Real News: About That Russian Hacking Indictment And Its Willful Misuse

Quadraro, Death of Justice

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do?  Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?  This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's!  And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?  Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Robert Bolt, A Man For All Seasons

Aaron Mate of The Real News interviews Michael Isikoff about the Russian hacking indictment in the video below.

Michael Isikoff's dismissive and almost bullying remarks aside, I think most people will continue to look at this carefully, and will keep an open mind.

Isikoff is not persuasive, except if one is intimidated by veiled references to secret evidence and the invoking of 'authority.'

And clearly Aaron Mate is not. This is what makes him a much better, or one may say genuine, journalist.

I have trouble conceiving that this indictment will ever be tested in court, unless they decide to try the defendants in absentia.   It is a convenient way to make public charges without ever having show the evidence, and test their veracity in a public court of law.  But they do make nice talking points for the prevailing narrative.

It would be as if a prosecutor in Moscow were to indict top officials in the US government for cyber crimes, such as bugging the personal phones of allied heads of state, or interfering in other countries' elections, and expect them to fly over for a trial.

I can only imagine what the reaction here would be to such an obvious ploy.

But I am sure that this indictment will be frequently misused as 'proof' of the case, and widely referenced without critical thought, to try and shame honest skepticism and alternative views on this matter.

Such as in this article in The Intercept by James Risen, for example.

But Risen has shown the weakness in the presentation of his reasoning before, in his debate with Glenn Greenwald,

An indictment is proof of nothing, other than an indictment has been granted to proceed with something known as a 'trial' of the pertinent facts to determine guilt or innocence.   As since 'the evidence' is part of an indictment, it is not subject to open, investigative examination and potential rebuttal.

It is a 'charge' that is as of yet unproven, and we need to be very careful about giving charges such weight in the public discourse.  It can ruin lives and reputations without due process, and cause potentially innocent individuals to much hardship, intimidation, and even confinement.

No matter how many functionaries may have signed off on it.   How many times do we need to have this proven to us both pro and con, from WMD's to allegations of mass government surveillance?  It is presented to the public with such authority and weight—  until the truth rears its ugly head.

And innocence is presumed, or at least it used to be, before the hysterics were engaged after Hillary's stunning loss.

As regular readers know I am no 'fan' of Trump, or Hillary, and especially not of the Russian government,.  If anything  I am concerned that we are falling into the same type of authoritarian oligarchy that prevails there.

But I am not willing to toss aside principles and reason for personal satisfaction or political gain.   If we do, we are no different from those that we pretend to oppose—  we merely serve different ends without regard to means, like competing crime families.

Isikoff and those who speak and write in the mainstream media know this.  But they do not seem to care.  Such is the lack of principles for the sake of partisanship to which our modern media has descended, especially since it has been concentrated into a few powerful hands.

I am afraid that Michael Isikoff's conclusions will obtain such thoughtful scrutiny and analysis from the Sunday morning television pundits, both pro and con.

And therefore one goes to other sources like The Real News to get a more balanced picture.

Do not point the finger at the underwhelming actions of the Russians for the lack of trust and deep partisan divide here.

We have ourselves to blame, our lack of critical thinking and demand for justice with accountability, and acquiescence to the repeated heavy-handed actions of enablers in service of money and power, might over right.

As long as the con jobs sell, and money is being made, no one in the money and power pipeline has an incentive to stop the lying unless it is their conscience. And with this craven and spiritually adulterous generation, good luck with that.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - The Slow Descent Into Reckless Hysteria - The Ends Justify the Means

“To write the truth as I see it; to defend the weak against the strong; to fight for justice; and to seek, as best I can to bring healing perspectives to bear on the terrible hates and fears of mankind, in the hope of someday bringing about a world in which men and women will enjoy the differences of the human garden instead of killing each other over them.”

I.F. Stone


“In reading The History of Nations, we find that, like individuals, they have their whims and their peculiarities, their seasons of excitement and recklessness, when they care not what they do. We find that whole communities suddenly fix their minds upon one object and go mad in its pursuit; that millions of people become simultaneously impressed with one delusion, and run after it, till their attention is caught by some new folly more captivating than the first.”

Charles Mackay


“At any given moment there is an orthodoxy, a body of ideas of which it is assumed that all right-thinking people will accept without question. It is not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but it is “not done” to say it… Anyone who challenges the prevailing orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular press or in the high-brow periodicals.”

George Orwell


"Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

John 8:43-44

I cannot believe some of the things that I am hearing on the mainstream media and reading on the internet these days.  Well, shame on me if I am shocked, because I forecast that this was coming. A period of hysteria and a general disregard for reality follow on a long period of lies and corruption, like night follows day. First comes the loss of a regard for virtue of almost any sort, and then the embrace of the darkness.

