Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 31, 2022 | Sundance
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin was on every Sunday talk show today (CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox) responding to his reversal of position on the Build Back Better legislative package (Green New Deal spending) that is part of the senate budget reconciliation bill. There is something very interesting in his justification. [Do not skim read this, all citations included]
Fox News Brett Bair does the best job challenging Manchin on his prior statements saying there would be no spending deal without first seeing the August inflation data. [LINK]. Manchin never answered that hypocrisy directly but says there are two components of the deal, two parts of a new future legislative bill, that brought him to the agreement on the $370 billion current spend.
The current Senate bill is a reconciliation bill, meaning it involves taxes and spending – AND ONLY taxes and spending, because the bill originated in the House.
The constitutional framework for taxes & spending requires the House to originate all spending bills. If a desired additional measure does not involve taxes and spending (a budgetary impact) it cannot be added to a reconciliation bill. The senate must originate a new bill and then send it to the House.
According to Manchin the deal between himself, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden includes his support for the current green energy spending, in exchange for two new items in future legislation: 1) Streamlined energy permitting/regulation; and 2) Increased development of Oil, Coal, Gas. Both of these pieces of legislation have to be handled in a separate Senate bill.
According to Manchin, his agreement to the current spending bill was contingent upon a promise that: (A) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will generate a new bill for streamlined energy permitting and increased oil, gas and coal development; (B) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will take up the Senate bill and whip enough of her House Democrat membership to join with Republicans in support of that Senate bill; and (C) Joe Biden will sign that increased energy production bill.
Here’s the important part. Senator Manchin claims he has leverage over Biden, Pelosi and Schumer to ensure a new bill with those priorities is created and advanced. Manchin further claims there are “consequences” for Biden, Pelosi and Schumer if they were to renege on the deal. He is quite emphatic about that point if you listen to the NBC interview.
Now ask yourself…. What leverage would Senator Manchin have over Biden, Schumer and Pelosi that would ensure they would not double-cross him?
There is only one Occam’s razor answer:
Joe Manchin threatened to switch political parties if any of them reneged on the deal.
The NBC interview with Chuck Todd questioning Joe Manchin is very interesting. It is actually the best interview of all five conducted, in part because it seems like Chuck Todd has full knowledge of the Manchin threat component.
Manchin was challenged in three of the five interviews about this promised future legislative component. In each of the interviews Manchin affirms and reaffirms there would be consequences if Schumer, Pelosi and Biden try to renege on the deal. However, it is the Meet the Press Chuck Todd interview that really gets in deeper and overlays some sunlight on this issue.
WATCH at 04:03 of the video below, Chuck Todd has knowledge of the “deal” in detail and pushes Manchin on his “consequences” statement. Then watch the very end of this interview (09:05) when Chuck Todd tries to pin Manchin down on the importance of Democrats holding the Senate. Chuck Todd knows the unspoken threat that Manchin outlines as consequences.
Chuck Todd knows the “consequences”. He tried to pin Manchin down. Manchin obfuscated.
You put it all together and it starts making sense.
Senator Joe Manchin cut a deal for removal of regulatory roadblocks to current energy programs and expanded energy development. Schumer has to generate the legislation permitting faster investment in current oil, gas, coal. Nancy Pelosi has to pass it in the House. Joe Biden has to sign it and change EPA/Interior Dept policy. In exchange for that, Joe Manchin has agreed to the $370 billion green new deal energy spending programs.
If Schumer, Pelosi or Biden renege, then Manchin switches parties and the Senate flips into Republican control immediately. That’s his leverage.
Someone needs to ask Manchin: (A) what is the timeframe for the new legislative package; and (B) is this an accurate assessment of the “consequences” he outlined.
Posted originally on the conservative house on August 1, 2022 | Sundance
We are seeing the cascading impacts of the energy-driven inflation starting to ripple throughout the globe, specifically worsening economies who are dependent on the export of non-essential durable goods. South Korea manufacturing is the latest example.
The first quarter of 2022 started with a drop in U.S. consumer spending on non-essential durable goods like electronics. The net result of contracted consumer spending was a 1.6% negative GDP.
Inventories of goods started to build and by April/May of 2022 the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed negative inflation in those sectors as discounts to move inventory were offered.
In June major manufacturer Samsung, headquartered in South Korea, announced they had told suppliers to stop sending component manufacturing parts for finished goods. (link)
By the end of July, the second quarter GDP in the U.S. again showed a contraction of 0.9%. Energy inflation was now creating a consumer spending recession, demand for non-essential goods dropped fast over the first half of the year.
Today, South Korea announces July manufacturing output contracted for the first time in two years, matching the prior announcement by Samsung:
SEOUL, Aug 1 (Reuters) – South Korea’s factory activity shrank in July for the first time in nearly two years, as output and new orders weakened amid continued inflation and supply chain woes, a private-sector survey showed on Monday.
The S&P Global purchasing managers’ index (PMI) fell to a seasonally-adjusted 49.8 in July from 51.3 in June, falling below 50 for the first time since September 2020. The 50-mark separates expansion from contraction in factory activity from a previous month.
Output fell for a fourth straight month and by the sharpest rate since October 2021, as new orders decreased for the first time in 22 months and those from overseas for the fifth month in a row. (read more)
All economies that are dependent on the manufacturing and export of durable goods are likely now seeing reduced factory outputs as fewer customers exist to purchase the final product. This will lead to a predictable rise in unemployment amid those same nations.
This situation is the reason why the Bank of Japan did not raise their central bank interest rates. They are attempting to offset the drop in global economic activity by keeping their currency value low as compared to the rest of the western countries. This will help move their exported goods at a discount.
Inside countries with large imports, the definition of “non-essential” purchases within each household now starts to shift. Upgrading electronics, jewelry purchasing, and other non-essential goods become the first to feel the impact. That contraction is then followed by appliances, furniture, clothing and eventually vehicles and high-cost durable goods.
