Category A Life of Pretending

May 22 2023

Sunday Talks, Byron Donalds -vs- Chuck Todd


Posted originally on the CTH on May 21, 2023 | Sundance 

Florida Congressional Representative Byron Donalds appears on Chuck Todd’s Meet the Press Sunday to debate the current debt ceiling negotiations and push back against the popular corporate media narrative.  Todd represents the unsufferable leftist side of the political theater, maintaining current political pretenses and acting as a guardian for the nonsense.

Todd’s talking points around the debt ceiling are weak and ridiculous.  Biden presents no budget, congress advances no budget, and the theater of pretending continues.  Donalds does a good job in general terms, but really the starting point to tear down the theatrics would be best if the first statement from a political voice would be to ask Todd why he is so dependent on the notes.  ‘Get rid of your notes Chuck, and let’s talk reality’, would be a better framing. Always put the engineers on defense.

When the conversation moves to DeSantis -vs- Trump [07:28], the part of the theater most comfortably advanced by the praetorian guards, Donalds puts the bigger picture of crisis and global security into context. WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HCTPhYBsaho%3Ffeature%3Doembed

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May 19 2023

You Voted for a Sanctuary City


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted May 19, 2023 by Martin Armstrong


NYC Mayor Eric Adams is at a breaking point over the migrant crisis. He was in favor of the open border until buses filled with migrants, mostly military-aged men, began swarming his city. Adams was a fierce proponent of “sanctuary cities” and said all were welcome. Adams is out of options, and it has only been one week since Title 42 was revoked. He repeatedly stated that his buddies in Washington have failed to take his calls. What will NYC do with all its new residents?

Half of all hotels in the city have been cleared out to make room for illegal migrants. They are provided with shelter, food, a phone, and some funds despite breaking US law by illegally entering our country. “New York City is the hotel capital. We’re the hotel capital — tourism, visitors, sporting events, graduations,” Adams continued. “It’s a major economic engine for us. Almost 50% of those hotel rooms are being taken up by migrant asylum seekers.” The summer tourist season is merely the tip of the iceberg.

School gymnasiums around NYC have also been emptied to make room for undocumented migrants and parents are in an uproar. Parents are not even permitted to enter a school in the US unless they show ID and check in with the front desk. Everyone who works with children must undergo a background check. Here, we have undocumented men from across the world entering our schools. Adams claims that the migrants will not be there at the same time as the children, but there is not enough enforcement to keep the kids safe. Forget weekend or after-school activities.

NYC already has a problem with homelessness. Homeless veterans are being displaced from their shelters to make room for migrants. So the men who fought for our country are being removed from their shelters to accommodate people breaking the law.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul reached out to President Joe Biden to ask for federal assistance, as if money will solve this crisis. Biden and Harris have remained quiet on the subject. The White House is lying and claiming that border crossings are down. Every state is experiencing an influx of illegal, undocumented military-aged men from around the world. This may be a final straw for many middle-of-the-road Democrats. The US has been invaded from the southern border and no one knows what to do to address the problem.

May 19 2023

Bud Light Sales Worsening, -23.3% in Week Five of Widespread Boycott


Posted originally on the CTH on May 18, 2023 | Sundance 

In the fifth week since the Bud Light backlash began, the latest scan data released shows a worsening drop in sales.   The overall trend now shows Bud Light has lost a full quarter of its market position, dropping 23.6% in unit volume and -27.7% in dollar sales.

Despite these dollar losses, the parent company does not seem willing to address the root cause.  Despite North American sales impacts, the Diversity Equity and Inclusion outlook of the Anheuser-Busch global company is still strongly entrenched in the branding.  It does not appear the company is going to modify anything as the very vocal Alphabet ideologues have them captive.

(Washington Examiner) – Bud Light sales are down for a fifth straight week as the financial beating endured by the Anheuser-Busch brand following its partnership with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney appears to have no end in sight.

Sales of Bud Light fell 23.6% for the week ending on May 6 compared to numbers recorded in 2022, according to a report citing data acquired by Bump Williams Consulting and NielsenIQ. (read more)

Previously – Across the United States, wholesalers are on the hook for inventories of Bud Light and Budweiser products that no one is buying.  These products have an expiration date, thanks in part to the A/B freshness campaign long ago created.  The wholesalers have to swap out the close-dated products that are not being sold in retailers and restaurants.  The wholesalers are then stuck with out-of-date product and turn back to the corporate office for help.

