Biden 2024 – “Let’s Finish the Job” of Ruining America


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Apr 26, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The worst president in American history is running for re-election under the premise of taking away our remaining freedoms. The media is already stating that the Democrats will not allow any serious challengers. Marianne Williamson, who lost to Biden in 2020, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. both announced that they plan to run, but their own party will likely not back them or allow them to debate Biden. The Washington Post already announced Biden is “not expected to face any serious opposition from elected Democrats for the nomination, despite concerns from some in the party about his age and dissatisfaction among some liberals who say he has not pushed their priorities hard enough.”

Biden is not permitted to speak without a handler and carefully written notes. Journalists toss him easy questions and he still fumbles. Most importantly, the people do not want him to lead. Our way of life has drastically changed for the worse since he first stepped foot in the White House. NBC conducted a poll that found 70% of Americans do not want Biden to run for re-electionThe Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only 26% of Americans want Biden to remain in power.

Biden has a degenerative cognitive impairment that will only worsen. Already the oldest president in American history, Biden will be 86-years-old if he lives to the end of a second term. Biden was touted as the most popular president in US election history after receiving 81 million votes – let that number sink in as not many people today will openly say they voted for this man. At the time of this writing, Joe Biden’s YouTube channel has 700K subscribers and only 2.4K liked his re-election campaign announcement (they hid the dislike numbers after the Fauci debacle).

This will be one of the dirtiest elections in US history. Civil unrest will turn into division as the people are pitted against each other from every angle. No one will accept defeat, and the elites are fully backing Biden as their ideal puppet president. Gone are the days of fair elections. I must admit that no sitting president was ever ousted from office during a war, and our models indicate serious events unfolding right before the 2024 US Presidential Election. So buckle up because this next year is going to be a wild ride.

Hunter Biden for 2024


Armstrong Economics Blog/Humor Re-Posted Apr 25, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Joe is too old and he just reads the cue cards anyway for those who are really the president like Dick Cheney was behind Bush and Hillary behind Bill. Let’s not have any more surrogate presidents. Hunter Biden has shown amazing qualifications.

He was a top executive in a Ukrainian Energy Company so he has vast experience in the energy field. He is a Chinese major financier with personal relations that will come in handy all the way to the top of the Chinese Communist Party. And in Africa, he was a major land developer. He understands that income taxes are immoral and will probably end the IRS.

He is obviously a Renaissance Man capable of handling the entire world all while he was on cocaine and simultaneously banging hookers who would probably save the country and prevent him from pushing any buttons out of frustration.

So let’s Get on Board – Hunter for 2024

The First Family Role Model of the Century

Dual Justice – IRS and FBI Finished Hunter Biden Investigation More Than a Year Ago…


April 22, 2023 | Sundance 

The context for the IRS whistleblower case of political interference in the Hunter Biden investigation gains a significant amount of context with this new revelation. According to NBC reporting the FBI investigation of Hunter Biden concluded a year ago, and the IRS investigation “completed more than a year ago.”

If the IRS and FBI completed their investigation, then where are the charges?   Now the ‘whistleblower claims’ start to make sense.

(Via NBC) – Federal prosecutors have considered charging Hunter Biden with three tax crimes and a charge related to a gun purchase, said two sources familiar with the matter.

The possible charges are two misdemeanor counts for failure to file taxes, a single felony count of tax evasion related to a business expense for one year of taxes, and the gun charge, also a potential felony.

Two senior law enforcement sources told NBC News about “growing frustration” inside the FBI because investigators finished the bulk of their work on the case about a year ago. A senior law enforcement source said the IRS finished its investigation more than a year ago.

The Washington Post previously reported that federal investigators believed they had gathered enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and a false statement related to a gun purchase.

The decision on which charges to file, if any, will be made by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, who was appointed by President Donald Trump and retained by the Biden administration to continue the Hunter Biden investigation. There are no indications a final decision has been made, said the two sources familiar with the matter.

The IRS Criminal Investigation division, the Justice Department, the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware and attorneys for Hunter Biden declined to comment. (more)

According to the prior developments in the IRS whistleblower reporting, the “senior U.S. justice department official” who is interfering and lying under oath to congress is U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland.