As less and less disposable income is available, consumer spending gets increasingly prioritized. The service sector is likely starting to feel the consumer belt tightening, particularly those consumer goods and services that are dependent on middle class families.
Inflation in general is a corrosive issue that eats away at the ability of consumers to purchase products and services. Energy inflation is particularly damaging as it hits every sector of the economy with higher supply-side costs. Food prices, fuel, transportation costs, electricity rates etc. take a larger portion of the paycheck, leaving less room (if any) for non-essential purchases.
A shrinking global economy is the outcome of an intentionally managed decline to support the Build Back Better, climate change, agenda.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house July 31, 2022 | Sundance
The pretending from the federal reserve chairs continues. In this interview, Neel Kashkari, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, says “we keep getting surprised” by data on inflation, which continues to be “higher than we expect, across the broad range of the economy.” Yet, notice that Kashkari refuses to outline the single cause of the broad inflation is the intentional lack of energy production. [Transcript]
Kashkari continues the selling point that demand side inflation is being targeted because demand still exceeds supply. That’s essentially true, however, it is the supply of energy that is fundamentally disrupted by Joe Biden energy policy. It is not consumer demand for goods and services, it is the structural need for consumers to have consistent, affordable energy resources.
The collapse of energy production from domestic coal, oil and gas development is the problem. Everything else is ancillary to the origination problem. However, in order to support the climate agenda, the Federal Reserve must pretend not to know this. WATCH:
Kashkari notes a serious problem can arise when wage inflation starts to catch up with inflation overall. THAT just happened last month. The combination of wage inflation to match the high consumer inflation then drives an even higher cost for goods and services. This is the inflation storm that leads to hyper-inflation, structurally high inflation that cannot be controlled by any monetary measure, and unfortunately, we just entered the first outer bands of this inflation hurricane last month.
A personal sidenote: when we were going through the pandemic crisis and response in 2020/2021, CTH took heat for saying the real objective at the end of the pandemic path was the global climate change agenda. Well, here we are. At the end of this climate change path is full control over human activity using digital currency. Hunger games.
[Transcript] – JOHN DICKERSON: We turn now to the president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, Neel Kashkari. Good morning, Neel. Inflation–
PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF MINNEAPOLIS NEEL KASHKARI: –John, thanks for having me.
JOHN DICKERSON: Thank you for being here. Okay. Everybody wants to know inflation, still hot? What is it? What does it look like to you?
KASHKARI: It’s very concerning, you know, we keep getting inflation readings, new data that comes in, and as recently as this past week, and we keep getting surprised. It’s higher than we expect. And it’s not just a few categories. It’s spreading out more broadly, across the economy. And that’s why the Federal Reserve is acting with such urgency to get it under control and bring it back down.
JOHN DICKERSON: Wages within that, what does the wage picture look like in two different ways, we measure it, both just on its own, and then relative to inflation?
KASHKARI: For most Americans, their wages are going up, but they’re not going up as fast as inflation. So most Americans, real wages, real incomes are going down. That’s why families are finding it increasingly hard to make ends meet. When they go to the grocery store, when they buy necessities, they’re not able to buy as much because they’re getting a real wage cut, because inflation is growing so quickly. I mean, typically we think about wage driven inflation, where wages grow quickly. And then that leads to higher prices in a self fulfilling spiral. That is not yet happening. High prices and wages are now trying to catch up to those high prices. Those high prices are being driven by supply chains and the war in Ukraine, among other factors. And so we need to get the economy back into balance before this really does become a wage driven inflation story.
JOHN DICKERSON: Let me ask you about a figure that people may not know as much about, everybody knows about the consumer price index and inflation, the economic cost index came out this week. And some economists look at that as a signal for inflation. Tell me what you saw in the economic cost index this week.
KASHKARI: Well, we have a lot of different measures, for example of wages, of what’s happening to wages. And ECI, as I call it, is one measure that it’s a- it’s a robust measure of what’s happening to wages and what’s happening to benefits, and wages continue to climb. And on one level, that’s a good thing. We want Americans to be making more money. But if wages are climbing, such that the economy shows that it’s overheating, that tells me that the Federal Reserve has more work to do to bring inflation down to bring the economy into balance just at its basic level. Inflation is when demand is outstripping supply. We know supply is low because of supply chains, because of the war in Ukraine, because of COVID. We hoped that supply would come online more quickly, that hasn’t happened. So we have to get demand down into balance. Now, I hope we get some help on the supply side. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Federal Reserve has its job to do, and we are committed to doing it.
JOHN DICKERSON: We have 30 seconds left. Help on the supply side, what does that mean?
KASHKARI: Well, I talked to a lot of global businesses who are trying to get their supply chain sorted out so that they can meet their customers’ needs and make sure that there are products on the shelves. They’re making some progress. There’s some signs, it’s getting better, but it’s taking a lot longer than they thought and that I thought and so that means we cannot wait till supply fully heals. We have to do our part with monetary policy.
JOHN DICKERSON: We’re gonna take a commercial, we’ll be back to continue this conversation with Neel Kashkari. Stick with us.
JOHN DICKERSON: Welcome back to Face The Nation. We continue our conversation with Minneapolis Federal Reserve’s Neel Kashkari. Neel, let’s pick up where you left off on this question of supply. When I was talking with two senators earlier there was this debate about whether taxation on companies that don’t pay a minimum level of taxation will have their supply hurt. So in other words, you tax- tax them supply goes down, that hurts with inflation. What’s your assessment of that?
KASHKARI: You know, long over the long term, that’s probably true. On the margin, people say that about raising interest rates, why raise interest rates, that’s going to make it more expensive for firms to invest. And that’s going to not help with the supply side. That’s true over the long-term. But over the short-term, the demand side effects totally swamped the supply side effects. And so when I look at a bill that’s being considered that your two senators talked about, my guess is over the next couple of years, it’s not going to have much of an impact on inflation. It’s not going to affect how I analyze inflation. Over the next few years, I think long term, it may have some effect. But over the near term, we have an acute mismatch between demand and supply. And it’s really up to the Federal Reserve to be able to bring that demand down, and we’re committed to doing what we need to do.