If the economic hardships had been more rigorous I have little doubt that the killing would have come closer to home by now.

What does shock me I suppose is how blithely seemingly well-educated people of relative privilege, who certainly know better, are willing to embrace the Big Lie, and run with it without a second glance back. Bizarre untruths and gross hyperbole are not just for the fringes anymore.

I was greatly disappointed by the 'debate' between James Risen and Glenn Greenwald, moderated by Jeremy Scahill. I include a video from Jimmy Dore below in which he discusses it, and I have posted the original debate here before.

But this is hardly the worst example, not at all. That was all over the airwaves and in the print media this weekend. The propaganda being spun out with regularity about dire threats and declarations of war make me wonder where this is all going.

Some feel perfectly happy picking and choosing among the lies that suit them, that promote their own biases and purposes. After all, 'everyone is doing it now.'

Try to resist the temptation to join in on this dalliance into this mesmerizing dance of deceit, and the sickness unto death that follows with it.

Stocks were rallying today, so all is good. We may soon recover the levels of our blow off top. It is not surprise since the mania is still alive and well. I considered the plunge we had the other week as likely a 'market break.'

I do think this presages a decline, most likely in the neighborhood of 20%. But timing that sort of thing is extremely difficult. Unless you are a legend of the punditry, remarkable as long as you can keep your own scorecard with other people's money.

Gold and silver were moving up quite nicely on the overnight, and were then pushed back down when the Dollar recovered its declines, finishing weakly higher.

We've been here before. It rarely ends well.
.
Have a pleasant evening.

And Now Comes the Internet Censorship

"A credibility trap is when the regulatory, political and/or informational functions of a society have been so compromised by a long term, generalcorruption that they cannot address any meaningful reform without implicating, at least incidentally, themselves.  The status quo has at least tolerated the corruption and fraud, if not profited directly from it, and most likely continues to do so.  The power brokers have become susceptible to various forms of blackmail.  And so a failed policy is sustained long after it is seen to have failed, because admitting failure is not an option for those who hold positions of advantage and power."

Jesse


"One of the primary characteristics of narcissists is their exaggerated sense of entitlement.  It's hardly surprising then that so many politicians somehow think they deserve to game the system.  After all, from their self-interested perspective, isn't that what the system is for?  In their heavily self-biased opinion, if they want something, by rights it should be their's.  So, nothing if not opportunistic, they take from public and private coffers alike whatever they think they can get away with. And given their grandiose sense of self, they're inclined to believe they can get away with most anything."

Leon F. Seltzer


"Representative institutions no longer represent voters. Instead, they have been short-circuited, steadily corrupted by an institutionalized system of bribery that renders them responsive to powerful interest groups whose constituencies are the major corporations and wealthiest Americans. The courts, in turn, when they are not increasingly handmaidens of corporate power, are consistently deferential to the claims of national security."

Sheldon Wolin, Inverted Totalitarianism


"The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises. If the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform."

Simon Johnson, The Quiet Coup


"On Wall Street he and a few others—how many?— three hundred, four hundred, five hundred?—had become precisely that—  Masters of the Universe."

Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities

The pain of remaining human—  when the increase in wickedness unleashes the age old enemy, and makes the love of most grow cold.

How does the status quo deal with an erosion of confidence in their actions in the late stage of a cycle of looting and abuse, caught as they may be in a credibility trap?

This is the point where we seem to be, when the facade of benevolent justice starts slipping away, and the looting and self-dealing becomes all too visible, on brazen display in scandal after scandal,  special privileges and bailouts, and historic inequality.

And if there is an erosion of confidence, it surely cannot be due to anything that the best among us have done.  They are wise and benevolent, heavily burdened by the task of guiding the public.

So there must be some foreign enemy or internal dissidents, actively trying to  cause people to lose confidence in their rule.

When you run out of credible answers, one solution is to stop people from asking the questions.   An offer of the bullet or the bribe is often effective for those with significant profiles and platforms.  It is being used now more than you may know.   The pressure on the well-informed to be silent is presently palpable.  The quiet sacrifice of many people of conscience is under-appreciated.

A broader and more general use of censorship is sufficient for the rest.   Concentration of mainstream media ownership in a few powerful hands is soon followed by increased and unilateral censorship powers over the wider variety of remaining independent sources.

