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If you can bear looking into the pit of hell on earth which humans can create, you ought to check out The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Prof. Gary Morson provides us a glimpse of the book in his Wall Street Journal article, “The Gulag Archipelago”: An Epic of True Evil.

Solzhenitsyn describes, in three volumes, the ideological goal of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin. Their desired outcome was the mass incarceration in forced labor camps, working in temperatures of -40° or -60°, without sufficient nutrition to stay alive, leading to the fully expected death of millions of non-conforming people.

Descriptions of the routine punishments in the camp turn the stomach.

More frightening is Solzhenitsyn’s description that this pure evil is not limited to just socialism and communism. He declares “alas, all the evil of the 20^th century is possible everywhere on earth.” More on that warning in a moment.

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On March 13, 2020, President Trump signed the order kicking off government mandated restrictions in a failed effort to slow the spread and prevent further infections. On April 10, 2023, President Biden signed an order ending the emergency. Yes, that is one thousand one hundred twenty-three days of the promised Read more…

It is imperative we remember what our political, public health care, and education leaders did to us and our children during the Covid shutdowns. Please remember what their sycophantic worshippers in most media outlets did as well.

Remember the economic, social, and educational damage they caused.

Remember the devastation to our spiritual, physical, and emotional health.

Remember especially those religious leaders who were thrilled to close churches, stop communion, and end fellowship. Some leaders tried to minister to their flock while they reluctantly followed mandatory government dictats. Some faithful pastors decided today is not the day for prison.

Others however, were thrilled to aggressively follow every whim of political and health-sector officials whose visible desire was to shut down worship.

My family worshipped in a church where local leadership was quite pleased to shut down tight. Regional and national leadership was oh so ready to bend the knee.

Remember those religious leaders who bowed down to Caesar (first century AD), or the Emperor (1500s), or the governor (today). Also remember those whose focus was bowing to Christ instead of Caesar, the Emperor, or the governor.

(This discussion cross-posted to my other blogs because it is time to stand for religious and political freedom.)

A recent thread on Twitter compiled a partial list of what these leaders did. Please remember.

Part 1:

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The supply chain for everything is tangle up to the extent it will take lots of time to function normally again.

Two articles describing the depth of issues:

• Analogy of turning off a complex computer system. Some of the hundreds of components won’t work when you throw the ‘on’ switch.
• Description of the demand side pressure on supply chain. All those trillions of federal dollars sloshing around have created demand which has overloaded distribution systems.

American Thinker – 12/11/21 – We broke everything in the name of Covid – Author ran a large IT department at one point in the past. Every few years they had to shut down the entire computer system so that the factory could go through maintenance of the electrical system.

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Seems like a good question. Why crosspost over from my other blogs conversations about the high inflation rate that we are seeing? What does that have to do with freedom? Actually, a lot. Inflation is a hidden tax on consumers. It takes money out of the pocket of people. It Read more…

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.9% in October 2021 after a more modest 0.4% increase in September and 0.2% in August.

The October increase matches the June increase of 0.9% and is slightly higher than April increase of 0.8%.

Diving into the components of the CPI shows the increases are broader than several months ago.

The press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics explains:

“The monthly all items seasonally adjusted increase was broad-based, with increases in the indexes for energy, shelter, food, used cars and trucks, and new vehicles among the larger contributors. The energy index rose 4.8 percent over the month, as the gasoline index increased 6.1 percent and the other major energy component indexes also rose. The food index increased 0.9 percent as the index for food at home rose 1.0 percent. “

Warning sign as we roll into winter is fuel oil increased 12.3% in October and utility gas increased 6.6%. Keep in mind those are changes for the month, not for the year.

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The Producer Price Index (PPI) in October 2021 continues to show unusually high and ongoing inflation. Increasing October was 0.6%, which follows a 0.5% increase in September and 0.7% increase in August.

The PPI has shown high inflation for all of 2021. The worst months were 1.2% in January, 1.0% in April, and 1.0% in July. Those extremes have not repeated for the last quarter, which is a small amount of good news.

Graph at the top of this post shows the monthly change and final demand (the total index in other words) in blue. The average of the monthly changes in green. The red line shows core change, which excludes food, energy, and trade.

The PPI was increasing around 0.4% the month until the end of 2020. Since then it has averaged 0.8% for 2021 through October. Ouch.

This index is explained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as follows:

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