JOHN DICKERSON: Neel, help me understand recessions. There is a debate in Washington that’s full of political gamesmanship. So take us inside why it matters if America is in a recession, and what the component parts are, that are a part of that and how that helps us understand the health of the economy.
KASHKARI: Well, it really matters when Americans feel it, when Americans are, especially in the job market. That’s the most important part of the economy, so to speak, for Americans is their job. Do they have a decent place to work and earning decent wages? And typically, recessions are, they demonstrate why job loss is high unemployment, those are terrible for American families. And we’re not seeing anything like that. The labor market so far, is very strong, we are seeing some sectors like the tech sector start to shed workers or start to cool down in hiring. But fundamentally, the labor market appears to be very strong. While GDP, that the amount the economy is producing, appears to be shrinking. So we’re getting mixed signals out of the economy. From my perspective, in terms of getting inflation in check, whether we are technically in a recession or not, doesn’t change my analysis. I’m focused on the inflation data. I’m focused on the wage data. And so far, inflation continues to surprise us to the upside, wages continue to grow. So far, the labor market is very, very strong. And that means whether we are technically in a recession or not, doesn’t change the fact that the Federal Reserve has its own work to do. And we are committed to doing it.
JOHN DICKERSON: Last 20 seconds, Neel, on GDP when it goes down, isn’t that kind of what the Feds trying to do? Slow down growth? So is that a good number?
KASHKARI: Well, we definitely want to see some slowing. We don’t want to see the economy overheating. We would love it if we can transition to a sustainable economy without tipping the economy into recession. There’s not a great record of doing that. Typically when the economy slows down, it slows down by quite a bit, especially if it’s the central bank that is inducing the slowdown. So we’re going to do everything we can to try to avoid a recession. But we are committed to bringing inflation down and we’re going to do what we need to do. And we’re a long way away from achieving an economy that is back at 2% inflation and that’s where we need to get to.
JOHN DICKERSON: All right, Neel Kashkari. Thanks so much for being with us. And we’ll be back in a moment. (read more)
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 31, 2022 | Sundance
In a remarkable interview attempting to justify his agreement with the senate Build Back Better climate change bill (fraudulently labeled ‘inflation reduction act’), West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin says the massive energy spending and tax bill will bring green renewable energy much quicker. In essence, the windmills and solar panels for West Virginia will arrive faster now, and that will improve energy production. [Transcript Here]
When discussing the new energy origination provisions, Senator Manchin catches himself mid-sentence saying, “the battery better be made in America.” He quickly corrected himself knowing the claim was false and followed up with, “better be sourced in North America, it better be processed,” because he is well aware the largest employment and investment beneficiaries for his deal will be Mexico and Canada, not American workers. WATCH:
♦ BRASS TACKS – Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was gleeful last week promoting Manchin’s new green energy proposal because, with steel and aluminum tariffs removed, Canada will be one the biggest beneficiaries of $370 billion congressional spending package. Canada has no heavy industry left, they are the assembly economy for foreign manufacturing that uses loopholes, and the senate bill creates a USMCA loophole for this exact purpose.
The West Virginia windmills and solar panels will be shipped as raw materials from China and the EU into Canada. Canada will assemble the parts and ship the finished goods into the United States for placement by illegal alien workers employed by the contractors. The batteries to store the solar and windmill power will come from Mexico, after they receive the raw materials from Africa and Asia.
Canadian workers, Mexican workers, Chinese Workers, African workers and ASEAN workers will all benefit from the generous Joe Manchin spending package.
Unemployed West Virginia coal miners will watch Joe Manchin run for office in 2024 on Japanese televisions powered by China, while eating cheese puff flavored cricket snacks sourced from Canada. Brilliant plan, Joe.
[Transcript] – JOHN DICKERSON: We go now to West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin. Senator, welcome. I hope you’re feeling better from the COVID. Let me start with a- with a–
SENATOR JOE MANCHIN: –John, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
JOHN DICKERSON: Let me start with something you said back in 2010 in a debate when you were running for Senate, here’s what you said:
SEN. JOE MANCHIN SOT: “I don’t think during the time of recession, you mess with any of the taxes or increase any taxes.”
JOHN DICKERSON: So that’s become the- your Republican colleagues favorite quote to roll out now that you’ve made this agreement with Chuck Schumer that has a tax piece to it. Why did you change your mind?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: John, I didn’t change my not- my mind, I’ve never changed at all this is fighting inflation. This is all about the- the absolute horrible position that people are in now because of the inflation costs, whether it be gasoline, whether it be food pricing, whether it be energy pricing, and it’s around energy, mostly that’s driving these high inflation. This is going to do- take care of that, because this is aggressively producing more energy to get more supply to get the prices down. That’s what we’re doing. But we didn’t raise taxes, John, the taxes were- the corporate tax in America in 2017, before the Republican tax cut was 35%. They cut it to 21% 14% reduction. All the people that I know are paying 21% or more. All the even larger corporations, but some of the largest corporations of a billion dollars of value or more don’t even want to pay the minimum of 15%.
JOHN DICKERSON: So, this is an issue of fairness?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: It’s basically closing– this is a fairness in closing a loophole. So, I’m not raising any taxes. I never thought that people weren’t paying at least 21.
JOHN DICKERSON: Let me ask you about–
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: –And I don’t know why. I mean, we went- go ahead I’m sorry.
