China’s Balloon is all Posturing


Armstrong Economics Blog/China Re-Posted Feb 4, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The Chinese Balloon is a surveillance balloon. It is meant more for intimidation. It is unlikely that it really poses a national security threat. There is also one flying over Latin America. Joe Biden’s response was immediately to shoot it down. He was warned that it is too big and would possibly create a debris field that would harm civilians for no reason. The Chinese did the same when Trump came to power. He knew it was just intimidation and gave no order to try to shoot it down.

It flew over Montana which is the #1 target to eliminate our major intercontinental missiles that would point to China. So from that perspective, it had targeted sensitive areas but everyone in the world knows where those missiles are at.

Biden has shot it down once it made it to the Atlantic. Any information would have been transmitted back already. So this too was a measure of Bravado for the PR value. As one client wrote in:

Message: Martin, I live in Myrtle Beach, SC. Today was a clear sky day, the balloon and 5 military jets flying around were clearly visible. Many neighbors were calling each other to inform them of what was happening outside, we and many neighbors were out in the street watching this. Then all of a sudden there was a boom and the balloon disappeared, so much for the balloon. It was interesting. End of story.

WES

This is just intimidation. It seems to have worked for Secretary of State Antony Blinken abruptly canceled a high-stakes Beijing trip aimed at supposedly easing U.S.-China tensions after the US has done everything it can to make matters worse. Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan was stupid. By the US making such a grand stand against China over Taiwan, they have absolutely now guaranteed that China will take Taiwan. Pelosi went just before the Chinese election which only guaranteed Xi’s reelection.

I do not know if there is something in the water in California that seems to make the politicians there lose all understanding of war and intimidation. Now the Republican McCarthy is showing that he too is just acting irrationally and poking China to ensure it MUST now take Taiwan. He announced a Taiwan trip simply because Pelosi did it, and it will do nothing but ensure a war that the USA would lose. Because China warned McCarthy, then he has to certainly go,

McCarthy has now come out and said that China cannot tell him where to go. So he now must go to Taiwan as a matter of gamesmanship, but that works both ways. Pelosi’s trip and now McCarthy’s trip are both doing the same to China. The US pretending it will defend Taiwan when we cannot is absurd and it then forces China to invade for the very same reason McCarthy is saying they cannot tell him where to go. McCarthy is part of the uni-party where Democrats and Republicans will act ONLY in the self-interest of the government.

China has come out and declared that its people should be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. The Air Force general told everyone to be prepared for war with China by 2025. Even just looking at the ECM from the start of Taiwan, this is the second wave of 51.6 years and the third wave peaked on January 13th, 2023 (2023.036). That was the week when China staged a massive drill against Taiwan which was three days after a US Navy destroyer transited the Taiwan Strait in a “freedom of navigation” operation which prompted the reaction from China.

All of this poking China only forces war. Just as McCarthy now views he must go since China told him not to, China will respond by invading or they will appear weak. This is like kids pretending to be tough in a schoolyard. The emotions are the same and it becomes a matter of pride.

DNC Approves Obama, Clyburn Plan for South Carolina to Lead 2024 Democrat Presidential Primary, Media Call It “The Biden Plan”


Posted originally on the CTH on February 5, 2023 | Sundance

In the last several weeks I have been saying to watch the state of South Carolina for how both Republican and Democrats wings of the UniParty, RNC and DNC respectively, plan to use South Carolina as the mechanism for the 2024 illusion of choice.  What I call the RNC and DNC roadmaps.

Essentially the RNC/DNC constructs are the roadmaps, from the club system – two private corporations, to control the 2024 primary election outcomes.

This is all about controlling the mechanisms of elections and creating the illusion of choice while the invisible hands of the club officers control the operations.

You might remember how South Carolina was the inflection point for Biden in the 2020 primary.  It was the SC primary when former President Obama (Black Lives Matter) and Congressman James Clyburn (AME Church network), aligned to select Joe Biden as the control mechanism to ensure Bernie Sanders was defeated.

Team Obama was operating with a sense of urgency because momentum was with Sanders and all other candidates including Biden were fractured.

