It Actually Is What it Is

White Bull has launched their long-awaited substack focused on business and the intersection of policy on business with a very solid piece on tariffs. This is particularly important, because both the media and most official government positions on tariffs are still stuck in 18th century critiques of European mercantilism and therefore take nothing that has happened and nothing that we’ve learned in the last 250 years into account.

Before the 2024 election Trump said, “Tariffs are the greatest thing ever invented.” While it is typical Trumpian hyperbole, it is not wrong. Following almost 4 decades of globalists being hell bent on eliminating trade barriers, US trade policy supporting exporting US manufacturing to Canada/Mexico with NAFTA, or China with MFN and then accession to WTO (thank you Bill Clinton + Laura Tyson), the US has essentially been subsidizing other nations at its own expense. Tariffs are one of many tools that the US needs to start using to recalibrate its place vis a vis the global marketplace.

The globalists in Congress keep saying that Trump doesn’t know what he is talking about when he discusses who actually pays the tariffs.They say consumers pay the tariffs. Well, they are (partly) right and everyone knows this. What they don’t talk about is that unless the producers who have tariffs levied on them reduce their wholesale prices, the cost to the American consumer will increase by retail price + the tariff %. American consumers are smart enough to shift their buying preferences towards better value, alternative products or wait on purchases until alternatives emerge. American manufacturers will be motivated to bring manufacturing back to the US, since profitability is possible again. Everybody in America wins! At Davos a few weeks ago, even the pragmatic Jaime Dimon came out in favor of tariffs, saying, “I would put into perspective: If it’s a little inflationary, but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it.”

Tariffs were a very effective tool for the US during the 1800s, and between 1861-1933 the US had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. Is it surprising that after 1933/New Deal, tariffs started to disappear while being replaced by income taxes, sales taxes and a myriad of social programs started to emerge? Tariffs can be raised, lowered or eliminated entirely as needed. But taxes and entitlements rarely disappear creating virtually unlimited budgets for politicians to tap into or steal. And while there is always the danger of a trade war, it looks like many ‘deals’ will get cut to decrease US trade deficits with targeted countries before needing to actually levy the tariffs.

IT IS WHAT IT IS promises to be as significant in the business and technology space as FANDOM PULSE has already proved to be in the entertainment and culture space. If you’re running a side hustle or you’re a full-time entrepreneur with your own small business, you will definitely want to be a part of the conversation there. It’s something I’ve wanted White Bull to do for a long time, simply so I don’t have to, because it is one thing that we just haven’t had in the greater community.

We’ve just never really had a place where those of us who are active in business can discuss what is going on around the world in the context of our business operations, so I think this will be an important step going forward.

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Batting 1.000

Big Bear was right again. This time about John F. Kennedy. The F… well, let’s just say it didn’t stand for “Fitzgerald”.

In September 1953, she and Jack wed in a lavish ceremony in Rhode Island. By 1960, they were in the White House — and so was Lem, with his own bedroom in the private residence. Jackie confessed to Senator George Smathers, one of JFK’s closest allies, that she could barely stand it.

‘Just one weekend in my life,’ she said, ‘I’d like to have my husband to myself. But Lem is always there, bathing and massaging him, even putting on his shoes and socks.’

Whispers about JFK and Lem’s ‘special relationship’ flew through DC, the press corps, the FBI and CIA — the latter agency worrying that Russia and other enemy states could blackmail the president with such information.

Jackie understood. Her own father, ‘Black Jack’ Bouvier, was a womanizing bisexual. Very little shocked her, and she came to appreciate Lem’s loyalty and discretion, the ‘stress relief’, as Lem often put it, that he provided for Jack.

However, I don’t think this was the big release of the files related to JFK for which everyone was waiting.

UPDATE: I would be remiss if I did not provide a link to Big Bear presenting evidence to a Boomer concerning what the “F” in John F. Kennedy stood for.

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Appearances vs Reality

Far too many people, and pretty much everyone in the media, are far too obsessed with the idea of political leaders “appearing strong” as opposed to actually being strong. Which tendency Simplicius notes, particularly in reference to Vladimir Putin:

Too many people view the world in black and white, and believe the slightest weakness condemns a leader to total incompetence or treachery. No, Putin has weaknesses like everyone else, but also big strengths—it’s just at times one over-shines the other in glaring ways. The Russian armed forces have now likely lost somewhere approaching 100,000 dead if not more, the least they deserve in their colossal sacrifice is to know they didn’t die in vain; a stronger message from the commander-in-chief ensuring that objectives will be met would go a long way here.