JOHN DICKERSON: On the raising- Okay, so I understand what you’re saying about closing loopholes. But the Republican criticism, which attaches to what you said in 2010, is, when you increase taxes, by closing loopholes, you hurt supply, and during inflation, you want a lot of supply. And so even though this might not be a tax increase relative to previous rates, the taxes for certain companies will go up, which will make them produce more so the theory goes, and that will hurt inflation.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Let me just say this, John, in the last two years, there have been massive record profits across the board by these largest corporations, massive record profits, and it’s been the lowest capital expenditure in the last few years, so that didn’t drive it. What they’ve all told me was we want security, we want to have some type of pathway forward in permitting and regulations. They’re strangling us. And this is what we’re doing. We’re streamlining the regulations that people have to live within. It- basically accelerating how we get things to market, how quick we can produce things, how quick we can basically produce more energy, and how we can develop more technology. And using that for our benefit. We’re talking about also batteries for electric cars. If you want to get a discount on an electric car by buying an EV, the battery better be made in America, better be sourced in North America, it better be processed.
JOHN DICKERSON: Your Republican colleagues think you and Chuck Schumer did something underhanded by essentially, it looked like there wasn’t going to be anything big passed and then set and then you changed course worked out something with Schumer. Senator Cornyn, the Republican from Texas, said that that unveiling this agreement between you and Senator Schumer was “a declaration of political warfare.”
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: It’s such a shame. John Cornyn is a good friend of mine. He’s such a good man. And for the politics to be so toxic right now. First of all, I never thought this would come to fruition. I never spoke with anybody about any of my colleagues, because they were frustrated that nothing happened for so long. On the other, I never could get the Build Back Better, which is a three and a half trillion-dollar spending bill. This is a $400 billion investment bill. And everything my Republicans talked about reducing the amount of debt that we have- we’re paying down $300 billion- first time in 25 years, they gotta like that. And next of all, they wanted more energy, I want more energy, we’re going to be producing more energy. There’s an agreement that we’re going to be drilling and doing more than we can to bring more energy to the market that reduces prices. They like that. I mean, it’s and there’s going to be a streamlining of permitting John, but they got to like that so well. I’m hoping they just- take cool off. Take a good look at the bill.
JOHN DICKERSON: Their argument is and this matters because you are working with Republicans on other pieces of legislation and Susan Collins, one of those Republicans you’re working with says that this, this break of trust, which is what they’re calling it, you made certain representations they would say to Republicans and broke your trust, she said Susan Collins said it’s a very unfortunate move that delay – that that destroys the many bipartisan efforts that are underway. In other words, whether it’s on election reform, or same sex marriage that that the well has been poisoned.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, here’s the thing, I think Susan Collins is, you know, my very dear friend, we work almost on everything together. But the thing of it, I never told anybody that I wasn’t going to do something. If I had a chance to fix the energy policy of the United States of America, and I didn’t do it, shame on me. If I had the chance to reduce the amount of inflation and people in West Virginia and across the country are enduring right now. Shame on me. And I never thought they would come to an agreement and use a dual path and basically recognizing within this administration, working with President Biden’s administration and working with Chuck Schumer, and all of them who basically were going a different direction, and were very upset with me for so long that they would ever sit down. But I guess, you know, this thing is bigger, become truly horrible for the families all across America. So now to have a piece of legislation, that we have energy, and we have investments for new energy, but basically, that’s a responsibility. You can walk and chew gum, you have a balanced approach. These are solutions Americans want. We were able to provide these solutions. Let’s not make them political, John.
JOHN DICKERSON: You and Senator Schumer have a deal. A lot of Democrats who used to be very angry at you are suddenly now saying nice things about you, Senator Kyrsten Sinema. Have you talked to Senator Sinema whose vote is still unknown on these bills? And where do you think she’ll go? Because if she doesn’t vote for it, it doesn’t happen.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah, Senator Sinema is a dear friend of mine. And we’ve worked very close together on so many pieces of legislation. And she’s- she’s so involved in this legislation. When you think about it, she’s the one that really negotiated and worked very hard on getting Medicare allowing them to negotiate for lower drug prices saving $288 billion. That’s tremendous, which I support her completely on that she’s always been adamant about we’re not going to be raising taxes. And I agree with her wholeheartedly. I made very, very, very carefully evaluations that we wouldn’t raise any taxes. That was the last scrub that was done.
JOHN DICKERSON: Have you tried to lobby her?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: No, I don’t. We don’t. I’ve never lobbied my- my colleagues on that. I just basically put the facts out try to answer questions. I’m always trying to negotiate with them if- if they want and I tried to and sometimes we don’t get there. They get frustrated. But we’re always looking at the next opportunity to improve the quality of life in America. And that’s what we’re doing.
JOHN DICKERSON: Finally, Senator, there was a vote on a bill this week that would provide health care to millions of veterans exposed to toxic fumes in burn pits during their deployments. Republicans who had previously voted for it, voted against it. Pat Toomey, Republican from Pennsylvania, who will be on who you’ve worked with extensively in your career is worried that it adds to the deficit. That’s something you care about. Does Pat Toomey have a point here?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Sure. Well, Pat Toomey is going to get a- he’s gonna get an amendment. He- he’ll have a vote on that. So Pat, come on, let’s go. Let’s put- put it out there, put the facts out there. Pat’s a good man and good friend of mine. I’m sorry, he’s not going to be running again. And he’s leaving the Senate because he’s been a quality valued member of the Senate. And he represented Pennsylvania extremely well. So he’s been a friend. We’re going to work through this. I haven’t seen the amendment. I’m – I’ll be briefed tomorrow morning on it and everything. But Pat is going to get his amendment and let’s see where it goes.
JOHN DICKERSON: Senator Joe Manchin, thanks for being with us. Face the Nation back in one minute. Stay with us. (link)
“There’s a lakeside retreat near Winnipeg with a 5-bedroom cabin he built just for you”…
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on on July 31, 2022 | Sundance
President Barack Obama’s former campaign manager David Plouffe famously said of Donald Trump’s entry into politics: “It is not enough to simply beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again.”
What was it that Washington DC and President Obama’s team feared so much about Donald J Trump?
The answer to that question is why the FBI, DOJ and CIA targeted Trump in 2016; and why they continued the targeting in 2017 with the Mueller investigation; and why they continued the targeting through two attempts at impeachment in 2019 and 2020; and why they still keep targeting Donald Trump with the J6 committee and a DOJ investigation two years after he is no longer in office.
