Monthly Archives: October 2017

Oct 21 2017

Nine Months After Inauguration – President Trump Announces the Defeat of ISIS in Raqqa Syria…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on October 21, 2017 by

Less than nine months after taking the oath of office – today President Donald Trump announces the defeat of Islamic State fighters in their self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa is “a critical breakthrough” in a worldwide campaign against the militants.

October 21, 2017 – Statement by President Donald J. Trump on the Defeat of ISIS in Raqqah

I am pleased to announce that the Syrian Democratic Forces, our partners in the fight against ISIS in Syria, have successfully recaptured Raqqah the terrorist groups self-proclaimed capital city. Together, our forces have liberated the entire city from ISIS control.

The defeat of ISIS in Raqqah represents a critical breakthrough in our worldwide campaign to defeat ISIS and its wicked ideology. With the liberation of ISISs capital and the vast majority of its territory, the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight.

We will soon transition into a new phase in which we will support local security forces, de-escalate violence across Syria, and advance the conditions for lasting peace, so that the terrorists cannot return to threaten our collective security again. Together, with our allies and partners, we will support diplomatic negotiations that end the violence, allow refugees to return safely home, and yield a political transition that honors the will of the Syrian people.

One of my core campaign promises to the American people was to defeat ISIS and to counter the spread of hateful ideology. That is why, in the first days of my Administration, I issued orders to give our commanders and troops on the ground the full authorities to achieve this mission. As a result, ISIS strongholds in Mosul and Raqqah have fallen. We have made, alongside our coalition partners, more progress against these evil terrorists in the past several months than in the past several years.

I commend all of our coalition partners for the sacrifices they have made in this noble effort. Therefore, as we recognize this military accomplishment, we also pause to honor our service men and women and all they have given to protect us and all civilized people from these modern day barbarians.

Today, we reaffirm that ISIS leaders, and anyone who supports them, must and will face justice. (link)

Statement from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – We congratulate the Syrian people and the Syrian Democratic Forces, including the Syrian Arab Coalition, on the liberation of Raqqa. The United States is proud to lead the 73-member Global Coalition that supported this effort, which has seen ISIS’s so-called caliphate crumble across Iraq and Syria. Our work is far from over but the liberation of Raqqa is a critical milestone in the global fight against ISIS, and underscores the success of the ongoing international and Syrian effort to defeat these terrorists.

In January, ISIS was actively plotting terrorist attacks against our allies and our homeland in Raqqa. Nine short months later, it is out of ISIS’s control due to critical decisions President Trump made to accelerate the campaign. Over the last seven months, millions of people have been liberated from ISIS’s brutal rule and working with our partners on the ground we are setting the conditions to enable people to return home.

We cannot forget that this accomplishment also came at significant costs. The Syrian Democratic Forces suffered many losses along the way and we join them in mourning the lives lost. We also mourn the U.S. service members, and others from the Coalition, who made the ultimate sacrifice of giving their life to rid the region of ISIS and protect our homeland.

ISIS cruelty and barbarity cannot be overstated. We witnessed ISIS deliberately and consistently using civilians as human shields and leaving behind mines to maim and kill children and other civilians seeking only to return to their homes or schools. The barbaric nature of ISIS’s tactics left many scars and we are supporting stabilization efforts in liberated areas to help these communities heal.

While we continue the fight to ensure ISIS is defeated militarily where it remains in Syria, the U.S. and other Coalition members are making every effort to remove explosives left by ISIS and to get critical humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations. We are also supporting the efforts of the Raqqa Civil Council and other local Syrian actors to re-establish basic security and deliver essential services to stabilize communities, refurbish schools, and help facilitate the safe and voluntary return home of displaced Syrians.

This also marks the beginning of a new phase in the Syrian conflict. As we and our partners push toward the territorial defeat of ISIS, we will continue to seek to de-escalate violence across Syria. Reducing violence in Syria will allow the United States, our allies, and partners to focus even more on advancing UN-led diplomatic efforts, within the framework of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, aimed at reaching a genuine political transition that honors the will of the Syrian people.

ISIS’s loss of Raqqa does not mean our fight against ISIS is over. The Global Coalition will continue to draw on all elements of national power – military, intelligence, diplomacy, economic, law enforcement, and the strength of our communities – until all Syrians have been liberated from ISIS brutality and we can ensure that it can no longer export its terror around the world.