The other most important thing to mention vis-a-vis ceasefire talks that no one else is talking about is the following. Russia and the US appear to be at a kind of epistemic loggerheads when it comes to the order with which the conflict must come to an end. You see, Trump, Marco Rubio, and others from their camp hold the position that the conflict must be brought to a ceasefire first, and only then would the higher order normalizations and negotiations between the US and Russia take place. In short, the Trump administration is putting the cart before the horse in its impatience to put some big win on the scoreboard, particularly given that many other Trump campaign promises have already flopped, or similarly log-jammed.

But Russia insists on the opposite order of events: first the US must recognize all the causes of the conflict and fulfill Russia’s demands for long-term security guarantees, and only then will Russia entertain bringing the conflict to an end. How to reconcile these antipodal positions? Easy: Russia must simply continue plowing ahead until the US ‘comes around’ to realizing that it’s not the one in the driver’s seat.

Being strong does not consist of making vacuous statements completely at odds with reality, as the Ukrainian, European, and US leaders are extremely prone to doing. That’s a magickal belief in rhetoric, attempting to alter the material universe with nothing more than their words and willpower. By their definition of “strong leadership” there has been no stronger leadership than Hitler in the Berlin bunker, making bizarre proclamations about inevitable victory and issuing orders to nonexistent battalions.

Keir Starmer, Emmanual Macron, and whatever nonentity is heading up the German government can posture as they like, but their opinions count even less than yours or mine. As Simplicius points out, Russia will simply keep doing what it is doing until the entire retarderati finally realizes that Russia is not going to run out of ammunition in two weeks, the Kursk incursion no longer exists, and the Kiev regime flees to Paris, or, as is more likely the case in the end, Jerusalem.

Both Putin and Xi practice the sort of strong leadership articulated by Teddy Roosevelt. They speak softly, in the case of Xi, very, very softly, and they carry big sticks which they do not hesitate to utilize. Trump can certainly negotiate with them, and make deals with them, but no amount of wild rhetoric and posturing is going to impress them.

The Clown World Order is failing. Their fake and gay “democracies” have been exposed, as well as their inversive “freedom” and now the nationalist “autocracies” are, as I have long predicted, rising to replace Clown World’s globalist charade.

Today, not only are autocracies increasingly confident. The US is moving to their side. That is the lesson of the last two weeks. Freedom is not in as much danger as it was in 1942. Yet the dangers are very real.

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The Next Medical Disaster

Apparently even the massive health benefits of losing weight may not be worth the adverse side effects from Ozempic and its kindred weight-loss drugs:

I work with MDs and PhDs across every specialty — psychiatrists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists, nutrition scientists. Not one of them has failed to mention, in hushed tones, the ‘observational adverse events’ they see with GLP-1 drugs.

Why whisper? Because questioning the safety of this medical ‘miracle’ is career suicide in today’s climate.

The pharma-industrial complex, backed by regulatory bodies and media puppets, has turned medicine into a religion where blind faith replaces scientific debate. Some of these ‘whispered’ potential side-effects you may have heard about: Ozempic Face, of course, but also hair loss and diminished libido. Others, you likely haven’t: gastric bezoars (hard indigestible masses that can form in the gut), or suicidal ideation, accelerated aging and more.

But to return to ‘Ozempic Face’: many have assumed that it’s simply the result of reduced facial volume due to weight loss that leaves many people looking older than before. However, based on my extensive professional experience of helping people lose weight over the years, I’ve never seen them look older — only younger.

To be honest, I hadn’t given this issue much thought, as I’ve been more focused on the potentially life-threatening side effects of the drugs.

That changed the day my surgeon told me his patients on GLP-1 medications were ‘aging in fast-forward’, with some looking a decade older in less than a year. He said, their skin didn’t just appear older — it was behaving older, losing elasticity, with more wrinkles and crepiness, and healing more slowly. Even the connective tissue or SMAS (Superficial Musculoaponeurotic System), which structurally supports the face, was becoming thinner and weaker.

It seems that GLP-1 drugs may be accelerating the breakdown of structural proteins like collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid at an alarming rate.