Donald J Trump is the existential threat.
When your business involves gaining personal wealth by selling out America, Donald Trump is bad for business.
Barack Obama, John Brennan, Eric Holder and James Comey did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; the institutions were already weaponized by the Patriot Act. What the Obama era officials did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so those weapons of government only conducted surveillance and targeting toward one side of the political dynamic.
This point is where many people understandably get confused.
In the era shortly after 9/11 the DC national security apparatus, instructed by Vice President Dick Cheney, was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.
After 9/11/01 the electronic surveillance system that was originally created to monitor threats from abroad was retooled to monitor threats inside our country. That is when all of our electronic ‘metadata’ came under federal surveillance.
That inflection point, and the process that followed, was exactly what Edward Snowden tried to point out.
What Barack Obama and Eric Holder did with that new construct was refine the internal targeting mechanisms so that only their political opposition became the target of this new national security system.
The problems we face now as a country are directly an outcome of two very distinct points that were merged by Barack Obama. (1) The post 9/11 monitoring of electronic communication of American citizens; and (2) Obama’s team creating a fine-tuning knob that it focused on the politics of the targets. This is very important to understand as you dig deeper into this research outline.
Washington DC created the modern national security apparatus immediately and hurriedly after 9/11/01. The Department of Homeland Security came along in 2002, and within the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004 the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) was formed.
When President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder arrived a few years later, those newly formed institutions were viewed as opportunities to create a very specific national security apparatus that would focus almost exclusively against their political opposition.
The preexisting Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Dept of Justice (DOJ) were then repurposed to become two of the four pillars of the domestic national security apparatus: a domestic surveillance state. However, this new construct would have a targeting mechanism based on political ideology.
The DHS, ODNI, DOJ and FBI became the four pillars of this new institution. Atop these pillars is where you will find the Fourth Branch of Government.
We were not sleeping when this happened, we were wide awake. However, we were stunningly distracted by the economic collapse that was taking place in 2006 and 2007 when the engineers behind Obama started to assemble the design. By the time Obama took office in 2009, we sensed something profound was shifting, but we can only see exactly what shifted in the aftermath. The four pillars were put into place, and a new Fourth Branch of Government was quietly created.
As time passed, and the system operators became familiar with their new tools, technology allowed the tentacles of the system to reach out and touch us. That is when we first started to notice that something very disconcerting was happening. Those four pillars are the root of it, and if we take the time to understand how the Fourth Branch originated, questions about this current state of perpetual angst will start to make sense.
Grab a cup of your favorite beverage and take a walk with me as we outline how this was put together. You might find many of the questions about our current state of political affairs beginning to make a lot more sense.
Remember, it is not my intent to outline the entire history of how we got to this place where the intelligence community now acts as the superseding Fourth Branch of Government. Such an effort would be exhausting and likely take our discussion away from understanding the current dynamic.
History provided enough warnings from Dwight D. Eisenhower (military) to John F. Kennedy (CIA), to Richard Nixon (FBI), to all the modern versions of warnings and frustrations from HPSCI Devin Nunes and ODNI Ric Grenell.
None of those prior reference points are invalid, and all documented outlines of historic reference are likely true and accurate. However, a generational review is not useful, as the reference impacting us ‘right now‘ gets lost.
Instead, we pick up the expansive and weaponized intelligence system as it manifests after 9/11/01, and my goal is to highlight how the modern version of the total intelligence apparatus has metastasized into a Fourth Branch of Government. It is this superseding branch that now touches and influences every facet of our life. We The People are under surveillance.
If we take the modern construct, originating at the speed of technological change, we can also see how the oversight or “check/balance” in our system of government became functionally obsolescent.
After many years of granular research about the intelligence apparatus inside our government, in the summer of 2020 I visited Washington DC to ask specific questions. My goal was to go where the influence agents within government actually operate, and to discover the people deep inside the institutions no one elected, and few people pay attention to.
It was during this process when I discovered how information is purposefully put into containment silos; essentially a formal process to block the flow of information between agencies and between the original branches. While frustrating to discover, the silo effect was important because understanding the communication between networks leads to our ability to reconcile conflict between what we perceive and what’s actually taking place.
After days of research and meetings in DC during 2020; amid a town that was serendipitously shut down due to COVID-19; I found a letter slid under the door of my room in a nearly empty hotel with an introduction of sorts. The subsequent discussions were perhaps the most important. After many hours of specific questions and answers on specific examples, I realized why our nation is in this mess. That is when I discovered the fourth and superseding branch of government, the Intelligence Branch.
I am going to explain how the Intelligence Branch works: (1) to control every other branch of government; (2) how it functions as an entirely independent branch of government with no oversight; (3) how and why it was created to be independent from oversight; (4) what is the current mission of the IC Branch, and most importantly (5) who operates it.
The Intelligence Branch is an independent functioning branch of government, it is no longer a subsidiary set of agencies within the Executive Branch as most would think. To understand the Intelligence Branch, we need to drop the elementary school civics class lessons about three coequal branches of government and replace that outlook with the modern system that created itself.
The Intelligence Branch functions much like the State Dept, through a unique set of public-private partnerships that support it. Big Tech industry collaboration with intelligence operatives is part of that functioning, almost like an NGO. However, the process is much more important than most think. In this problematic perspective of a corrupt system of government, the process is the flaw – not the outcome.
There are people making decisions inside this little known, unregulated and out-of-control branch of government that impact every facet of our lives.
None of the people operating deep inside the Intelligence Branch were elected; and our elected representative House members genuinely do not know how the system works. I assert this position affirmatively because I have talked to House and Senate staffers, including the chiefs of staff for multiple House & Senate committee seats. They are not malicious people; however, they are genuinely clueless of things that happen outside their silo. That is part of the purpose of me explaining it, with examples, in full detail with sunlight.
We begin….
