “grander ambitions than controlling just what Americans said about COVID-19.”
“These documents show an administration consumed by its campaign against what it termed ‘misinformation,’ potentially at the expense of other priorities, and intent on controlling what Americans could say,” said Alexa Moutevelis, communications director for Protect the Public’s Trust, in a statement to the Daily Caller.
Naomi Wolf, Ph.D., CEO of DailyClout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity,” said it is “chilling to see how systematically and with what bureaucratic smugness the official leaders of ‘the science’ and of ‘public health’ were willing to lie to the public” and suspend Americans’ First Amendment rights.
Sayer Ji, chairman of the Global Wellness Forum and founder of GreenMedInfo, said the documents show that “COVID-19 was the test run” and that the federal government’s censorship “machinery was built to last” beyond the Biden administration’s term in office.
‘We will eat you’: Leftist Minnesota group suggests violence against Dems if lawmakers don’t prosecute Trump officials, get rid Schumer, Jeffries
Far-left group 50501 in Minnesota has announced a direct action in St. Paul on November 7, suggesting that they will become violent against Democrat politicians if they do not finish a list of left-wing policy demands.
A post from the group, as well as the “Solidarity Picnic Twin Cities” and “the_taxpayers” on Instagram, stated: “Democrats: we will eat you if you do nothing.”
The list of demands from 50501 included the following:
- “Impeach and prosecute Trump officials”
- “Cut funding to all DHS operations”
- “Can Jeffries and Schumer”
- “Bring the ‘Abolish ICE’ act to a vote”
- “Bring the ‘Medicare for all’ act to a vote”
- “Grow a f*cking spine”
The caption of the post stated: “Our commitment to each other does not end on Election Day. No rest until we are all free.”
The group shared a flyer for the “solidarity march and jamboree” where they advertised that there will be hot dogs, face painting, music, kids’ games, and other activities.
The event, the organizers said, is designed to “showcase the collective power of our community and our ability to quickly organize to take care of each other’s needs and respond to authoritarianism.”
The group apparently needs funding in order to pay for the “free hot dogs” and has requested donations and said they are needed “because we live in a place that makes basic necessities into profit.”
The group, however, wants to keep the event free for everyone. They are asking volunteers to bring a hot dog cart or food truck, shuttle transportation, participate in the parade, and called on everyone to volunteer “something else that you do that we don’t know about that is weird and wonderful and you are willing to do for free.”
50501 claims to be a non-profit, grassroots organization that is also responsible for anti-ICE and “No Kings” protests that have taken place around the nation. The group has been linked to funding through dark money donors, per the New York Post.
The national group has come under heavy scrutiny after a chapter in Utah had a “peacekeeper” fire shots at someone who had a gun at a Utah “No Kings” protest and killed a bystander.
Americans Lost Key Medical Freedom Rights During Pandemic, as Courts Quietly Dismantled Constitution
During the pandemic, government officials and the courts quietly dismantled the U.S. Constitution, stripping Americans of key constitutional protections, according to Florida resident Brian Ward.
In a 29-page letter to Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Ward said that through a series of legal rulings and government actions related to COVID-19 mandates, Americans may have lost the ability to refuse medical interventions, protect their private biomedical information and seek justice when their rights are violated.
Ward accused the courts of nullifying one of the Constitution’s most fundamental protections — the right to due process — and modifying the Constitution without a formal amendment.
Ward’s accusations stem in part from a lawsuit he filed in July 2025 against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and then-FDA Commissioner Martin Makary.
Ward challenged 21 C.F.R. Section 50.22, an FDA rule that allows certain clinical investigations to proceed without participants’ informed consent. He argued that the rule violated his constitutional rights to bodily autonomy and due process and his right to be free from involuntary servitude.
The court dismissed the lawsuit, finding that Ward lacked standing to bring the claims.
On a recent episode of the “DarkHorse Podcast,” hosts Bret Weinstein, Ph.D., and Heather Heying, Ph.D., discussed Ward’s argument and why its implications extend far beyond COVID-19 or vaccine mandates.
“What Mr. Ward is advancing here is a very exhaustive discussion of the way in which our rights have been substantially altered,” Weinstein said. “He argues that, effectively, the Constitution is modified without the process that is supposed to be required to modify the Constitution.”
At the center of Ward’s argument is the due process clauses of the Fifth and 14th Amendments, which protect Americans from government actions that deprive them of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
Weinstein explained the principle in simple terms: “The upshot is that they can’t just take stuff from you.”
In his letter, Ward argues that court rulings have eroded that protection, allowing government officials to override individual rights while leaving people with little recourse. Ward copied Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and others on the letter addressed to Moody.
U.S. Helps Strike Cartel Hotspot Venezuela With Drones
One of the Trump administration‘s most successful initiatives was to designate foreign cartels as terrorist organizations, build up relationships with Latin American partners, and then strike cartel targets both on land and on the sea. The “Shield of the Americas” has led to joint operations, and Breitbart reports that the latest strikes in Venezuela are with the cooperation of the socialist government there.
Former Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro is in jail in the United States after the operation in January to capture him and put him on trial for narcoterrorism and other related offenses. The trial date is set for next June. He protected and helped many cartel criminals with their activities that led to the deaths of countless Americans through drug overdoses or violence.
Delcy Rodriguez, the controversial Maduro lieutenant now in charge who is trying to be somewhat more moderate and friendly to the United States so that she doesn’t also get captured, reportedly authorized the strikes. But the Venezuelans are utilizing American drones, according to Spanish-language media. My colleague Sarah Anderson has written extensively about Rodriguez and her relationship with the United States at the present time. The targets were ELN terrorists.
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