There is a case to be made for restricting certain types of public speech, especially that which incites the public to violent prejudice. But that case must be narrow, highly transparent, and exceptional and infrequent. Unfortunately in times of general corruption measured restraint becomes abusive, widely and secretly used to silence any form of truth-telling and dissent from the established narratives and powers.

And it should be noted that in the cases of the most extreme examples of hate speech in history, their power was not in their eloquence, or the powerful logic of their arguments, of which they had neither.  If we look at them now their language is crude and their ideas vulgar, false, and repugnant..

No, their power was that no one was able to speak out freely against them, to dissent from their obvious misstatements and errors, that were repeated endlessly without anyone who could effectively stand against them.  And the people followed those lies into the abyss.

The Intercept
First France, Now Brazil Plan to Empower the Government to Censor the Internet
By Glenn Greenwald

Yesterday afternoon, the official Twitter account of Brazil’s Federal Police (its FBI equivalent) posted an extraordinary announcement. The bureaucratically nonchalant tone it used belied its significance. The tweet, at its core, purports to vest in the federal police and the federal government that oversees it the power to regulate, control and outright censor political content on the internet that is assessed to be “false,” and to “punish” those who disseminate it. The new power would cover both social media posts and entire websites devoted to politics...

Tellingly, these police officials vow that they will proceed to implement the censorship program even if no new law is enacted. They insist that no new laws are necessary by pointing to a pre-internet censorship law enacted in 1983 – during the time Brazil was ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that severely limited free expression and routinely imprisoned dissidents...

The move to obtain new censorship authority over the internet by Brazilian police officials would be disturbing enough standing alone given Brazil’s status as the world’s fifth most populous country and second-largest in the hemisphere. But that Brazil’s announcement closely follows very similar efforts unveiled last week by French President Emmanuel Macron strongly suggests a trend in which government are now exploiting concerns over “Fake News” to justify state control over the internet...

Beyond having one’s political content forcibly suppressed by the state, disseminators of “Fake News” could face fines of many millions of dollars. Given Macron’s legislature majority, “there is little doubt about its ability to pass,” the Atlantic reports.

Both Brazil and France cited the same purported justification for obtaining censorship powers over the internet: namely, the dangers posed by alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. But no matter how significant one views Russian involvement in the U.S. election, it is extremely difficult to see how – beyond rank fear-mongering – that could justify these types of draconian censorship powers by Brasília and Paris...

So for those who are comfortable with the current French leader overseeing a censorship program in conjunction with courts to censor “Fake News” from the internet, do you trust the Trump administration to make those determinations? Do you trust Marine Le Pen?...

Read the entire essay at The Intercept here.

Given the growth of intolerance, a surprisingly large segment of the public will not only tolerate, but may welcome censorship.  They wish to escape the pain of thinking, of being human.  They wish to smash all the mirrors that reflect their growing inhumanity.

"It seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, have given up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the foolish person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him.

He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the foolish person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer


“A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death— the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, and murders that we are not going to be judged.”

Czesław Miłosz

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - What Goes Around

“Incestuous, homogeneous fiefdoms of self-proclaimed expertise are always rank-closing and mutually self-defending, above all else.”

Glenn Greenwald


"For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality.  A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives.  For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness...

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization.  We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths.  The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit."

Franklin D. Roosevelt


"When we talk about morality, and when we talk about justice, we have to, in my view, understand that there is no justice when so few have so much, and so many have so little."

Bernie Sanders

Stocks muddled through today, closing nearly unchanged with a little dead cat bounce in the FANGs.

Oil lost ground despite a larger than expected drawdown in crude. The larger than expected build in gasoline put a damper on that short term enthusiasm.

The Washington Circus continued playing its tunes to itself today.

A vote in the House today to impeach President Trump was defeated 364 to 58. Way too early. lol.

It will be interesting to keep an eye on the Congressional antics with regard to the government shutdown.

Gold and silver took the usual early morning hits and then floundered sideways for the rest of the day. I ascribe this action to the pre-Non-Farm payrolls jimmy-jive. The regulation of US markets is near an all time low in my judgment.

The rest of the leaves from the big oaks dropped in a passing storm last night. The yard looks like I have not touched it at all. Well, one more good session and I think I can put the mower away and bring out the snowblower and get it ready.

The young man is coming to spend some time here for the next couple days. He has been working weekends on his research projects. I took Dolly to the groomer— she was not pleased.  She is pouting on her pillow. But she needed it.  And I was tired of stepping on the acorn tops she has been dragging in with her tail on the kitchen floor.  That is no fun in bare feet.

And so there is sweet and sour meatball soup on the stove, and it looks to be coming together nicely.