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Merrick Garland is the unnamed official whose sworn testimony before Congress is being challenged in a bombshell letter from an IRS whistleblower’s attorney that also alleges a coverup in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation, The Post has learned. (more)

The issue stems from Garland testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Delaware US Attorney David Weiss would be able to investigate the Hunter Biden issues without interference from the DOJ, and that Weiss would be able to prosecute any crimes that may have occurred outside his Delaware jurisdiction.  As the story is evolving, Main Justice is not following the process as outlined by Garland, and the DOJ is actively involved in approvals or non-approvals of the investigative process.

The whistleblower’s attorney, Mark Lytle, appeared on Fox News with Brett Baier to outline the issues at stake in the matter and why congressional approval is needed before the IRS whistleblower can give specific evidence and testimony to the committees with jurisdiction.  WATCH:

Knowing what we know about how Main Justice is being operated in the era of Joe Biden, I would not be surprised to discover that Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco is actually the main character in this DOJ manipulation.  AG Garland may be the front man giving what amounts to false testimony, but it is likely Lisa Monaco pulling the strings behind Garland that are making his congressional statements false.

A Decade After the Media Shifted Their Objective and Began Framing the Transparently Innocent


Posted originally on the CTH on April 22, 2023

CTH Admin Stella reminded me of an article written in May of 2013 when CTH was urgently, desperately, trying to awaken people to follow events to their logical conclusion as they were unfolding.  Events we chose to challenge.

At the time in 2013 George Zimmerman was under attack; then came Ferguson (Darren Wilson -vs- Mike Brown); then Baltimore Maryland (Freddie Gray -vs- Baltimore Six); but the natural alignment… the purpose of the events… was a leftist probe into weaponized narrative engineering in order to advance completely false and fabricated stories.

U.S. corporate media were testing how far they could control the outlook of Americans.

The shift in attack direction from media at the time was alarming.

No longer was U.S. corporate media content trying to excuse the transparently guilty from accountability; starting in 2012 the new-era corporate MSM attack angle was to falsely accuse the transparently innocent.

Read that again, because it was a profound difference, an inflection point.

Leftists in politics and media were probing their ability to engineer entirely false positions of guilt and establish fraudulent assertions of fact to support the framing of the transparently innocent.

This was new because media were now targeting the innocent.  In many ways what happened in 2016 and 2017, the dynamic of the Trump-Russia fabrication, was an outcome of these tests they ran in 2012 and 2013.

In 2013 CTH was trying to warn; to tell the story of where this was going to end up.  The clarion call has a similar resonance today, albeit with an increased urgency.

2013 – A Paradigm Shift is needed, urgently. It cannot be provided to you; you must develop it within your own mind – and you’d better do it quick; or you will lose.  (* Disclaimer – This post is a collaboration of thoughts from both Sharon and Sundance. Sharon has the keen insightful bits, and Sundance reflects the indignation – any curse words are Sundance’s – because Miss Sharon don’t cuss, ever.)

If you are a regular reader of this site you are generally a person who engages in intellectual discussion on daily events and more than likely a root cause thinker. This means you are able to grasp events at their cause and not at their consequence.

However, for some reason, even those who understand big picture dynamics are still comfortable sticking their heads in the sand about “motive”. Most people are still clinging to actual beliefs around a principle of ‘rule of law’ that applies to National Leadership.

You’d better change that thinking quickly – or you’ll be asking ‘what happened’ far too late.

There seems to be a willful blindness on the part of the American people, a chosen refusal to acknowledge the implications of the unAmerican and unConstititional behaviors, actions and outcomes we are being served on a daily basis.

It can no longer be presumed to be a matter of “I can’t see what’s happening” because a whole lot of normal Americans really are clean and articulate.

I can’t see it” just doesn’t cut it.

Bullsh!t! You can see it, you are just choosing to reconcile the irreconcilable because it is more comforting to ignore the truth of it. You are scared:

    • You are scared of being labeled
    • You are scared of being belittled
    • You are scared of being Alinsky’d.
    • You are scared of being targeted.
    • You are scared because you have never been here before.
    • You are scared of being right.