From reporting in the Wall Street Journal, Anheuser-Busch (A/B) is telling the wholesalers to give the product free to their employees rather than dump it.  By law, they cannot give it away to consumers, and they cannot cross promote the beer by “bundling” alcohol with another CPG product (ie, buy chips, get free beer).

The story is being promoted as A/B being magnanimous in giving the beer to the employees; however, in reality as the product hits its expiration or sell-by date, A/B only has that option, other than to dump it in the garbage and recycle the containers.

May 19 2023

April Home Prices Reflect Largest Year-Over-Year Drop in Decade, April Prices Drop 1.7%, Decline 23.2% from Prior Year


Posted originally on the CTH on May 18, 2023 | Sundance 

Homeowner equity is being erased. As higher interest rates continue to put pressure on borrowers, the ability of the average person to afford a mortgage diminishes.  Higher mortgage rates lead to downward pressure on residential home values as fewer borrowers can afford higher payments.  Simultaneously, commercial real estate is dropping in value as vacancies continue increasing.

Put both of these issues together and already tenuous banks holding mortgage bonds as assets can become more unstable.

This dynamic creates the continual tremors in the background of an economy already suffering from high inflation and low consumer purchasing of durable goods.

A perfect storm starts to realize.

(Wall Street Journal) – Sales of previously owned homes fell in April from the prior month and prices declined from a year earlier by the most in more than 11 years.

U.S. existing home sales, which make up most of the housing market, fell 3.4% in April from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.28 million, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. April sales fell 23.2% from a year earlier.

The national median existing-home price fell 1.7% in April from a year earlier to $388,800, the biggest year-over-year price decline since January 2012, NAR said. Median prices, which aren’t seasonally adjusted, were down 6% from a record $413,800 in June. Home prices have fallen the most in the western half of the U.S., while prices continue to rise from a year earlier in many eastern markets. (read more) 

Before looking at today’s graph showing median existing home values, remember me saying this in 2021?:

“I said in June, at a macro level home prices had reached their peak (last two weeks of May, first two weeks of June was apex).  Obviously, there are some geographic home value increases still happening as COVID related regional issues and work opportunities are shifting populations.  There is also a lag and ripple effect that takes time to work through the economy.  The macro-apex will not be visible until next year.”

When I said that in 2021, people said I was wrong.   Well, with hindsight now visible within the data as it is reflected, look at the result:

May and June 2021 was the peak of year-over-year percent of change in median home value increases.

So, what was going on?

As CTH outlined in 2022:  If you look closely at the timing (keep in mind the data reporting lag) what you will notice is that financial institutions began a big surge in purchasing hard assets, specifically real estate, as soon as Joe Biden took office (Jan ’21), and the economic policy became evident.   Intangible financial instruments became an immediate risk as the professional financial control groups recognized energy policy would drive inflation (supply side) and devalued money would fuel it (demand side).

As an offset to predictable inflationary policy (the insiders’ game), institutional money (Blackrock, Vanguard, etc) was moved into hard assets with tangible value.

This shift in asset allocation, institutional sales, helped fuel a false surge in home prices and their valuations.  CTH was writing about this in 2021, and sounding alarms as it took place.  25% of all real estate purchases were being made by institutional investors.

We The People got screwed. 

The dynamic was predictable.  The Biden administration economic policy, energy policy and monetary policy, was going to cause massive inflation.  CTH was shouting about it in early 2021 and warning everyone to prepare for waves of price increases that would naturally surface first on high-turn consumable goods, and then embed into longer-term durable goods.

Despite claims to the contrary, this 2021 inflationary explosion had nothing to do with the pandemic or supply chain shortages.  It was entirely self-created by western governmental policy – the collective ‘Build Back Better’ agenda.  You can see now from the background moves within the financial sectors, they too knew the reality and their money shifts reflected that despite their ‘transitory’ pretending they were mitigating their own exposure.

We the People were yet again going to be victims of specifically intended monetary, regulatory, energy and economic policy.

The investment class rulers of the WEF assembly shifted assets to avoid the pain that we would feel.   We “would own nothing and be happy,” and their shifts would position them to own everything and be in control.

Overall govt spending and regulatory controls drove inflation for these past two years.  The ‘demand side’ was blamed, despite the lack of demand. I will be proven right when history is concluded with this.  Interest rates were raised by central banks in an effort to support the policies that are driving ‘supply side’ inflation – not demand side.