Looks like the Hellmouth is devouring its own even faster than usual. We must all endeavor to put on brave faces and staunch our tears.

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God Mode Achieved

Hal Turner is reporting that DOGE now has full access to the complete record of all executive agency financial transactions.

Algorithms created by the United States Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), have finally achieved what they are calling “God Mode” access to every Executive Branch Agency spending system. Algorithms are now inside all the Executive Branch systems actively tracing ALL transactions, cataloguing all the requisite information, and creating output files for Executive (Presidential) Review.

No expenditure of money can be hidden by vast networks of “pass-throughs” as was possible for the past fifty years.. No bank account destinations can be shielded anymore.

All the secrets about government money spending will be reviewed and, if the President chooses, revealed publicly, continued, or stopped.

The masks used to hide what was going on, have now ALL been penetrated by this level of access.

Assuming this is true, there will almost certainly be massive ramifications of global proportions coming. Among other things, we’re going to find out that the vast majority of “successful” people were never anything more than servants of evil.

Apparently two-thirds of this money was previously untraceable. But I don’t think we’ll be too terribly surprised to learn where it has been going.

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Her Work is Done

Having utterly destroyed STAR WARS, Kathleen Kennedy is taking her Death Star and moving on.

“After years of speculation, and polite urging from observers like me, Kathleen Kennedy has informed Disney, as well as friends and associates, that she will exit as Lucasfilm president by the end of the year, per three sources.”

No doubt Amazon will want to hire her to make sure that THE LORD OF THE RINGS is demolished as utterly as her previous franchise. I think she’d be wasted on James Bond, as simply casting Ncuti Gatwa as gay black James Bond would almost certainly suffice to lay waste to Ian Fleming’s fading legacy.

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The Glorious History of GG

Grummz praises the OGGers and the consequences of #GamerGate.

It’s time to take credit.

Gamergate really did change the world.

It was the first time normies (like I and others used to be), woke up to how corrupt our journalism was.

We fought back so hard that social media spent millions developing censorship tools to stop us, which were then weaponized against the mass populace.

There IS a gamergate playbook and it is this: TRUTH. We used TRUTH and social media to spread the word, through epic meme battles and more.

We gave rise to the Right media. So many pundits on the Right came from GG and got HUGE.

We helped get Trump elected the first term, because Trump called the media “fake” and that was the GG banner. We wanted it fixed.

We crushed AAA gaming last year and forced Ubisoft to their knees.

We may not be called Gamergate anymore, we may have been smeared and pushed into a corner for years as social media banned us all, but we are the keyboard warriors of truth and we have won the long game.

Now let’s keep going!

Indeed. As it happens, the final track on the SOULSIGMA album is THE RIDE NEVER ENDS, a tribute to GamerGate and all of its leaders, of whom, of course, I am one.

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Low-Wage Efficiencies

Immigrant truckers are crashing the trucks Americans won’t crash.

Today rolled through Nebraska and counted no fewer than 107 CMV accidents between Omaha and Big Springs. I did not get picture of all of them. In fact I didn’t start keeping track until halfway through the state.

I reached out to Nebraska State Police and they said they responded to 211 CMV accidents in 3 Days, this includes today. I asked them for the crash ratio of foreign to American drivers involved in the accidents and they say that the At Fault percentage for the 3 days are 97% foreign and 3% American… they did not give me nationality of the drivers.

I asked what is the reason for the crash and surprisingly it isn’t speed., it’s the simple fact that many of these drivers are INCAPABLE of driving on snow and ice, don’t leave enough stoping distance, are following too closely and plain panic during minor road scenarios. I am a firm believer that the FMCSA needs to restrict foreigners from being allowed to operate during inclement weather such as snow or ice.

According to the National Insurance Institute, 98% of at fault crashes in a CMV during inclement weather are the fault of a person not from the United States…let that sink in….giving people CDL’s, who are from countries where it doesn’t snow, who have little to no traffic laws & enforcement does not translate to them being safe drivers in America.

Mass immigration is not “good for the economy” as advertised, much less “necessary for the economy”. To the contrary, it is an absolute nightmare for the economy as well as for the society, as it reduces wages, reduces productivity, and produces a much lower-quality labor force.

Economic theory has yet to catch up to the real-world tests of those theories that have played out in diametrically opposite ways than was theorized in ignorance and instituted as policy.

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