Obama and Clyburn selected Biden due to his ability to be controlled.  Most of the Obama administration now operates inside the Biden administration controlling the outcomes.   Part of the ‘what’s in it for me’ aspect from Clyburn was the promise of increased influence and affluence.  Including the pre-approval, first right of refusal for the Biden VP pick (ultimately Kamala Harris).

For 2024 the movement of South Carolina is being pushed to the base voters of the DNC through the social justice narrative about needing a more diverse state for the first DNC primary contest.  No good Democrat political activists can counter that culturally approved party position.  Predominately white states are bad, more diverse states are good. Thus, under this “diversity” premise, there can be no opposition or dissent from the party base.  The justification is a political minefield.

However, that said, that justification is a ruse, a pretense intended to cloud and protect the Club roadmap.  In reality, team Obama are fulfilling the prior pledge to James Clyburn.

Obama got to choose the 2020 candidate based on his Obama’s needs to protect himself from scrutiny, and now Clyburn gets the 2024 power position to select the next nominee.

That’s the non-pretending reality that everyone will say is ‘conspiracy theory’, it isn’t.

The RNC club roadmap for Ron DeSantis is also looking to South Carolina, New Hampshire and Georgia as control mechanisms to stop President Trump from winning the nomination.   This has been part of a plan in the works for a long time (mid 2021).  The Nikki Haley and Tim Scott operations in South Carolina are part of the strategy; along with Chris Sununu in New Hampshire (despite backpedaling caused by CTH sunlight).   Brian Kemp is being leveraged in Georgia, and within the big picture push overall, the establishment is leveraging the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) as an institution to have a much bigger role in 2024.  Just keep watching.

PHILADELPHIA — Democrats on Saturday voted overwhelmingly to remake the party’s presidential nominating calendar, embracing President Biden’s push for South Carolina to be the first state to hold its contest in 2024 and replacing Iowa amid calls for greater racial, geographic and economic diversity in the process.

The move by members of the Democratic National Committee was long expected, but it does not guarantee the calendar will ultimately be enacted as designed. In December, Biden asked DNC leaders to move up South Carolina, which sealed his comeback victory in the 2020 Democratic primary, to the first slot. Under the new plan, New Hampshire and Nevada would hold their primaries a week later, followed by primaries in Georgia and Michigan.

The vote here Saturday morning came at the DNC winter meeting, where Biden and Vice President Harris spoke Friday to some of the party’s most active members from across the country. Biden, who has yet to officially announce his reelection plans but has said he intends to run for a second term, was greeted by cheers of “four more years” as he took the stage.

[…] Iowa, a state that has an overwhelmingly White population, drew criticism during the 2020 Democratic primary for its lack of diversity and the inaccessibility of its caucuses, which are held on a winter weekday night and pose participation barriers for those who may have work, are disabled or have other obligations. In 2020, the Iowa Democratic Party also struggled to tabulate the results, leading to more criticism of their caucus system.

With South Carolina, the state that resuscitated Biden’s presidential bid in 2020, Democrats are elevating the role Black voters, a crucial voting bloc for the party across the country, will play in selecting the party’s nominee. “This calendar does what is long overdue,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said before the vote. “It expands the number of voices in the early window, and it elevates diverse communities that are at the core of the Democratic Party. (read more)

If the private corporation known as the DNC can overcome the New Hampshire legislative challenges, that puts California Governor Gavin Newsom at a disadvantage because the DNC Club is deferring to James Clyburn.  Congressman Clyburn will select a racially qualified non-white candidate, likely female, to win the first set of state contests.  The corporate apparatus will circle the wagons in favor of that candidate (it will not be Biden).

If the DNC club cannot overcome the legal and legislative challenges (New Hampshire example), then Gavin Newsom is more likely to gain DNC boardroom support.  It depends on how well the corporation can Lawfare their interests into position.

On the private corporation side of the RNC, the billionaire class, multinationals, Wall Street and corporate establishment control officers have already pre-selected Ron DeSantis to play the role of Jeb! in 2024.

The RNC wants the money, and the billionaires, multinationals and Wall Street will be perfectly okay with the DNC selection because the RNC is not ideological.

From their perspective inside the RNC club, it doesn’t matter who wins; just as they were similarly positioned, unaffected and ambivalent in supporting Hillary ’16.