I am going to make oatmeal raisin cookies using my mother's recipe which was written on the inside of her old cookbook from the Jane Addams School that in those days was at 49th and Carnegie in Cleveland.  It is The Settlement Cookbook by Mrs. Simon Kander (orig. pub 1903).   I am substituting pecans for walnuts and adding chopped dates with the raisins.

Have a pleasant evening.

Charts For a Warmer Wednesday - Pillar of the Cloud

"And the Lord went before them by day as a pillar of cloud to lead them on the way, and by night a pillar of fire to give light in the gloom."

Exodus 13:21

Stocks were a bit jumpy this morning as The Donald, aka Cheeto in Chief, spoke at his first press conference in about six months.

Hard to believe, but these jokers in the press, sometimes going by the name of journalists, actually make the guy look better than he probably is. They are just terrible, and go for the low road like ducks to water.

Glenn Greenwald said exactly what I have been thinking, that the 'deep state' is making its displeasure known to Mr. Trump for spoiling their plans for a New American Century.

Did not vote for the guy, but it seems like every day I become even more content that Hillary is not in the White House.

I would not be shorting this stock market, yet. But sometime around or after the inauguration most likely something will happen to burst this bubble of happiness and self-delusion, and we might get a 10+% correction.

Gold is still struggling to move higher along with silver. The Comex is a joke when it comes to gold, and nothing much ever really happens there. Silver still stays busy with ins and outs of the warehouses, since this is how some wholesalers manage their working inventory for silver's domestic uses.

Have a pleasant evening.

Just Charts at 2:30

"While Democrats point fingers at anyone they can find, the evidence mounts that all critical sectors of their party’s apparatus fundamentally failed. Their renowned strategic geniuses were blinded with arrogance and error:  David Plouffe, who ran Obama’s 2008 campaign, said that Clinton was a ‘one hundred per cent’ lock and advised nervous Democrats to stop ‘wetting the bed, reports The New Yorker’s David Remnick this week.

The party’s operatives and pundits used bullying tactics to clear the field for an obviously weak and vulnerable candidate, and then insisted on nominating her despite those weaknesses, many of which were self-inflicted, and in the face of mountains of empirical evidence that her primary-race opponent was more likely to win...

And the party is widely perceived to be devoted to elite Wall Street tycoons and war-making interests at the expense of pretty much everyone else, and chose a candidate who could not have been better designed to exacerbate those concerns if that had been the goal."

Glenn Greenwald, The Democrats Blame-Everyone-Else Posture

We have a quiet stock option expiration this Friday, as stock prices were already driven far and fast higher after the presidential election lows.

The day is beautiful and warm, and the duty of yardwork calls.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Flight To Safety

In 2008, their economic worldview and unrestrained corruption precipitated a global economic crisis that literally caused, and is still causing, billions of people to suffer — in response, they quickly protected the plutocrats who caused the crisis while leaving the victimized masses to cope with the generational fallout. Even now, Western elites continue to proselytize markets and impose free trade and globalization without the slightest concern for the vast inequality and destruction of economic security those policies generate...

Corrupt elites always try to persuade people to continue to submit to their dominance in exchange for protection from forces that are even worse. That’s their game. But at some point, they themselves, and their prevailing order, become so destructive, so deceitful, so toxic, that their victims are willing to gamble that the alternatives will not be worse, or at least, they decide to embrace the satisfaction of spitting in the faces of those who have displayed nothing but contempt and condescension for them.

Glenn Greenwald

Next week should be interesting.

Gold did a $100 overnight move last night at one point from the low to the high, before giving some back today.

We are still waiting on a proper breakout, but the ice has been broken.

And we have only just begun.

Have a pleasant weekend.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - A Policy of Plunder and the Sickness Unto Death

"An elite class that is free to operate without limits - whether limits imposed by the rule of law or fear of the responses from those harmed by their behavior - is an elite class that will plunder, degrade, and cheat at will, and act endlessly to fortify its own power."

Glenn Greenwald

"You!  You made us in the house of pain!   You made us... things!

Not men. Not beasts.  Things!"

H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau

 

After the bell Moody's cut Greek bonds to CAA2 with the outlook negative.   Greece is facing the gravest threat to its national sovereignty, even worse than the American supported military regimes of the 'Greek colonels,' since 1941.

Who will be next?   Who can stand against the dark power of the world, and wickedness in high places?   C'est la guerre, sans fin.  Ainsi soit-il.

There was intraday commentary about the Fed's policy statement here.