Energy policy was/is crushing the consumer by driving up the cost of all goods and services.  To support the overall goal of changing global energy resource and development (a false and controlled global operation), central banks raised interest rates.  Various western economies, including our own, have been pushed deeper into a state of contraction by central banks crushing consumer demand, and eliminating investment via increased borrowing costs.

In short, the goal was/is to lower energy consumption by shrinking the economic activity.  This, according to the BBB plan, was needed at the same time as energy development was reduced.  These economic outcomes are not organic, they are all being controlled by collective western government agreement.

Within this control dynamic, there was always going to be a point where the reaction of the people to their economic reality means the financial control elements need to shift direction.  They will always maximize profit and minimized risk, while knowing what the larger objective remains.

Just like every other durable good, housing demand contracts as prices and costs become unaffordable.  The loss of equity within your home is damaging to your own value or ability to borrow against it.

From the perspective of an institutional asset, that same equity drop is an investment loss.  However, the investment loss is not materialized until the sale of the lower valued asset is completed.  Retaining declining real estate on investment books creates an artificially high appearance of the investment result; unless and until the real estate is sold at a diminished value.

As mortgage rates rise, just as a consumer would pull back from the housing market, so too will institutional investment groups now control the slow dumping of the asset to remove the equity they pumped into it.  Much of the investment housing will be retained as rental housing, with the monthly rents being part of the returns on the investments.    However, as this dynamic unfolds, further investment purchases of houses stop, because the asset overall is declining in value.  This halt of investment activity also worsens a steeper drop in home values.

May 18 2023

CDC Quietly Recalls all Johnson & Johnson COVID Vaccines in US


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease Re-Posted May 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

This should have made headlines across the world. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quietly told the US government to destroy all available Janssen/Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccines. “Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine is no longer available in the U.S. All remaining U.S. government stock of Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine expired May 7, 2023. Dispose of any remaining Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine in accordance with local, state, and federal regulations. Dispose of any remaining Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine in accordance with local, state, and federal regulations,” the site states. Over 19 million Americans received the Johnson & Johnson “safe and effective” vaccine. The 12.5 million doses in storage are to be immediately destroyed. The health agency did not state why they were pulling the vaccine.

On February 27, 2021, Johnson & Johnson boasted that the FDA approved the first single-shot vaccine. However, the company admitted that 41% of those who participated in the vaccination study had comorbidities. The corrupt FDA still allowed it to be prescribed, knowing that almost half of the study participants had negative side effects. At the time of this writing, the Johnson & Johnson website makes no mention of the vaccine recall. They are focused on their positive Q1 earnings report, however.

The millions of people throughout the world who took this vaccine, by choice or by force, deserve to know the reason it has been recalled. In the US, the government offered the pharmaceutical companies full immunity so there will be no class-action lawsuit.

One can assume, based on the CDC’s own guidance, that the single-dose vaccine increased side effects. The CDC states that test subjects must wait 8 weeks between the first and second mRNA jabs “as it might reduce the small risk of myocarditis and pericarditis associated with these COVID-19 vaccines.” The site continues, “While absolute risk remains small, an elevated risk for myocarditis and pericarditis has been observed among mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients, particularly in males ages 12–39 years. Cases of myocarditis and pericarditis were identified in clinical trials of Novavax COVID-19 Vaccine and through passive surveillance during post-authorization use outside the United States.” They also discuss the “small risk” of these deadly side effects in children aged 12 to 17.

The people should demand immediate answers. Answers would be required immediately if they were producing anything but the COVID-19 vaccination. Why did the FDA approve a vaccine that they knew to be dangerous? Will they recall other vaccines with increasing death tolls? We deserve clear answers.

May 18 2023

Durham Report Explained – Everything was a Lie


Armstrong Economics Blog/Corruption Re-Posted May 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

https://youtube.com/watch?v=M6evjq_73PI%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Special counsel John Durham revealed in his report that all American intelligence agencies knew the Trump-Russian collusion story was a lie. You can read the full 300-page report here. Hillary Clinton needed a way to take the heat off of her email scandal and was the mastermind behind this plot. The CIA and FBI knew without a shadow of a doubt that the Steele Dossier was a lie designed by Clinton to take down Trump. The FBI then leaked deliberate misinformation to the press to condemn Trump on behalf of Hillary and the Democrats.

Christopher Steele was bribed $1 million to write his fictional Steele Dossier. Igor Danchenko was known to be Russian intelligence. Intelligence agencies paid Danchecnko a quarter of a million USD to reveal classified information to back Steele’s claims. He could not provide any evidence since it did not exist, but he was paid anyway. Former intelligence chair Shiff said he saw first-hand evidence of Russian collusion — a complete lie.