For both the RNC and DNC this is about the illusion of choice (for voters) and ultimately a controlled outcome (for DC).   Once people finally make this reality part of their analysis, things really start to get clear.

If you doubt this is the reality of the 2024 situation, collect the data, apply the scientific method and prove this is not a controlled outcome.  You won’t be able to do it, because there are already too many aligned receipts visible from the DeSantis management operation.  It is from those receipts that predictions, essentially tripwires, are able to be constructed.  The formality of the plan is how and why the South Carolina tripwire was predicted months ago.

The exact same conservative media from the ’16 Ted Cruz assembly will be supporting the DeSantis operation in 2024; most already are.  Additionally, with the help of the professional management and branding group, a massive psychological operation on behalf of RdS began over a year ago.  This is a UniParty script already written, with only one big disruption in the way….

That disruption has two elements.  The first is Donald J Trump; the second is YOU.

Video Footage of Military Shooting Down Chinese Surveillance Balloon


Posted originally on the CTH on February 5, 2023 | Sundance

Interesting video capture appears to show the moment the U.S. military hit the Chinese surveillance balloon with some type of detonation.

3:15 P.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT:  On Wednesday, when I was briefed on the balloon, I ordered the Pentagon to shoot it down, on Wednesday, as soon as possible.  They decided — without doing damage to anyone on — on the ground.  They decided that the best time to do that was as it got over water, outside — within our — within the 12-mile limit.

They successfully took it down.  And I want to compliment our aviators who did it.  And we’ll have more to report on this a little later. 

Thank you.

Q    Mr. President, what does this say about China?  What’s your message to China?

Q    You were saying the recommendation from your — was from your national security —

THE PRESIDENT:  I told them to shoot it down.

Q    On Wednesday?

THE PRESIDENT:  On Wednesday.

Q    But the recommendation from them —

THE PRESIDENT:  They said to me, “Let’s wait till the safest place to do it.”

3:16 P.M. EST

Biden Confirms U.S. Military Have Taken Down Chinese Surveillance Balloon – Details Forthcoming


Posted originally on the CTH on February 4, 2023 | Sundance 

Apparently, the Chinese surveillance airship has been taken out of commission inside the 12-mile range of U.S. territorial waters on the South Carolina Atlantic coast.

Delivering remarks to the press pool, Joe Biden confirmed the Chinese dirigible was taken down.   According to his statement, Biden ordered the airship to be shot down last Wednesday (lol sure), but the military advised him to wait until it crossed the U.S. and could be taken down over water.

Several U.S. jet fighters were seen circling the coastline, and the FAA had shut down the airspace above the Atlantic near Myrtle Beach prior to the operation to remove or destroy the surveillance airship.

Biden Planning to Bring Down Chinese ‘Surveillance’ Balloon Over Atlantic, Possibly Today


Posted originally on the CTH on February 4, 2023 | Sundance

According to the Associated Press, Joe Biden is planning to shoot down the Chinese ‘surveillance’ balloon possibly later today when it reaches the eastern shore of the Atlantic Ocean.

The mumbling mumbler who mumbles said, “We’re going to take care of it”, when asked about the ongoing issue earlier today.  WATCH:

(Via Associated Press) – WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is considering a plan to shoot down a large Chinese balloon suspected of conducting surveillance on the U.S. military, by bringing it down once it is above the Atlantic Ocean where the remnants could potentially be recovered, according to four U.S. officials.

Two of the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive operation, said President Joe Biden had given the go-ahead. In a brief remark Saturday in response to a reporter’s question about the balloon, Biden said: “We’re going to take care of it.”

The balloon was spotted Saturday morning over the Carolinas as it approached the Atlantic coast. In preparation for the operation, the Federal Aviation Administration temporarily closed airspace over the Carolina coastline, including the airports in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Wilmington, North Carolina, until at least 2:45 p.m. EST Saturday. The FAA was rerouting air traffic from the area and warned of delays as a result of the flight restrictions.

Officials were aiming to time the operation so they could recover as much of the debris as possible before it sinks into the ocean. The Pentagon had previously estimated that the balloon, flying at about 60,000 feet in the air, was about the size of three school buses and that any debris field would be substantial. (read more)

(AP) In this photo below provided by Brian Branch, a large balloon drifts above the Kingston, N.C. area, with an airplane and its contrail seen below it. The United States says it is a Chinese spy balloon moving east over America at an altitude of about 60,000 feet (18,600 meters), but China insists the balloon is just an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds and has only limited “self-steering” capabilities.