Just be honest. Avoidance has become your survival mechanism.

It’s more along the lines of “I see what’s happening, but it’s scary and complicated and confusing, and if I admit that I see it, I will become responsible in a way that I am not if I keep pretending I can’t see it or hear it or maybe I don’t understand it.”

Our Republic has become Kitty Genovese screaming in the darkness, being assaulted repeatedly and viciously, while onlookers sitting in the darkness startle onto their feet–some trying to reach for phones or light switches while others try to hush them, accusing them of exaggerated reactions.

The screams reach some homes where the residents look nervously and silently at one another, really hoping that someone else will call the cops, because obviously something really bad is happening out there.

Now, like then, you, like those people in New York, look around and say well someone is going to do something about this usurpation of power and unconstitutional action. So you pull the comfy blankies of historical public leadership reference over your head, cover your ears, block out the sights and the sounds, and do nothing.

You don’t even accept the fact a woman, Lady Liberty, our republic, is being repeatedly stabbed, carved up and her flesh torn from her body. She is bleeding on your grass and her bloody hand prints are on your trees and sidewalks. You know it, yet you lie there.

Doing what? Really? If not you,….. WHO? Who is “them”?

Remember the visual illusions on big cards, (Rorschach tests) just black and white splotches that required you to “stare just right”– and when you did, you could see the ink-drawn cow in a snow drift? That’s the one we grew up with–yours might have had palm trees in it or something else. But you stared hard, knowing that eventually you would see a clear picture —ah! There it is! For just a minute, but you saw it there–for just a minute.

How many are sitting in the midst of this implosion still believing that if they stare hard enough at the national mess they will still see a Constitutional government and a Representative Republic?

Well, stare as long as you want. The details of a Constitutional Representative Republic will no longer come into focus because it turns out that the Republic was apparently stitched together with dissolvable thread like the surgeons use.

Why don’t we dare say what is so? Are we a bit afraid that if we give up the willful blindness we will perhaps start screaming and not be able to stop? Do we think we have so little courage? Do we really believe that we have no resources to bring to the battle? Or nothing more to contribute to the turning of the battle?

There are patriots who some might say resemble one of those slightly mad orchestra conductors who keep yelling, “More trumpet! More TRUMPET!” Many of you are such slightly mad orchestra leaders. Don’t be alarmed by some of the strange looks you are getting these days.

What is the source of this passive willingness that accepts illegal activity behind phrases like “they wouldn’t do that….” when they obviously are doing it?

In 1974, Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She lay in a California closet in her wet and smell for days that turned into weeks. Finally, it made sense in what was left of her 19 year old mind to pick up an M-1 carbine and carry it into a bank to assist the SLA with an armed robbery. Passive willingness, no matter how troubled underneath, is a choice: there’s something that’s being purchased by the passivity –and something that’s being traded away for it. Transactions are happening.

Why do normal Americans get swept into accepting these somewhat silent transactions that result in their cooperation with those who care nothing for our Constitutional Republic? (Be sure of this–they really don’t mind if we disagree, if we vent, if we vote, even if we organize…as long as they get to keep doing what they are doing. They really don’t mind us. At all. Isn’t that obvious by now?)

But back to the question–why do the silent transactions happen? Perhaps because the alternative to passive willingness is active refusal–and there it is: the price tag for active refusal may actually be quite high–and will often be perceived of as just being too high–and besides that, is an unknown.

There’s a deep deception involved with survival instinct that prevents a true comparison from being made between what’s being gained and what’s being lost as judgments are made (often by default) in the midst of confusing and threatening events. Patty Hearst’s M-1 probably bought her a momentary sense of safety in her personal world gone crazy.

Those whose hold on power depends on deception are always able to find an audience of those willing to be deceived. Now, the audience of those willing to be deceived is a flexible group in terms of numbers and identities. Even those who have been in that audience for some time may one day walk away from it.  However, what is it that makes folks stay in that audience? What price are they afraid of paying? What deception are they unwilling to let go of?