In April of 2016, the FBI launched a counterintelligence operation against presidential candidate Donald Trump. The questioning about that operation is what New York Representative Elise Stefanik cites in March of 2017, approximately 11 months later (First Two Minutes).
♦ Notice how FBI Director James Comey just matter-of-factly explains no one outside the DOJ was informed about the FBI operation. Why? Because that’s just the way things are done. His justification for unilateral operations was “because of the sensitivity of the matter“, totally ignoring any constitutional or regulatory framework for oversight; because, well, quite simply, there isn’t any. The intelligence apparatus inside the DOJ/FBI can, and does, operate based on their own independent determinations of authority.
♦ Notice also how FBI Director Comey shares his perspective that informing the National Security Council (NSC) is the equivalent of notifying the White House. The FBI leadership expressly believe they bear no responsibility to brief the Chief Executive. As long as they tell some unknown, unelected, bureaucratic entity inside the NSC, their unwritten responsibility to inform the top of their institutional silo is complete. If the IC wants to carve out the Oval Office, they simply plant information inside the NSC and, from their perspective, their civic responsibility to follow checks-and-balances is complete. This is an intentional construct.
♦ Notice how Comey obfuscates notification to the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), by avoiding the fact James Clapper was the DNI from outset of the counterintelligence operation throughout the remainder of Obama’s term. When I get deeper into the process, we will understand how the Intelligence Branch has intentionally used the creation of the DNI position (established post 9/11/01) as a method to avoid oversight, not enhance it. Keeping an oblivious doofus like James Clapper in position held strategic value [Doofus Reminder HERE].
That video of James Comey being questioned by Elise Stefanik was the first example given to me by someone who knew the background of everything that was taking place preceding that March 20, 2017, hearing. That FBI reference point is a key to understand how the Intelligence Branch operates with unilateral authority above Congress (legislative branch), above the White House (executive branch), and even above the court system (judicial branch).
Also, watch this short video of James Clapper, because it is likely many readers have forgotten, and likely even more readers have never seen it. Watch closely how then White House national security adviser John Brennan is responding in that video. This is before Brennan became CIA Director, this is when Brennan was helping Barack Obama put the pillars into place. WATCH:
[Sidebar: Every time I post this video it gets scrubbed from YouTube (example), so save it if you ever want to see it again.]
The video of James Clapper highlights how the ODNI position (created with good national security intention) ended up becoming the fulcrum for modern weaponization, and is now an office manipulated by agencies with a vested interest in retaining power. The Intelligence Branch holds power over the ODNI through their influence and partnership with the body that authorizes the power within it, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI).
Factually, the modern intelligence apparatus uses checks and balances in their favor. The checks create silos of proprietary information, classified information, vaults of information that work around oversight issues. The silos, which include the exploitation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court, or FISC) are part of the problem.
Ironically, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was created in the aftermath of 9/11/01 expressly to eliminate the silos of information which they felt led to a domestic terrorist attack that could have been prevented. The ODNI was created specifically upon the recommendation of the 9/11 commission.
The intent was to create a central hub of intelligence information, inside the Executive Branch, where the CIA, NSA, DoD, DoS, and DIA could deposit their unique intelligence products and a repository would be created so that domestic intelligence operations, like the DOJ and FBI could access them when needed to analyze threats to the U.S. This, they hoped, would ensure the obvious flags missed in the 9/11 attacks would not be missed again.
However, the creation of the DNI office also created an unconstitutional surveillance system of the American people. The DNI office became the tool to take massive amounts of data and use it to target specific Americans. Weaponizing the DNI office for political targeting is now the purpose of the DNI office as it exists.
The illegal and unlawful nature of the surveillance creates a need for careful protection amid the group who operate in the shadows of electronic information and domestic surveillance. You will see how it was critical to install a person uniquely skilled in being an idiot, James Clapper, into that willfully blind role while intelligence operatives worked around the office to assemble the Intelligence Branch of Government.
• The last federal budget that flowed through the traditional budgetary process was signed into law in September of 2007 for fiscal year 2008 by George W. Bush. Every budget since then has been a fragmented process of continuing resolutions and individual spending bills.
Why does this matter? Because many people think defunding the Intelligence Community is a solution; it is not…. at least, not yet. Worse yet, the corrupt divisions deep inside the U.S. intelligence system can now fund themselves from multinational private sector partnerships (banks, corporations and foreign entities).
• When Democrats took over the House of Representatives in January 2007, they took office with a plan. Nancy Pelosi became Speaker, and Democrats controlled the Senate where Harry Reid was Majority Leader. Barack Obama was a junior senator from Illinois.
Pelosi and Reid intentionally did not advance a budget in 2008 (for fiscal year 2009) because their plan included installing Barack Obama (and all that came with him) with an open checkbook made even more lucrative by a worsening financial crisis and a process called baseline budgeting. Baseline budgeting means the prior fiscal year budget is accepted as the starting point for the next year budget. All previous expenditures are baked into the cake within baseline budgeting.
Massive bailouts preceded Obama’s installation due to U.S. economic collapse, and massive bailouts continued after his installation. This is the ‘never let a crisis go to waste’ aspect. TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program), auto bailouts (GM), and the massive stimulus spending bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, ie. those shovel ready jobs) were all part of the non-budget spending. The federal reserve assisted with Quantitative Easing (QE1 and QE2) as congress passed various Porkulous spending bills further spending and replacing the formal budget process.
Note: There has never been a budget passed in the normal/traditional process since September of 2007.
• While Obama’s radical ‘transformation‘ was triggered across a broad range of government institutions, simultaneously spending on the U.S. military was cut, but spending on the intelligence apparatus expanded. We were all distracted by Obamacare, and the Republican Party wanted to keep us that way. However, in the background there was a process of transformation taking place that included very specific action by Eric Holder and targeted effort toward the newest executive agency the ODNI.
The people behind Obama, those same people now behind Joe Biden, knew from years of strategic planning that ‘radical transformation’ would require control over specific elements inside the U.S. government. Eric Holder played a key role in his position as U.S. Attorney General in the DOJ.
