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Welcome to The Village Oak Tree
I am your host, Terrance Ó Domhnaill.
Here we are, entering the Ides of March, as the old saying goes. The sun has been shining a wee bit where I am, along with rising temperatures. And I'm a few days behind on my normal schedule this week.
I'm still dealing with home repairs caused by climate change this winter and I'm not done yet. But the work I needed to do to date did cause an interruption in my normal schedule. With everything that's going on in my household, and the world at large, I shouldn't be too awfully worried about this minor hiccup. Given the way things are moving so fast, this may not be the last schedule disruption I will incur this year.
I managed to find a handful of news stories from across the spectrum, in between my work schedule, to point out how all of this is going to affect average citizens around the world.
Once I've finished talking about the stories I found for this week, I would ask everyone to stick around through my commercial break so I can read to you another chapter of The Priest, from Michael Campi.
So, come sit you down somewhere in a patch of spring sunshine, or a warm cozy spot if you live in the more northern climates, and let me regale you with what I have found.
I was at a bit of a loss as to what I wanted to say this week and after watching the chaos every morning before going to work, I finally managed to come up with something.
Part of it is because I Have been very busy with house repairs over the last week, plus going out to work at some IT gig jobs that have come up a lot lately, and now I'm tired.
I have spent the last month dealing with the remnants of my burst water pipe in the wall from the last week of January. Between organizing contractors, ordering materials, having to do some of the repairs myself because of a shady home insurance company, and this week, finding out that the hardwood flooring material I ordered got lost in shipping and the company can't replace the missing shipment. So I have to start all over again. All of which makes me tired.
At first, my excuse was physical as I didn't finish the repairs to my guest bathroom until late last Wednesday evening, and doing a show was not going to happen that day. So I told myself that I would put it off until I had some more free time.
I am sort of there now with the bathroom complete, for the most part. My wife will finish the rest, with my help of course. My hardwood flooring will have to wait until I can find the materials, again. This is the new America. We better get used to this from here on out. The overseas supply chains are already starting to dry up.
Then there is my next project, which is to replace an out of date (as in discontinued) gas fireplace. I have the materials ready to go (mostly) and I will be starting that next week.
Once I have those projects completed, I will be done for the year, unless I have another weather emergency. I told my wife that we need to complete all home repair projects early this year before the prices of materials goes up because of the tariffs that are probably going to be imposed, even though Trump can't seem to make up his mind this week. That's nothing new. But I do think he will eventually get around to setting them in place. The ones for China are already set and it is only a short matter of time before the retail market starts to reflect these new taxes. Building materials being at the top of my list right now.
I had set aside some interesting articles over the last few days but now, some of them seem rather miniscule compared to the more important things I discovered late this week.
Like all of this business of Trump trying to shake down Ukraine over all of those Russian rare earth and other minerals. The deal making with Putin and the Kremlin over ending the war and who gets the spoils once the troops are pulled back. Europe is all in a tither about this, and they sent their more prominent emissaries to the white house to try and curry favor from the wannabe king of the western world. Both Macron and Starmer have paid visits to the castle in Washington in order to persuade Trump to give Europe what they want. And both left pretty much empty handed.
I watched a couple of military experts this week tell us that Egypt is moving its military to the border of Israel and Palestine. These retired military officers are saying that Egypt may be getting ready to invade. Maybe even coordinate with their neighbors to put a stop to the Israelis. There is talk of Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Egypt, and maybe Jordan working up some kind of plan to subdue Israel and help the Palestinians. Wouldn't that set off a bunch of fireworks in the middle east. Maybe even draw Türkiye into the mix to help drive the IDF out of south western Syria.
Now, a major conflict in the middle east may not have a direct impact on the American public at first, but as we may remember from past fracas's in the middle east, a regional war will have an effect on the shipments of oil from that region and drive up the price of oil and gas around the world. Especially in the U.S. As with previous spikes like this in the past, when the price of gas and diesel goes way up, the people protest in the streets to try to try and force the government to do something about it.
With Trump in the white house, you can guess how he'll handle something like that. Much like how we watched him not handle the Covid pandemic. He probably won't handle a major economic crisis any better.
It's becoming painfully obvious that Trump is doing what he always does. He has a sort of plan in motion that suffers little tweaks nearly every day when he lies about something one day and reverses himself the next day. Or just outright lies to everyone without regard for the consequences.
Then this latest spectacle on Friday with the public argument with Zelensky for him not being respectable enough to the mafia don. How is Trump not acting like an old school Sicilian mobster? But, I digress.
I have an article from one of my favorite Americans. He's a climate engineer, and, according to his latest article, he also has a masters degree in economics.