While we use the word passive to describe this “willingness to continue in deception,” this is not an experience shaded in peaceful lavenders, mint greens and dappled sunlight. This is the deadly passivity of muscles that no longer fire; tiny electrical charges that no longer leap from one synapse to the next.

This is as passivity says: “I won’t begin resisting, because I know that once begun, I must continue. Rather than assert myself and perhaps fail (or get really scared), I will sustain myself where I am trapped. I will muffle my moans so as not to risk exposure and I will call it self-control. Winston Churchill would have called it cowardice but I will call it pragmatic caution.”

It’s desperately necessary for our survival that we become disillusioned–and quickly.

…It’s desperately necessary for our survival that we become disillusioned–and quickly!

Support CTH Here ]

Our ally right now is anyone who stands beside us.  Our enemy is anyone who doesn’t.

The new sons and daughters of the revolution are going to look completely different. The Green Dragon Tavern may be a church, a park, a picnic table or a tailgate. The assembly is not focused on the labels of the assembled.  This mission is the purpose. The fight is wherever it surfaces.

Neocon’s Endorsement for 2024


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Apr 11, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The Neocon Endorsement for 2024 – Invade the Entire World

Why should Canada and Mexico escape?

If they could do it in 2020 – they can do it again in 2024.

CNN is Dying – Thank God!


Armstrong Economics Blog/Press Re-Posted Mar 24, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Marty, You have a bigger readership than CNN. They dropped to 80,000 primetime. I think you are well beyond 600,000 these days. Maybe put in an offer to buy CNN for $1.49 and hire all new staff and Socrates should get his own show.

WL

REPLY: That is just amazing. I think the price is too high. It should be negative. You fire all the leftist pretend journalists and they will be in court the next day. So there would be a huge amount of liquidation costs. They would have to pay me to take over CNN and even then I think the lights should just be turned out and start fresh with something new. This is just another example of WOKENESS and how it is destroying everything it touches. Quantification, competence, and experience are no longer required for jobs in any company that is WOKE. They are all at the end of the day destined for bankruptcy. In the media, the truth has been sacrificed for fake news to manipulate people’s opinions and steer the country to its doom.

In Germany, being pro-COVID and pro-war, the press is being viewed as part of the whole agenda against the people. There are people now attacking the journalists for hiding the deaths from the vaccines. Many see the press as just evil. Some are still caught up in the vaccines and refuse to admit that there are even side effects. They have lost all sense of honor and independence. It is no longer bout truth, it is just pushing an agenda.

The German mainstream media will also cheer on sending German boys to their death in Ukraine all because that is their directive. They seem to care nothing for society whatsoever and cannot see past the end of their nose. I do not understand how they can look at themselves in the mirror every morning.

If you have any children, tell them to stay away from joining any mainstream media. It will ruin their lives forever for when the dust settles, the people will remember who they were that sent the world to its destruction.

Mexican President AMLO Hits Biden Over Likely Arrest of Trump, While Pushing Back Against Dangerous Cartel Narrative


Posted originally on the CTH on March 22, 2023 | Sundance

Let it not be said that Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez-Obrador (AMLO) does not understand what the Biden administration is attempting in the recent criticism and passive aggressive posturing toward Mexico.

Yesterday, AMLO was outlining a specific set of infrastructure initiatives that are ongoing.  Three new oil refineries together with new railroads and highways are under construction as the government continues positioning itself for energy independence. [Video Here]  However, it’s what he said after the energy remarks that’s really stunning.

The energy plan, which runs counter to the expressed demands of Canada and the United States, includes two regional ‘green’ refineries that will have the ability of turning used cooking oil into fuel.  However, the plan also includes new oil refinery capacity that will permit cheap gasoline independent of the need for Mexican oil to be refined in Texas and returned.

All of the refinery projects are on schedule to be completed by the end of this year and into 2024.  In essence, Mexico will have very cheap gasoline and diesel fuel in the near future.  This was previously outlined as a goal by AMLO in July 2022, and is against the interests the Biden administration.  Now those plans are becoming a reality.  Mexico is not joining the North American suicide mission of windmills, solar panels and reliance on unstable green energy.