The Coalition will continue its relentless campaign to deny ISIS safe haven anywhere in the world, and sever its ability to recruit, move foreign terrorist fighters, transfer funds, and spread false propaganda over the internet and social media. We are confident that we will prevail and defeat this brutal terrorist organization. (Link)

Oct 21 2017

President Trump Questions Fusion GPS Officials Day After Company Asked Lawyers To Hide Financial Records…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on October 21, 2017 by

President Trump begins to question Fusion GPS, the company behind the widely debunked Steele Dossier, a day after the company filed legal motions to quash a subpoena and hide their financial backing.

The dossier was reported to have been used by the FBI as a justification to get a FISA warrant against Trump campaign officials. Warrants that later became the tools underlying the road map narrative for the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the election.

(Via Breitbart) Fusion GPS — the firm behind the Trump dossier — filed for an injunction in a D.C. court on Friday to quash a subpoena for its financial records, according to a source familiar with the investigation.

The House intelligence Committee earlier this month subpoenaed TD Bank for Fusion GPS’s financial records, and an injunction would be to prevent those records from being handed over.

The move comes two days after Fusion GPS executives Peter Fritsch and Thomas Catan appeared before the committee and pleaded the fifth to every question asked. Another executive, Glenn Simpson, is due to testify in November.

Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) had requested the subpoenas to find out basic information about the dossier that’s still publicly unknown, such as who paid for it, and what sources it relied on, according to a source familiar with the matter. (read more)

Oct 21 2017

HOW THE INTERNET STARTED, ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE!


We all need to know how the internet really started — RIGHT?? (in spite of what he said, it wasn’t Al Gore)
 
Please do not Google or check this with Snopes.  They will lie to you.  Trust me! 
 
In ancient Israel, it came to pass that a trader by the name of Abraham Com did take unto himself a healthy young wife by the name of Dorothy.   And Dot Com was a comely woman, large of breast, broad of shoulder and long of leg.  Indeed, she was often called Amazon Dot Com. 
 
And she said unto Abraham, her husband, “Why dost thou travel so far from town to town with thy goods when thou canst trade without ever leaving thy tent?” 
 
And Abraham did look at her as though she were several saddle bags short of a camel load, but simply said, “How, dear?” 
 
And Dot replied, “I will place drums in all the towns and drums in between to send messages saying what you have for sale, and they will reply telling you who hath the best price. The sale can be made on the drums and delivery made by Uriah’s Pony Stable (UPS).” 
 
Abraham thought long and decided he would let Dot have her way with the drums.  And the drums rang out and were an immediate success..  Abraham sold all the goods he had at the top price, without ever having to move from his tent. 
 
To prevent neighboring countries from overhearing what the drums were saying, Dot devised a system that only she and the drummers knew.  It was known as Must Send Drum Over Sound (MSDOS), and she also developed a language to transmit ideas and pictures – Hebrew to the People (HTTP). 
 
And the young men did take to Dot Com’s trading as doth the greedy horsefly take to camel dung.  They were called Nomadic Ecclesiastical Rich Dominican Sybarites, or NERDS.  And lo, the land was so feverish with joy at the new riches and the deafening sound of drums that no one noticed that the real riches were going to that enterprising drum dealer, Brother William of Gates, who bought off every drum maker in the land. Indeed he did insist on drums to be made that would work only with Brother Gates’ drum heads and drumsticks. 
 
And Dot did say, “Oh, Abraham, what we have started is being taken over by others.” And Abraham looked out over the Bay of Ezekiel, or eBay as it came to be known.  He said, “We need a name that reflects what we are.” 
 
And Dot replied, “Young Ambitious Hebrew Owner Operators.”  “YAHOO,” said Abraham. And because it was Dot’s idea, they named it YAHOO Dot Com. 
 
Abraham’s cousin, Joshua, being the young Gregarious Energetic Educated Kid (GEEK) that he was, soon started using Dot’s drums to locate things around the countryside.
 
It soon became known as God’s Own Official Guide to Locating Everything (GOOGLE). 
 
That is how it all began. And that’s the truth. 
 
You know I would not make up this stuff — RIGHT??
 

 

Oct 21 2017

Traitors and Lunatics – Intellectual Froglegs


Oct 21 2017

MAGA Movement – 2017 Republican Party Raises Record Small Donor Contributions…


Re-Posted from The Conservative Tree House on October 20, 2017 by

In a 90-day period back in 2016 a new political record of 2.1 million small donors signed up to support presidential candidate Donald J Trump.  This represented the largest single quarter assembly of small donors from either political party in U.S. history.  REMINDER:

(Via Politico 2016)  Donald Trump has unleashed an unprecedented deluge of small-dollar donations for the GOP, and one that Republican Party elders have dreamed about finding for much of the last decade as they’ve watched a succession of Democrats — Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and, to a lesser extent, Hillary Clinton — develop formidable fundraising operations, $5, $10 and $20 at a time.