Will anyone be held accountable for these extreme crimes? All Americans should be completely outraged that we were lied to by our intelligence agencies and media outlets in an attempt to alter our election. This is a direct attack on our freedom and electoral process. Hillary knows she is above the law and can commit crimes in the open without penalty or even criticism. Obama, Biden, the FBI, the CIA, and numerous politicians knew that everything regarding “Russian collusion” was a complete lie. Trump was correct — this has been one of the biggest witch hunts in American history.

May 18 2023

Durham Finds the Importance of Nellie Ohr


Posted originally on the CTH on May 17, 2023 | Sundance 

Paul Sperry at RealClearPolitics has an article today citing one part of the Durham report that deserves a little CTH attention.

I hope you will forgive my indulgent snickers, as the graphic you see below was created by me in early 2018, a full five years before the release of this Durham report.  I even referred to the Steele Dossier as the Nellie Ohr Dossier. lol

As noted by Sperry, “According to the 306-page report, former Justice Department prosecutor Bruce Ohr’s wife Nellie Ohr first plowed the ground for the dossier with a series of research reports she wrote for Fusion GPS, the D.C.-based opposition research firm the Clinton campaign commissioned to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia.”

[…] Durham suggests Nellie Ohr planted the seeds of sourcing for the most explosive allegations leveled by the dossier against Trump, including the oft-cited notion that he and his campaign were engaged in a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” with the Kremlin. The dossier attributed this, falsely, to Millian. Durham found that the Belarusian-American realtor was never a source for the dossier and was simply invented as one, along with the allegations attributed to him.

In fact, Durham says that Millian initially wasn’t even on the radar of Steele and his dossier “collector” Igor Danchenko, a former Brookings Institution analyst who’s admitted much of the information he provided Steele was alcohol-lubricated gossip. Millian was called to their attention by Nellie Ohr, who the prosecutor said “implicated” Millian through her own reports. Durham suggests Steele and Danchenko merely followed her leads. 

[…] Bruce Ohr, an anti-Trump Democrat, pushed his wife’s reports that cited Millian — 12 in all — onto the Crossfire Hurricane team at FBI headquarters that was investigating Trump and his campaign for possible espionage. Agents used her reports as a source of corroboration for the Steele reports they received in the summer and fall of 2016, even though it was circular reporting. 
 
“The reports prepared by Ohr and others at Fusion GPS were ultimately provided to Crossfire Hurricane investigators by Ohr’s husband, Bruce Ohr,” according to the Durham Report. 
 
Durham notes that Danchenko was tracking leads on Millian from Nellie Ohr within “approximately one week” of Fusion GPS retaining Steele to compile the dossier. He concludes that this “strongly supports the inference that Fusion GPS directed Steele to pursue Millian.” 
 
In other words, Steele was not the catalyst behind the dossier’s central claims. Rather, it was Clinton’s contractor Fusion GPS — but more specifically, the wife of a senior DOJ official who worked for Fusion. So the FBI wasn’t really investigating “Crown reporting,” as officials referred to Steele’s dossier, implying it was British intelligence. More accurately, it was investigating information from inside its own department that was laundered through Steele and his dossier. (read more)

Smart fella that John Durham.

Nellie Ohr – a former CIA open-source expert on all things Russia; a woman who used HAM radios for communication; a woman who approached Fusion GPS owner Glenn Simpson for a job in December 2015; she was the impetus for the information that ended up in the Chris Steele Dossier.

Gee, go figure.

Darned Suspicious Cats, always being, well, suspicious…

I wonder if Durham tracked down the Michael Cohen art dealer in New York (😂), the guy that went to Prague on business.

Live your best life and laugh more than a little.

May 17 2023

Durham Found Zero Merit to Trump Russia Claims, So What Was Mueller Doing for Two Years?


Posted originally on the CTH on May 16, 2023 | Sundance 

People ask why I find it difficult to write about the Durham report empirically confirming everything we previously outlined in the past five years.  Here’s my answer.

Eventually, after the shock & awe of the Durham confirmations wear off, I am hopeful that people will stand back and realize the bigger question that covers all of the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy nonsense.   This was a United States government operation to conduct full-throated surveillance on a U.S. presidential candidate, and then remove that candidate from the office of the presidency after his victory in the 2016 election.