He tells us in his latest article about Trump's supposed plan to artificially inflate the price of gold in order to cash in on that, while fleecing the middle class and the poor. Of course, this would also benefit the morbidly rich who can afford to invest the significant amount of funds to take advantage of this artificial price hike.
While this is speculation so far, he lays out a pretty convincing argument about how this is shaping out. For those of us who have invested in gold, it could be a nice, short-term, get rich scheme. Until people figure out the scam and the price drops like a stone. But, according to the author, that's the point. Buy low and sell high before anyone figures it out.
He speculates that this may be the real reason Trump wants to send Musk to the federal treasury facilities to inventory the gold bullion and evaluate its worth.
Imagine the horror if Trump and Musk manage to somehow steal the U.S. gold? It would be the ultimate con job or just outright thievery. There is more to this in the article so I urge as many people as possible to read this and decide for yourselves. Are King Donald and his boy wonder, planning on stealing the U.S. treasury somehow?
As if there isn't enough hijinks going on in Trump land again this week, Musk is working on gutting the air traffic control towers across the country. He wants to dump Verizon as the communications provider. There is speculation in the story that he wants to replace Verizon with his Starlink systems. That shouldn't surprise anyone by now. More and more, it's beginning to look like Musk is planning on replacing as much infrastructure as possible with his different corporate products, with the blessings of the U.S. president. Maybe they will even share a little with Bezos and Zuckerberg. Who knows anymore.
And last but not least this week, I've been reading a lot of climate and environmental articles lately since Trump and Musk have defunded and fired nearly everyone in the EPA by now.
To keep it all simple for those of us who have to live around all of these polluted places in the U.S., without the EPA to keep things legal, more and more people are going to get sick and die in the future. I have an article from Inside Climate News that talks about how a nuclear power plant that had been on the chopping block is now going to be revived in order to try and keep up with the high demand for more and more electricity.
This plant on the coast of Lake Michigan, in Michigan was cited and slated for shut down until recently for multiple instances of coolant leakages into the lake and in the air from the smoke stacks. People living around this plant have a large percentage of thyroid cancer and other maladies, which was why they were going to shut the plant down and demolish it.
This is just one example of all the corporate polluters who are now going to literally get away with murder by the hundreds. These corporations don't care. They never really did. I'm old enough to remember when all of the largest corporations were being held to task, fined and even some executives arrested through the decades until now.
In this new age, fossil fuel companies and any other polluters who were always operating on the margins of safety and pollution, will now have free reign to do whatever they want as there is no longer anyone to hold them accountable anymore. This applies to general work place safety. I'm sure that everyone who is or has ever worked in any type of industrial environment has heard of OSHA.
I know I have. When I had my own service company, even though most of the time I was the only employee, I still had to keep OSHA safety posters up where anyone could see them. That's the law. Or it used to be anyway. Maybe not anymore.
It seems the U.S. is moving backward in time to when workplace safety, whether it involves moving objects or pollution is becoming a thing of the past.
With health insurance becoming so expensive for nearly everyone, if someone gets hurt at work, they may be out of luck all the way around. Without workplace health insurance or enforced safety regulations, going to work may become hazardous to your health. But then, not working is also hazardous to your health for different reasons. The working class in the United States appear to be entering a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation anymore with regard to taking care of their families.
There is so much speculation about where the United States is heading as far as the near future is concerned. There are strong rumors circulating in the media that the 2026 midterm elections are already being decided as far as congressional candidates are concerned. They're spreading rumors that the MAGA party is rigging the election right now in 2025 to further restrict who can vote and who the voters can vote for. This to set up a new single party electorate in the U.S. for 2028.
Given how congress is largely sitting on their hands right now, letting the executive branch do whatever it wants, the U.S. just might look like Hungary, Russia, or North Korea by 2028.
I don't know about any of you folks but I can't afford to go looking for a better place to live on planet Earth. Europe is collapsing, Africa is a chaotic mess as they are suffering growing pains while they throw out their old colonizers, such as France, Britain, and the U.S.
Central and South America are also in an upheaval to a degree while they try and sort themselves out after some of them have thumbed their noses at the U.S. and the U.S. is trying to play the bully still.
Then there is Asia. China has the fastest growing economy in the world as anyone not living under a rock knows by now. And the United States is having conniptions over this. This is the main reason they're dissing Europe now, causing all kinds of anxiety there. The U.S. is trying to pivot to the Pacific in order to step on China with an iron shod boot and they don't have the money to take care of Europe while they try to shut down the Chinese.
There are lots of analysts who are telling anyone who will listen, that the U.S. is doing all it can to work towards enacting a maritime blockade of China in order to choke off their economy. The U.S. doesn't want any competitors in the world markets and they have no problems using every dirty trick they can muster up to accomplish that.