AG Holder recruited ideologically aligned political operatives who were aware of the larger institutional objectives. One of those objectives was weaponizing the DOJ-National Security Division (DOJ-NSD) a division inside the DOJ that had no inspector general oversight. For most people the DOJ-NSD weaponization surfaced with a hindsight awakening of the DOJ-NSD targeting candidate Donald Trump many years later. However, by then the Holder crew had executed almost eight full years of background work.
• The second larger Obama/Holder objective was control over the FBI. Why was that important? Because the FBI does the domestic investigative work on anyone who needs or holds a security clearance. The removal of security clearances could be used as a filter to further build the internal ideological army they were assembling. Additionally, with new power in the ODNI created as a downstream consequence of the Patriot Act, new protocols for U.S. security clearances were easy to justify.
Carefully selecting fellow ideological travelers was facilitated by this filtration within the security clearance process. How does that issue later manifest? Just look around at how politicized every intelligence agency has become, specifically including the FBI.
• At the exact same time this new background security clearance process was ongoing, again everyone distracted by the fight over Obamacare, inside the Department of State (Secretary Hillary Clinton) a political alignment making room for the next phase was being assembled. Names like Samantha Power, Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton were familiar on television while Lisa Monaco worked as a legal liaison between the Obama White House and Clinton State Department.
Through the Dept of State (DoS) the intelligence apparatus began working on their first steps to align Big Tech with a larger domestic institutional objective. Those of you who remember the “Arab Spring”, some say “Islamist Spring”, will remember it was triggered by Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo – his first foreign trip. The State Department worked with grassroots organizers (mostly Muslim Brotherhood) in Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Qatar and Libya. Obama leaned heavily on the organizational network of Turkish President Recep Erdogan for contacts and support.
Why does this aspect matter to us? Well, you might remember how much effort the Obama administration put into recruiting Facebook and Twitter as resources for the various mideast rebellions the White House and DoS supported. This was the point of modern merge between the U.S. intelligence community and Big Tech social media.
In many ways, the coordinated political outcomes in Libya and Egypt were the beta test for the coordinated domestic political outcomes we saw in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The U.S. intelligence community working with social media platforms and political operatives.
Overlaying all of that background activity was also a new alignment of the Obama-era intelligence apparatus with ideological federal “contractors“. Where does this contractor activity manifest? In the FISA Court opinion of Rosemary Collyer who cited the “interagency memorandum of understanding”, or MOU.
Hopefully, you can see a small part of how tentacled the system to organize/weaponize the intelligence apparatus was. None of this was accidental, all of this was by design, and the United States Senate was responsible for intentionally allowing most of this to take place. The tools the government used to monitor threats were now being used to monitor every American. WE THE PEOPLE were now the threat the national security system was monitoring.
That’s the 30,000/ft level backdrop history of what was happening as the modern IC was created. Next, we will go into how all these various intelligence networks began working in unison and how they currently control all of the other DC institutions under them; including how they can carve out the President from knowing their activity.
♦ When Barack Obama was installed in January 2009, the Democrats held a 60 seat majority in the U.S. Senate. As the people behind the Obama installation began executing their longer-term plan, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was a tool to create the Intelligence Branch; it was not an unintentional series of events.
When Obama was installed, Dianne Feinstein was the Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and Democrat operative Dan Jones was her lead staffer. Feinstein was completely controlled by those around her including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The CIA was in the process of turning over personnel following the Bush era, and as a result of a massive multi-year narrative of diminished credibility (Iraq WMD), a deep purge was underway. Obama/Holder were in the process of shifting intelligence alignment and the intensely political Democrat Leader Harry Reid was a key participant.
THE TRAP – Many people say that Congress is the solution to eliminating the Fourth and superseding Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. This is an exercise in futility because the Legislative Branch, specifically the SSCI, facilitated the creation of the Intelligence Branch. The SSCI cannot put the genie they created back in the bottle without admitting they too are corrupt; and the background story of their corruption is way too intense to be exposed now.
Every member of the SSCI is compromised in some controlling manner. Those Senators who disliked the control over them; specifically disliked because the risk of sunlight was tenuous and, well, possible; have either left completely or stepped down from the committee. None of the SSCI members past or present would ever contemplate saying openly what their tenure involved.
[Note: You might remember when Vice Chairman Mark Warner’s text messages surfaced, there was a controlled Republican SSCI member who came to his defense in February of 2018. It was not accidental that exact Senator later became the chair of the SSCI himself. That Republican Senator is Marco Rubio, now vice-chair since the Senate re-flipped back to the optics of Democrat control in 2021.]
All of President Obama’s 2009 intelligence appointments required confirmation from the Senate. The nominees had to first pass through the Democrat controlled SSCI, and then to a full Senate vote where Democrats held a 60 vote majority. Essentially, Obama got everyone he wanted in place easily. Rahm Emmanuel was Obama’s Chief of Staff, and Valerie Jarrett was Senior Advisor.
Tim Geithner was Treasury Secretary in 2010 when the joint DOJ/FBI and IRS operation to target the Tea Party took place after the midterm “shellacking” caused by the Obamacare backlash. Mitch McConnell was Minority Leader in the Senate but supported the targeting of the Tea Party as his Senate colleagues were getting primaried by an angry and effective grassroots campaign. McConnell’s friend, Senator Bob Bennett, getting beaten in Utah was the final straw.
Dirty Harry and Mitch McConnell saw the TEA Party through the same prism. The TEA Party took Kennedy’s seat in Massachusetts (Scott Brown); Sharon Angle was about to take out Harry Reid in Nevada; Arlen Spector was taken down in Pennsylvania; Senator Robert Byrd died; Senator Lisa Murkowski lost her primary to Joe Miller in Alaska; McConnell’s nominee Mike Castle lost to Christine O’Donnell in Delaware; Rand Paul won in Kentucky. This is the background. The peasants were revolting…. and visibly angry Mitch McConnell desperately made a deal with the devil to protect himself.