Ever since the July 2022 Oval Office press conference at the White House, CTH has been saying to keep an eye on Mexico, because these energy plans align more with the BRICS nation agenda than the goals and objectives of the World Economic Forum (western nations).   It is not accidental the U.S. government, including our intelligence agencies and DHS, has been seeding a negative overall impression of Mexico ever since.

During his remarks, and showcasing that AMLO does actually understand how the Biden administration will/is using alternate angles to undermine the Mexican government, AMLO publicly hit back at Joe Biden over the pending arrest of President Trump.  As noted by U.S-Mexican correspondent José Díaz Breseño, “Angry at US criticism of human rights in Mexico, AMLO comes out in defense of Trump, assuring that his arrest would be a move to prevent him from running for President in 2024.”

President Lopez-Obrador also pushed back against the U.S. narrative about dangers in Mexico related to the cartels. “AMLO goes further to say that the Biden Administration has no right to speak about violence in Mexico since it allegedly authorized “sabotaging” the Nord Stream gas pipeline as journalist Seymour Hersh argues.” Breseño notes.

Have you noticed that not a single U.S. media outlet is reporting on this issue?  I have been looking, waiting to see if anyone would pick up on this very important story; yet, it is almost invisible in the United States.  This silence is not a mistake.  The UniParty media do not want these notations taking place.  Indeed, if we stand back and look at the larger geopolitical picture, we can again see that AMLO is a thorn in the side of the larger objectives of the western alliance.

We will keep watching…

We Are in the COMPLEXITY & The Collapse of International Law


Armstrong Economics Blog/Banking Crisis Re-Posted Mar 18, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

We are in the middle of a convergence of so many crises it is hard to keep track. The SWAMP in Washington has always been out of control. There is even a bill being introduced to make it illegal for congressmen and their spouses or family members to be trading on inside information. It is titled: The Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act. We go to prison for 20 years for what they do routinely. The Biden money payments from China will be the foundation of an impeachment proceeding. With all the Democrats did against Trump and are still at it, they have opened the door to what goes around comes around. Trump has announced the New York Democratic prosecutors are desperate to indict him in hopes of preventing him from running for President and that they will arrest him perhaps this coming week. Now the theory, since the taxes did not work, paying “hush” money to Stormy Daniels the porn star. When you have Biden taking money from China and Ukraine and everyone turns a blind eye, paying hush money to a porn star is far more important to the country?

The political nonsense that dominates a lot of boards of directors should be outlawed as fraud. The people on the board of SVB had ZERO experience in finance no less economic trends. All they do is pay mountains of cash to the Democrats and get put on boards for their political contacts. So many boards are stacked with political people, lawyers, or accountants, who have no experience in the financial markets or economic trends. If these people have ZERO experience in running a company, then they should be liable for their decisions.

We were called in by a major public company in Australia on a project to hedge their foreign exchange exposure. The quote we gave them was somewhere between $1 and $2 million back in the 1980s. They rejected it and said they would not pay more than the CEO was paid. They were clueless. I explained that we had dealing desks in Asia, the USA, and Europe and their book would have to be passed around the world 24 hours a day. They did not understand anything. They hired a 23-year-old kid to hedge their risk, he bought a Porsche and got into an accident, and while in the hospital they lost $80 million. Regulators then realized that directors should be held responsible for making decisions in things they had no experience.

We are headed into such COMPLEXITY it is off the charts. We have a convergence of so much going into April, it’s hard to say which fundamental will be the top dog. Between arresting Trump, and the revelations coming out about the Biden Crime Family, all of this contributes to the collapse in confidence in the government. Then Biden’s failure to understand the serious nature of this banking crisis and that it is the Biden Administration that is directly responsible for the crisis as it continues into April just added to the COMPLEXITY. Biden’s handling of SVB will now be seen as political since the phones were melting down from all the Democrats in California who stood to lose. Even Ophrah Winfrey had a ton of money in SVB. NBow the failure to stand behind all deposits everywhere will only make this look like a Democratic bailout.