It's not like this is anything new. The United States has been doing this for over a hundred years and, as I mentioned here before, these morbidly rich Americans seem to have an addiction to hoarding money much like drugs, alcohol or gambling.
The crash of 1929 was the first time their scams brought some of their houses of cards down but that didn't stop them for long. At the end of WWII, they saw another opportunity and they've been working at being this monopoly off and on since. The crash of 2008 didn't deter them that much as, then president Obama, famously bailed the biggest ones out at the expense of the taxpayers in order to keep the country out of a major depression that these corporate banks got everyone into in the first place. I thought back then, and still do, that he was wrong. He should have let them go belly up. Sure it would have hurt the economy some at the time but the U.S. would likely be in a better place now if he had.
Here in 2025, the U.S. has a president who is all in on the U.S. being the economic monopoly of the world. He doesn't have a clue on how to get that done smartly so he is falling back on standard mafia tactics. Bully anyone he can to get what he wants, coerce those he can't bully or lie to them in order to trick them into giving him what he wants. Nearly everyone in the world, via media and social media, has a front row seat to this.
The big question everyone watching this spectacle is asking, what's he going to do next? No one knows from one day to the next what's going to happen once the sun comes up in the morning. Everything he says in public is taken at face value, even though most people know he's lying nearly every time he says something. From exaggerating facts to outright figments of the imagination.
The trouble is, no one can afford to dismiss him. He has too much power in the world and no one is sure whether he will be crazy enough to wield it against them. These state visits by France, Britain and Ukraine this week were perfect examples.
Meanwhile, while we're watching the circus in Washington D.C., there are movements taking place behind the scenes to maneuver things towards the private sector. Jessica Wildfire provided an article from Politico about how private security corporations are trying to push Trump into authorizing private immigration forces, more private prisons and private planes to expedite the illegal immigration removals around the country.
There're already lots of news stories of people being rounded up and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and then on to their final destination, their origin country. They may have entered the country illegally and never committed any other crime but they are being apprehended anyway.
I haven't heard any more stories lately of American citizens or green card holders being swept up again. That may be due to a massive cover up or maybe they haven't taken any lately. I'm sure there'll be some eventually if they're still planning to round up millions of people.
If Trump signs off on this bid for privatization, imagine companies with the reputation of Blackrock showing up in neighborhoods all across the U.S. searching homes without warrants to arrest illegal immigrants. What could go wrong?
Not to mention that now, Trump would have his own private army. Much like the German brownshirts and the Irish black and tans of the last century. I repeat, what could possibly go wrong? If history is any teacher, everything will go wrong.
So far, according to this article, Trump has ignored this request. Maybe he isn't even aware of it. Maybe that's a good thing. Let's hope it stays that way.
There is already enough chaos going on that we can do without any more. Has anyone heard about what all of these newly terminated federal employees are going to do for a living now? We have yet to hear if the unemployment statistics are going to go up because of all of this but, given how this government doesn't like to talk about bad economic news, it may take a month or two before we see the numbers go up. And even then, Trump's people will likely lie about it, much like Biden's people did.
Will all of this add to the homeless population? Which stands at roughly 800,000 as of last fall. With one in five U.S. citizens taking advantage of some part of Medicaid until now, you can bet that a large portion of them will likely end up being homeless as well.
While Trump spends tax dollars with bait and switch programs to try and fool people into believing he is slashing the budget. The latest bill making its way thru congress is just such one of those. A bait and switch. The only ones benefitting from this legislation are the morbidly rich, according to news sources.
They're not going to be trimming the budget, just moving the money into the pockets of the oligarchs.
The only good news is that last Friday there was a, so called, boycott the corporate retailers day. It's a start but just one day is nothing more than an ineffectual symbolic gesture. If people really want to make an economic impact, a boycott like that would have to last at least a month or more. I don't see many Americans willing to make that kind of sacrifice yet. Look at what happened back in 2020 when the country shut down for a month due to the pandemic? The majority of the people went bonkers. They're still talking about that even now in 2025.
I don't know anymore where we are heading with all of this. It most certainly looks like a clown show at a circus. It's what is likely going on behind the scenes that scares me more these days. It's things like that, that will just show up unannounced when we least expect it and dramatically change our lives forever.
Things like firing the joints chief of staff at the Pentagon, in order to replace them with fawning loyalists who will not question orders from the commander in chief, firing a large percentage of the civil servants, and this mass round up of millions of illegal immigrants without warrants have me looking over my shoulder more these days.
I am also asking myself nearly every day when I watch or read the news, what's coming next? What new surprise can we expect today or tomorrow? So many people across the U.S. are also asking themselves the same questions. So many are now worried about whether they'll have a roof over their heads and access to food tomorrow, next week, next month. Many others are wondering if any American immigration militias will be paying them a visit soon.