Google Disclaimer: Image Above – Not the real balloon

Systemic Violence in Miami-Dade Schools, Supported by MDSPD, Surfaces Yet Again – Video Surfaces of 9-Year-Old Latina Student Beaten Mercilessly by Older Black Students on Bus


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on February 4, 2023 | Sundance

Let me be very clear, having investigated the Miami-Dade and Broward County school system for over a decade, this is not surprising.

Following the path of Trayvon Martin and the weird school discipline program he was a part of, I ended up spending a lot of time deep in the research of these school systems.  Things are not what they appear.

The recent video of a 9-year-old Latina student and her brother being beaten mercilessly by older black students on a school bus is not an isolated incident.

[New York Post] – […] In a statement, the Miami-Dade Schools Police said the offenders have been arrested.

“The safety and wellbeing of our students are of the utmost importance,” it read. “This school district goes to great lengths to promote the values of restraint and respect as well as using social media responsibly. We ask that parents reinforce these principles at home.”

Meanwhile, three female Florida high school students — two 17-year-olds and a 15-year-old — were arrested this week for their role in yet another violent campus melee caught on tape. (read more)

Note, that in all reporting you will find the “Miami-Dade School Police Department” (MDSPD) are involved…  NOT, I repeat NOT, the Miami-Dade Police Department.  The MDSPD are the gatekeepers for what Miami-Dade and Broward County schools call the ‘Promise Program.’  The MDSPD essentially act like prison wardens to keep violent thugs inside the school system away from regular police units.

In an education system set up by former School Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, a totally separate law enforcement system was put into place for the schools.  Any student engaged in criminal conduct was diverted away from the criminal justice system and into a system where MDSPD would handle all criminal activity by students.

The MDSPD turned the intent of the ‘Promise Program’ into a gladiator academy.  The program was so poorly thought out, and the unintended consequences so brutally ignored, this was always going to be the outcome.

They are now more than ten years into this system, and there is no possibility of reforming it.  Students entering into Miami-Dade and Broward County Schools are cannon fodder for a culturally Marxist, politically correct, social justice, education/political system.

By keeping students out of the criminal justice system, the MDSPD are now essentially groomers with badges assisting and coordinating with violent street gangs and organized crime.  Add in the systemic elements of Black -vs- Latino racism, and what you end up with is an entire school system structured like a prison ward with internal gangs and factions of criminal activity inside the schools.

The old concept of sending a child to school to learn math, reading, history, writing and composition skills is totally removed from what remains.  Inside the campus buildings housing the “promise” predators and “student” prey, you will find a structurally deficient education system that is more akin to a regional prison system.   Outside that system are what you would customarily think of as law and order (police and courts).

However, inside that system is a self-contained gladiator academy mostly abandoned by teachers who focused on education (they left to survive), and the school faculties and administration are now wardens of the social justice system.  The wardens (former school principals) and the prison guards (MDSPD), just try to maintain the image of something parents might be familiar with.  Yet, it is all just a ruse.

This is not an exception.

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Everyone will deny this is happening.

Everyone will deny what I have described above is not what is going on.  The stakeholders in the system run from the individual school administrators, the police, the school boards, the local media, all the way up to the Florida Dept of Education and the Florida Governor’s office.  All of them will deny the systemic nature of the corrupt and brutal system that exists in both Broward and Miami-Dade counties; however, all the denial in the world doesn’t change the reality.

The Miami Dade School Police Department is a false front.  The MDSPD are positioned like the greeters at the Walmart entrance, intended to give the illusion of customer service upon entry to the store, because you won’t find another employee to assist during your visit.

Behind the MDSPD false front is a system of gladiator training under the auspices of “education.”  Within this system, apex predator students are groomed and protected by MDSPD to be career criminals.  Parents who send younger or weaker students into the system are providing the in-house victims for the gladiators to train on.  That is the reality, the non-pretending reality.