Add to all of this, the ICC has shown that it too is politically corrupt and has been usurped by the Neocons. The ICC issued the bullshit criminal indictment of Putin orchestrated by the Neocons when in fact they have no such jurisdiction. The ICC has lost all credibility. ICC has jurisdiction ONLY over member states and that does not include the USA, China, or Russia. I reported that my sources on October 14th, 2022, were warning that the ICC was being politically manipulated not much different than the SWIFT monetary system. A team of lawyers in the UK filed a complaint with the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court on behalf of the people. The report alleges that government officials, and pharmaceutical executives, have conspired with COVID. They did nothing.

The ICC can ONLY prosecute member states. The United States refused to join the ICC so no American can ever be tried for a war crime. The same applies to Russia, yet the ICC is trying to politically indict Putin to create World War III. The ICC has lost all integrity no different than the New York Prosecutors going after Trump for anything they can possibly find. Next will be his parking tickets.

I had dinner with people from the ICC and they acknowledged that the United States used its legal system for political purposes. They were stunning in my case. They also said they would love to bring charges against the United States for they routinely violate international law and engage in torturing people – remember waterboarding and  Abu Ghraib.

In my case, I believe the banks told the CFTC to shut down our forecasting because they thought removing us would then allow them to manipulate markets. But they still blew up the world economy in 2007 and traders on the floor were calling it Armstrong’s Revenge. They never learn. They can bribe all the politicians, but that does not guarantee their trade. The CFTC refused to allow the forecasts to continue and insisted that all staff was to be fired worldwide. They rejected others offering to rent the Institute to keep it going. This was a FIRST AMENDMENT violation to shut down our forecasting to aid the corrupt banks.

The ICC told me at dinner that they would have loved to take my case, but since the US was not a member they could not bring charges against the US courts. That proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this indictment of Putin is political and they have sold their soul to the Neocons. This was announced in hopes of threatening China with respect to their meeting with Russia to try to stop them from joining forces. The Neocons have now full control of the ICC and that prevents any peace negotiations going forward.

Then last November, the United Nations also surrendered its independence to the Neocons ensuring that we have no choice but to enter World War III. This is the agenda. The United Nations General Assembly has now adopted a resolution calling for Russia to pay war reparations for its invasion of Ukraine. This is to include the billions of dollars in damage and destruction, as well as reparations for the loss of life. The US refuses to provide any independent investigation into blowing up Nord Stream which was an act of international war. Instead, they attack the messenger. The UN simply wants to wash its hands in the blood of millions if not billions negative what it was entirely supposed to have been created for – world peace.

The world is now officially in control of the Neocons. Never in all my years did I ever expect looking at their long-range forecasts calling for a war that we would be the evil aggressors. We need the model to do its job here for we cannot even figure out on an opinion basis which fundamental will come out on top. We really desperately need members of Congress to recognize the real threat is within.

House Oversight Receives Bank Records Showing Biden Family Paid by Chinese Energy Company


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

The House Oversight Committee released records today outlining how the Biden family was paid by a Chinese energy company [House Link Here].  The bank records indicate payments to Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden; Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden; Joe Biden’s daughter-in-law, Hallie Biden, and an unknown “Biden;” likely the principal, “big guy”, Joe Biden himself.

WASHINGTON—Today, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability issued a memorandum revealing new evidence resulting from the investigation into the Biden family’s influence peddling and business schemes. Subpoenaed financial records show that from 2015 to 2017, Biden family members – Hunter Biden, James Biden, Hallie Biden, and an unknown “Biden” – and their companies collectively received $1.3 million in payments from accounts related to Rob Walker, a Biden family associate.

Notably, on March 1, 2017, less than two months after Vice President Joe Biden left public office, State Energy HK Limited, a Chinese company, wired $3 million to Rob Walker’s company. The next day, the company wired $1,065,000 to a company associated with James Gilliar, another Biden family associate. Afterwards, the Biden family received approximately $1,065,000 in payments over a three-month period in different bank accounts. From the bank records, it appears that the Biden family received approximately one-third of the money obtained from the China wire.  (read more)

[Source pdf]

Tucker Carlson Contrasts DC’s Effort to Expand NATO War Against Russia with Position of American Voters


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

For his opening monologue Wednesday night Fox News host Tucker Carlson revisited the status of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the disconnect between Washington DC and American voters.  WATCH:

.