Although I may not be worried too much about immigration authorities personally, I am worried about the economy. If things keep going the way they are, we may all be experiencing food and shelter insecurity someday within the next couple of years, or at least those of us who are not morbidly rich anyway.
For those who voted for Trump in order to save them from economic ruin, I'm sorry but you were conned once again. This time from someone who will go down in the history books as the greatest grifter in history.
It'll take a while for all of this to sink in but it will eventually. Then what? It's not like the U.S. can just vote for a non-confidence in their government, like the Europeans and Canadians. Once elected, the executive branch is there for four long years, unless they die or are removed for very serious crimes, like Richard Nixon and his VP were.
They already tried that with Trump the last time he was president and we see how that worked out, don't we. The U.S. is the only superpower to have a convicted felon as a president. In the past, we fired the criminals. Now we have a cult hero. I think he'll turn out to be more of an anti-hero before too much longer, but then what? We have J.D. Vance as a backup. His theatrics in the oval office with Zelensky last Friday are a small example of what anyone can expect from him.
Senator Bernie Sanders is making the rounds of the country to try and take the glitter off of this government. We need more politicians like him to do the same thing, if we're going to save what's left of the democracy. The democrats are way to slow or not even visible right now and that needs to change quickly.
Maybe if enough independent news people make enough noise, these democrats will finally crawl out of their caves and stand and fight. One can only hope as the light are starting to go dim in the United States as more and more customers take their business elsewhere.
Europe and Canada are starting to do that after last week. China has been doing that for a while and will be going ahead in earnest now. The Africans will look harder towards China and Russia now that the U.S. is proving to be more unreliable. South America is also (except Argentina) moving closer to China and Russia. It will take a bit but eventually, all of Trump's bullying will isolate the U.S. from everyone else and the economy will hit the brakes hard.
I actually thought Trump would take a hint last week but after Friday's antics, I no longer think that. We need to all prepare for a global recession-depression. Some countries will get hit extremely hard, like in western Europe and the U.K. commonwealth, due to their ties with the U.S. The rest will take a hit but stay afloat due to their alliances that are not so dependent on the U.S. The BRICS bloc comes to mind when I say this.
Get ready folks wherever you live on planet Earth. If Trump continues as he is, and I have no reason to believe he will change, he will cause a major disruption across the globe and those of us who live in the Americas will feel it the most. I, for one, am taking care of all of my necessary things now, while I still can. Because, unless something radically changes very soon, those of us who don't have the luxury of a six figure income or more, may end up with food and shelter insecurities we haven't experienced since the 1930's.
As we continue to watch this clown show from the white house in the United States, think about what I just said. Trump is already impacting life across the developed world today. If you live in Europe right now, how much has your economy tanked lately and impacted your lives? The U.S. is starting to feel this a little bit now but it's going to get worse very quickly.
Countries across the Americas are all scrambling to create new supply chains right now to offset the loss of the U.S. markets due to the oncoming tariffs starting next week. March 4th, unless Trump changes his mind again. If you truly want to know what's going on, use the internet to search out independent news and learn the things main stream media is afraid to tell you. And be very afraid, very, very afraid.
Thank you for joining me again today. I hope you enjoyed it and that you'll return again to talk about the world we live in.
Please like, subscribe, reply and share the videos or audio podcasts, however you watch or listen. The goal here is to resist the people who want to take our freedoms away from us. I appreciate everyone around the world, no matter who or where you are. Together, using independent media like this, we can resist the authoritarian oligarchs in the west.
As I say good bye this week, I wish to leave you with this Irish blessing as we try to survive another week of mayhem. "May we finally find the peace and contentment we seek, despite the whirlwinds of chaos brewing all around us." Slán go fóill.
References:
Trump says he'll hit Canadian goods with 25% tariff next week after month-long pause
'The tariffs are going forward on time, on schedule,' U.S. president says
John Paul Tasker · CBC News
Big tariffs on Canada next week? Not necessarily, White House says
White House clarifies Trump was referring to reciprocal tariffs in latest headline-making comments
Alexander Panetta · CBC News
The Coming Debt Trap: How Trump’s Economic Moves Could Reshape Your Financial Future
A hidden economic strategy involving gold, tariffs, and debt refinancing may be setting the stage for a historic wealth transfer — at your expense
Thomas Ott on Medium.com
A Nuclear Power Resurgence Is Coming to Michigan. What Are the Potential Health Impacts?
Michiganders who reside near the Palisades nuclear plant had increased thyroid cancer rates, study shows. As the plant prepares to reopen this year, residents want updated safety and health protocols.
By Carrie Klein for Inside Climate News
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