If the Miami-Dade School Board wanted to change things (they don’t), they would first need to: (1) build much bigger prisons; (2) disband the MDSPD and instead expand the regular Miami-Dade police department to cover the school district; (3) pull the predators out of the schools; (4) fire the entire school administration and faculty guards of the housing units for the predators; (5) let them all reapply and go through intensive pre-screening for re-employment; (6) hire principals and teachers to replace the “administrators” and “educators.”

If the state of Florida was to conduct a sting operation and put undercover state agents inside the Broward and Miami-Dade school system (acting like students and teachers), Floridians would be stunned at the findings.  However, the results of that investigation would never be permitted to reach the public.  They would bury it….

It’s worse than I just described….. Way worse…

… And I have the receipts.

.

Wait, What? – Tucker Carlson Discusses Details and Questions of Chinese Spy Balloons


Posted originally on the CTH on February 3, 2023 | Sundance 

Apparently, the Chinese spy balloon isn’t the first.  Additionally, according to the Pentagon, there are several more floating around over various countries.  All of that said, what exactly is going on here and why doesn’t anyone just get rid of it?

These and other questions are posed by Tucker Carlson who seems as confused as anyone else about what exactly the nature of these Chinese Balloon things are all about.  WATCH:

It does seem a little silly that our entire media apparatus is fixated on a Chinese balloon which could simply be destroyed if that was what the U.S. government really wanted to do.  It’s all a little odd at this point…

I mean, what the heck else is going on while everyone is fixated on this balloon.

WASHINGTON DC – Not everyone in Washington is freaking out about the suspected Chinese spy balloon flying high over the United States. Some former officials say it’s giving U.S. diplomats exactly what they need: more leverage over Beijing.

The Chinese airship forced the U.S. military to scramble fighter jets, prompted lawmakers to demand answers from the Biden administration and led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to indefinitely postpone his trip to Beijing this weekend.

But Blinken was going to China without much hope of getting concessions on major issues such as Beijing’s support for Russia’s war on Ukraine, its human rights abuses or its threats to Taiwan. Now, some former officials who’ve worked on international negotiations say he may be in a stronger position, though that advantage may fade over time.

“This event definitely strengthens the hands of the United States,” said Heather McMahon, a former senior director at the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board. “Anytime an espionage operation is exposed, [it] gives the advantage to the targeted nation.”

Blinken was preparing to see top officials in China on Sunday and Monday in a follow-up to President Joe Biden’s meeting with Chinese paramount leader Xi Jinping in Bali in November. At the time, Biden pledged to “maintain open lines of communication” with Beijing amid worsening bilateral tensions.

The Pentagon’s announcement Thursday of an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon hovering over Montana changed that plan. In canceling Blinken’s trip, at least for now, the State Department said the incident “would have narrowed the agenda in a way that would have been unhelpful and unconstructive.” (read more)

According to the Politico ‘spin’, the appearance of the balloon is a good thing.

President Trump Delivers Subtle Advice to Joe Biden on How to Handle Chinese “Spy Balloon”


Posted originally on the CTH on February 3, 2023 | Sundance 

In his customarily subtle way, where ‘subtle’ is like a brick through a window, President Trump delivers advice to Joe Biden about how to deal with Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping’s spy balloon:

“SHOOT DOWN THE BALLOON!”

Personally, I like the added emphasis with the exclamation point.  However, now that President Trump has recommended this approach, the Biden team have to take shooting down the balloon off the table – or else they will look like they are following Trump’s advice. lolol

Some days I just miss the way he says, Chy-na.

Shawn Farash has some fun with this below:

Beyond Hubris – Joe Biden Says He Takes No Blame for Inflation


Posted originally on the CTH on February 3, 2023 | Sundance

Not only does the buck not stop with Biden, the installed occupant of the White House refuses to admit the buck even started with him. It did!

During remarks to the press today, even Brian Deese looked stunned as Joe Biden incredulously claimed he didn’t cause the rampant inflation that is crushing middle class Americans. Oh, he started it alright…. He not only started it, but he also created it.

The combination of the January 2021 immediate move to block any domestic energy development, in combination with the April 2021 unneeded explosion of deficit spending triggered both a supply side and demand side inflationary impact; with the former continuing to put massive upward pressure on prices still. WATCH:

The lies from the lying, liar who lies, just flow so easily from his mouth.

A pox on all their houses.