Ex-accounting gimmicks, the US economy contracted in the first quarter.  The BEA fudged this advance estimate a bit, showing one of the lowest positive numbers possible,  but the economy is obviously teetering on recession driven by stagnant wages, policy errors leading to asset bubbles, and weak aggregate demand.   It is not that people are 'saving too much.'  The problem is that too many people have too little income.

They will show a revision of the truth at some point when no one cares as much about it.  The credibility trap forbids Beltway Washington from being honest critics of their policy and political failures to reform.  
 

I found it amusing that a few minutes after the Fed statement financial TV announced that 'gold was dropping,' and continued with that theme throughout the afternoon, without mention of the dropping dollar or stocks.  

Gold declined from 1210 to 1206 to the dollar.

Reports from The Bucket Shop show that 'deliveries,'  which are the exchange of claim checks, and warehouse movements were relatively quiet.

 

The bankers and financiers will have another shot at managing our perceptions of their own incompetence tomorrow.

 

I am keeping an eye on the upcoming elections in the UK.   As you know Europe and the UK are 'bellwethers' of a sort in my thinking.  

The situation in Greece might be more influential than some would allow.

The political and economic situation in the States is 'simmering.'

Uncle Oligarch, wrapped in the flag, is pushing the TPP with an almost desperate zeal.   It is surprising how many politicians and professionals have been 'rented' by corporate money in support of the cause.  

Smells like teen spirit.

 

Things are unfolding as badly as even a most cynical man might expect, alas. 

And so a group of fools, driven by greed, will push their perceived advantages, blind to the consequences, even to the point of plunging into the abyss.

They see strength and power in numbers, for they are many.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Fading Recovery, Skittish Market, Asset Bubble

I wonder how far they are willing to take this stock bubble?

It can keep drifting while there is no adverse geopolitical or economic news.

But the economic recovery is faltering. Or perhaps it would be more correct to say that the illusion is fading.

 

Zerohedge had an interesting article today about the ratio of Net Worth/GDP that may be signaling an asset bubble has already formed in the US.   The Fed's propensity to create asset bubbles in order to continue to sustain an inefficient and parasitical financial sector provides plenty of room for concern.  Their inability to provide the necessary reform because they are caught in a credibility trap is a recurring theme here.

 

It is a bit off the topic of markets, but Glenn Greenwald has an interesting story of how the US media manufacturers stories, and then tailors the narrative of the subsequent discussion of those 'stories' on their talk shows and panels to keep putting forward certain false and misleading propositions to the public.

 

I have seen some bloggers and internet trolls doing this, 'exposing' people as 'charlatans' but it is a bit jarring to see this done so readily by the mainstream media.

 

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Not With a Bang But a Whimper

"Having someone who is the brother of one former president and the son of another run against the wife of still another former president would be sweetly illustrative of all sorts of degraded and illusory aspects of American life, from meritocracy to class mobility.

That one of those two families exploited its vast wealth to obtain political power, while the other exploited its political power to obtain vast wealth, makes it more illustrative still: of the virtually complete merger between political and economic power, of the fundamentally oligarchical framework that drives American political life."

Glenn Greenwald

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away."

Phillip K. Dick

Did you notice that the gains from yesterday were largely erased today?   The Fed and the Banks made their point, and the Street managed to squeeze out the Shake Shack IPO.

And so today was back to reality.

 

The GDP number this morning was quite bad.  And I think the chain deflator understated inflation by an appreciable amount, so the real GDP was probably a bit worse.   What one hand give back with cheaper oil, and hand scoops out even more for food, rents, and healthcare.

 

We are in a difficult period.  A great deal of bad behavior is being rationalized away, and these things tend to feed upon themselves.  It is very hard to know what is real and true, much less whom we can trust.  People are generally mistaken at the best of times, but it is worse when it is culturally accepted to lie, with the ends justifying the means.

 

Change is coming.  I am not sure whether it will be for the good or ill.   But it will be different.  The most important thing is to keep your head when others are losing theirs.

 

Our parents and grandparents had it no better.  I am coming around to the thought that every generation has its own challenges, and too often they are the same old things, human nature being what it is.

 

Life is difficult.  But it has breathtakingly beautiful moments.   Even while marching in a concentration camp, enduring suffering we can barely imagine, Victor Frankl was able to obtain a vision of love in the person of his wife, that led to his finally understanding what it means that 'the angels lose themselves in the contemplation of God.'

 

But in the meantime, we must pay the bills.  So lets see what the stock markets to next. as it may be telling. 

 

And keep in mind the 'first things,' the only things that, too long a time to even imagine from now, will be the only things that really mattered.  We say this, but we really do not know it, until God wipes our eyes clean with tears.

 

Have a pleasant weekend.