Trump has only been actively soliciting cash for a few months, but when he reveals his campaign’s financials later this week they will show he has crushed the total haul from small-dollar donors of the last two Republican nominees, John McCain and Mitt Romney — during the entirety of their campaigns. (read more)

That was the moment when Party Chairman Reince Priebus realized the future of the modern Republican party was Trump’s.  Indeed MAGA was larger than the GOP, and both Priebus and Sean Spicer recognized the Trump Train was not stopping; they were ‘all in’.

The scale of the small donor support is critical because it shows the depth and width of the supportive base.  The donor list also becomes just as valuable as the contributions connected to it.   For comparison and context: the entire Clinton donor list from all years of campaigning by Bill and Hillary was 2.3 million donors.  Donald Trump gained 2.1 million donors in just 90 days during 2016.

That level of grassroots and small donor support for President Trump represented the Monster Vote; the previously unrecorded…. the MAGA Movement.  It continues today:

WASHINGTON – The Republican National Committee raised more than $100 million in the first nine months of 2017, marking the first time it has raised that much, that fast, in a non-presidential election year.

The record-breaking fundraising can be largely attributed to a flurry of small-dollar donors responding to fundraising appeals by the first Republican president in eight years, Donald Trump, according to a new report to be released later this week and obtained by McClatchy.

The numbers give Republicans a large cash advantage over Democrats as they look to retain control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections next year.

Last month, the RNC hired state directors in 17 states across the nation, including Florida, Missouri and North Carolina, as part of what the party says will be the most expansive midterm field program in its history.  (read more)

Oct 21 2017

Has the OECD Been Told to Put Out Fake Opinions?


Armstrong Economics Blog/BRITAIN

Re-Posted Oct 21, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

 

They just don’t give up. Now the OECD is coming out telling Britain to have a new referendum and stay in the EU. They claim, without any evidence to back up one work, that they “believe” it will have a positive impact on the British economy. One really has to wonder if they have not turned the charts on GDP upside down.

 

Categories: BRITAIN, European Union
Oct 21 2017

ABC & Fake News


Armstrong Economics Blog/Press

Re-Posted Oct 21, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Murrow Edward R (1908-1965)

ABC News has indeed violated the principles of a Free Press and is the example why the old Fairness Doctrine should be restored. ABC News has come out and wrote: “Every American president has sparred with the press and fought back against stories unflattering or unfair. But no sitting president has in decades suggested media organizations should be shut down or that the federal government should consider curtailing their content or reach.”

The press thinks it is their right to push their agenda on the people. They no longer report the news, but twist it for their agenda be it left or right. It was back in a 1958 speech to the Radio and Television News Directors Association when veteran CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow told a room full of TV executives: “We are currently wealthy, fat, comfortable and complacent.” Murrow produced a series of reports that helped lead to the censure of Senator Joseph McCarthy and his trumped up witch hunt for communists when it was revealed that he was just making accusations without evidence.

Murrow was one of the journalism’s greatest figures, noting his honesty and integrity in delivering the news. That stature of ethics has been lost which some news organizations like CNN produce fake news not just on Trump, but of everything they touch right down to exaggerating the hurricane in Florida.

Edward Murrow used his position to take on powerful politicians and defend the American people, a free press as envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. He also exposed issues such as segregation and warned that the new TV medium was being used to “distract, delude, amuse and insulate” the public.

The FCC repealed the Fairness Doctrine, which has been rather disastrous. The Fairness Doctrine required that TV and radio stations holding FCC-issued broadcast licenses to (a) devote some of their programmings to controversial issues of public importance, and (b) allow the airing of opposing views on those issues. This meant that programs on politics were required to include opposing opinions on the topic under discussion. Broadcasters had an active duty to determine the spectrum of views on a given issue and include those people best suited to represent those views in their programming. That meant you had to relay both sides of an issue.

Today, mainstream media no longer has to be fair. They can propagate all the propaganda and tell only what the government demands. Hence, nothing that is real is fit for the news if it goes against corporate management or government demands. We are plagued with Terrorism as the excuse to eliminate all privacy as the excuse to raise taxes. This paranoia is not even as honest as McCarthyism which it at least was about Communists. Today, we are subjected to fake news but nobody will defend the people against exaggerated terrorism or the corrupt agenda of false prosecutions for political reasons.

Trump should bring back the Fairness Doctrine. That will apply to both sides.