With John Durham outlining in granular details how the FBI, DOJ and larger intelligence apparatus acted politically to weaponize government on behalf of an allied presidential candidate in Hillary Clinton, a bigger question remains.  There never was any merit to the Trump-Russia nonsense, so what exactly were Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann doing for two years?

Using the silo defense as a method of obfuscation, John Durham noted in his report [page #2] as below, never delved into that obvious question.  Durham specifically, and with great intent, says he did not look at what Mueller and Weissmann were doing; even though, Durham destroyed any predication that might have given merit to the intention of their special counsel existence.

Durham writes a 316-page report, meticulously detailing the false construct of the Trump-Russia narrative.  Yet for some reason, the Mueller/Weissmann investigation, an entire special counsel investigation that was predicated and justified by that false Trump-Russia narrative, never found the same evidence?

Durham never looked at it.  Why? Because he knew Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann were installed to cover up the original fabrications by the CIA, FBI, DOJ and U.S. intelligence apparatus.  Mueller’s probe existed in material fact to hide the Obama weaponization to target Donald Trump.   Durham knew this; that’s why he never touched it.

Stop pretending.  Once you stop pretending, you realize just how rotten this system is.

John Durham intentionally and with specific foresight, did not want to reveal the criminal conduct of the Mueller/Weissmann special counsel.

He knew exactly what they were doing; his investigation paralleled what their investigation would have done if Mueller was not established to hide the originating schemes.

Everything Durham found, Mueller could have easily found, and stated, and ended the nonsense.

This reality, and Durham’s intentional decision to avoid confronting the Mueller fraud, is why no one should defend any part of what John Durham was doing, nor the report he delivers in conclusion.   Durham is just as dirty as Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann.  If he wasn’t, he would have outlined the purpose of Mueller and left them naked to the consequences.   But that’s not what a good little silo maintainer does.

Instead, John Durham simply acts as if Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann didn’t exist to try and destroy President Trump.  Durham ignores the cleanup operation entirely.

Everyone in Washington DC knew that Trump-Russia was a manufactured lie created by Hillary Clinton, promoted and supported by President Obama and fully weaponized by the Obama era justice department.  Nobody in Washington DC did not know this. Everyone knew.

Everyone in Washington DC also knew that Robert Mueller was installed to cover up the 2016 targeting operation.  Nobody in Washington DC did not know this.  Everyone knew, including John Durham.

We really need to stop pretending and start asking the obvious questions.  If Durham can destroy the predicate of the Trump-Russia nonsense, then what the hell were Robert Mueller and Andrew Weissmann doing for two years?

We know the answer.

The investigators know the answer.

Washington DC knows the answer.

Republicans know the answer.

They all know that we know the answer, and yet that BIGGER question just sits there….

…because everyone keeps pretending!

A reminder from the MUELLER REPORT: 

.

You might remember, Robert Mueller was in front of congress in July 2019, answering questions about Chris Steele, the dossier and the Steele sources therein.  Mueller was able to deflect and dodge answering questions about it because AG Bill Barr put John Durham into place in May 2019.

When Robert Mueller is saying there’s another group in the DOJ looking specifically at the Chris Steele, Dossier, Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson aspect to the fraudulent 2016/2017 claims about Trump-Russia collusion in the 2016 election, he is talking about the John Durham investigation.

Mueller was citing Durham as the reason why his purview, and subsequent report as released, did not include the Steele dossier, Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson information.

Mueller was saying that stuff is the responsibility of “the other internal investigative unit,” ie. John Durham.

When you stand back and remind yourself of the Bill Barr statements and affirmations about the ‘integrity’ and ‘honor’ of Robert Mueller, one can only accept that AG Bill Barr put John Durham into place in May 2019, immediately following Robert Mueller’s completed investigation, April 2019, so that Mueller would have a shield for why the origin of the Trump-Russia is outside his purview.

This is how they use silos as weapons and shields.  Not in my purview is the same as not in my silo.

Mueller was citing Durham as the reason his team did not expand their probe to fully investigate Chris Steele et al.  Mueller’s special counsel has an escape hatch for why they did nothing with their own investigative findings…. That was John Durham’s job.  This is the outrage trap.

AG Bill Barr established John Durham’s probe (silo) so that Robert Mueller’s probe (silo) would have cover.

If John Durham’s investigative inquiry did not exist prior to that July 2019 testimony by Robert Mueller, then Mueller would have lied to congress.

AG Bill Barr put Durham into place, essentially constructed another silo, to protect his ‘good friend’ Robert Mueller….

….The DC two-step was achieved.