Oct 20 2017

Dow & the Euro


Armstrong Economics Blog/Dow Jones

Re-Posted Oct 20, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

Our Capital Flow models have been spot on showing the strength of the rally in the Dow is driven by foreign inflows. We have moved right up to the Weekly Bullish Reversal in the Dow in Euro Terms. If we elect this today, expect a sharp rally to test the top of the channel we have been pointing out and our ideal number in the 23,000 zone.

Welcome to the Vertical Market. This is like a party where everyone is drunk, nobody is having a good time, and they just can’t remember exactly how they ended up here.

The crisis building in Europe is having a profound impact as real money starts to move.

Oct 20 2017

October 19th – 30 Year Anniversary 1987 Crash


Armstrong Economics Blog/Forecasts

Re-Posted Oct 20, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: 30 years ago today I was sitting in a brokerage firm in New Castle Pennsylvania on a personal computer that had 720 K of RAM and ran at 1 GHz watching the market and sitting looking at the charting. Prices on stocks were running between 15 and 30 minutes late, nobody knew what was going on. All we knew was things were dropping, dropping, dropping and dropping, everyone was confused. It was crazy. The volume was bigger than they’d ever seen before. Therefore, they could not keep up with the bids and the ask.

I was short the market with every penny I owned and I had no idea how well I was doing. We tried calling places to get current prices if you could get through and even if you did they did not have current quotes, it was pure chaos. When the dust cleared at the end of the day the brokerage firm I was with had gone bankrupt and had lost most everybody’s money.

I had bought a ton of OEX puts and the person who owned the firm. Instead of processing them through regular channels, he decided to write against me on his own. He did not have the money to cover them. I was right on the market but wrong about who I placed my bids through. Three days later all the brokers at this firm were laid off, fired or let go… however you want to put it…. the friend who had the PC and the stock charts. I helped him move all the stuff out to his house. The next year he started his own brokerage firm.

The interesting thing is 5 to 10 days before that drop I told everybody we were in for a major crash but nobody wanted to believe me. But it was in the charts and I tried to show them this.

REPLY: Welcome to the old man in the corner club. You know. The old guy in the trading room who use to say this is just like 1929 when we were kids. Now we talk about 1987 which was 30 years ago. I was giving a WEC that weekend. We just elected a set of Double Weekly Bearish Reversals. The Arrays called for a low in 2 days. There were no other reversals between 286 and 180.

I remember standing up there trying to find some technical support between 286 and 180. I could not. There was nothing between the two even technically. The audience asked me what would happen? I said look, it sounds nuts, but we should move down 10,000 basis point in two days.

I myself could not believe it. But people paid me for what the computer had to say, not my opinion.

When that happened, it was right on the ECM date. It was absolutely perfect to the T.

Everyone was calling for the 1929 collapse. The model said new highs by 1989. That’s when brokerage houses were begging me to please come and speak to their retail audiences. I agreed and went to Toronto for Midland Daugherty. They filled the place with thousands of people.

Australian brokers and British brokers were all lining up to have me speak to their clients. It was all in their self-interest. They were paying back then $100k to get me to speak to their clients because I only did Institutional. It was an interesting time.

Oct 20 2017

Canada’s Hunt For Taxes Turns on Minimum Wage Earners


Armstrong Economics Blog/Canada

Re-Posted Oct 20, 2017 by Martin Armstrong

The hunt for taxes has turned to employees of companies. Any benefit you give an employee is considered “soft-income” and is to be taxed. In the USA, the maximum value of a gift I can hand an employee is $25. I can’t even give them a decent bottle of champagne for New Years.

In Canada, this same idea of taxing any employee benefit has gone all the way to hunting the minimum wage earners. The politicians have classified any discount an employee gets as tax-avoidance and they want their nickel and dime. A minimum wage store employee who gets a 20% discount on anything the store sells or if a waitress gets a free meal while working is to be taxed. The Income Tax Act of the Canada Revenue Agency is now targeting not the “rich” but minimum wage earners since the rich are leaving. When an employee receives any sort of a discount on merchandise or a free meal because of their employment, the value of the discount is to be included in the employee’s income and taxed.

The hunt for taxes is just going to get worse until the people rise up, as they have always done, and probably start yelling the same words: No Taxation Without Representation!” Politicians are doing the same thing that sparked the French Revolution with their arrogance when taxes reduced the standard of living and people could no longer survive. The response of the government was “let them eat cake” and that did not sit very well even if those words were not really spoken – it was the rumor attached to  Marie Antoinette