In many ways, the TEA Party movement was/is very similar to the MAGA movement. The difference in 2010 was the absence of a head of the movement, in 2015 Donald Trump became that head figure who benefited from the TEA Party energy. Trump came into office in 2017 with the same congressional opposition as the successful TEA Party candidates in 2011.
Republicans took control of the Senate following the 2014 mid-terms. Republicans took control of the SSCI in January 2015. Senator Richard Burr became chairman of the SSCI, and Dianne Feinstein shifted to Vice-Chair. Dirty Harry Reid left the Senate, and Mitch McConnell took power again.
Republicans were in control of the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2015 when the Intelligence Branch operation against candidate Donald Trump was underway. [Feinstein’s staffer, Dan Jones, left the SSCI so he could act as a liaison and political operative between private-sector efforts (Fusion GPS, Chris Steele) and the SSCI.] The SSCI was a participant in that Fusion GPS/Chris Steele operation, and as a direct consequence Republicans were inherently tied to the problem with President Trump taking office in January of 2017. Indiana Republican Senator Dan Coats was a member of the SSCI.
Bottom line…. When it came to the intelligence system targeting Donald Trump during the 2015/2016 primary, the GOP was just as much at risk as their Democrat counterparts.
When Trump unexpectedly won the 2016 election, the SSCI was shocked more than most. They knew countermeasures would need to be deployed to protect themselves from any exposure of their prior intelligence conduct. Immediately Senator Dianne Feinstein stepped down from the SSCI, and Senator Mark Warner was elevated to Vice Chairman.
Indiana’s own Mike Pence, now Vice President, recommended fellow Hoosier, SSCI Senator Dan Coats, to become President Trump’s Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). [Apply hindsight here]
• To give an idea of the Intelligence Branch power dynamic, remind yourself how House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), Chairman Devin Nunes, tried to get access to the DOJ/FBI records of the FISA application used against the Trump campaign via Carter Page.
Remember, Devin Nunes only saw a portion of the FISA trail from his review of a Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) previously given to President Obama. Chairman Nunes had to review the PDB at the White House SCIF due to compartmented intelligence, another example of the silo benefit.
Remember the massive stonewalling and blocking of the DOJ/FBI toward Nunes? Remember the back and forth battle over declassification surrounding the Nunes memo?
Remember, after Nunes went directly to House Speaker Paul Ryan for help (didn’t get any), the DOJ only permitted two members from each party within the HPSCI to review the documents, and only at the DOJ offices of main justice?
Contrast that amount of House Intel Committee railroading and blocking by intelligence operatives in the DOJ, DOJ-NSD and FBI, with the simple request by Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner asking to see the Carter Page FISA application and immediately a copy being delivered to him on March 17th 2017.
Can you see which intelligence committee is aligned with the deepest part of the deep state?
The contrast of ideological alignment between the House, Senate and Intelligence Branch is crystal clear when viewed through the prism of cooperation. You can see which legislative committee holds the power and support of the Intelligence Branch. The Senate Intel Committee facilitates the corrupt existence of the IC Branch, so the IC Branch only cooperates with the Senate Intel Committee. It really is that simple.
• The Intelligence Branch carefully selects its own members by controlling how security clearances are investigated and allowed (FBI). The Intelligence Branch also uses compartmentalization of intelligence as a way to keep each agency, and each downstream branch of government (executive, legislative and judicial), at arms length as a method to stop anyone from seeing the larger picture of their activity. I call this the “silo effect“, and it is done by design.
I have looked at stunned faces when I presented declassified silo product from one agency to the silo customers of another. You would be astonished at what they don’t know because it is not in their ‘silo’.
Through the advice and consent rules, the Intelligence Branch uses the SSCI to keep out people they consider dangerous to their ongoing operations. Any appointee to the intelligence community must first pass through the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, before they get a full Senate vote. If the SSCI rejects the candidate, they simply refuse to take up the nomination. The president is then blocked from that appointment. This is what happened with President Trump over and over again.
• Additionally, the Intelligence Branch protects itself, and its facilitating allies through the formal classification process. The Intelligence Branch gets to decide unilaterally what information will be released and what information will be kept secret. There is no entity outside the Intelligence Branch, and yes that includes the President of the United States, who can supersede the classification authority of the Intelligence Branch. {Go Deep} and {Go Deep} This is something 99.9% of the people on our side get totally and frustratingly wrong.
No one can declassify, or make public, anything the Intelligence Branch will not agree to. Doubt this? Ask Ric Grenell, John Ratcliffe, or even President Trump himself.
• The classification process is determined inside the Intelligence Branch, all by themselves. They get to choose what rank of classification exists on any work product they create; and they get to decide what the classification status is of any work product that is created by anyone else. The Intelligence Branch has full control over what is considered classified information and what is not. The Intelligence Branch defines what is a “national security interest” and what is not. A great technique for hiding fingerprints of corrupt and illegal activity.
[For familiar reference see the redactions to Lisa Page and Peter Strzok text messages. The Intelligence Branch does all redactions.]
• Similarly, the declassification process is a request by an agency, even a traditionally superior agency like the President of the United States, to the Intelligence Branch asking for them to release the information. The Intelligence Branch again holds full unilateral control. If the head of the CIA refuses to comply with the declassification instruction of the President, what can the president do except fire him/her? {Again, GO DEEP} How does the President replace the non-compliant cabinet member? They have to go through the SSCI confirmation. See the problem?
Yes, there are ways to break up the Intelligence Branch, but they do not start with any congressional effort. As you can see above, the process is the flaw – not the solution. Most conservative pundits have their emphasis on the wrong syllable. Their cornerstone is false.
For their own self-preservation, the Intelligence Branch has been interfering in our elections for years. The way to tear this apart begins with STATE LEVEL election reform that blocks the Legislative Branch from coordinating with the Intelligence Branch.
The extreme federalism approach is critical and also explains why Joe Biden has instructed Attorney General Merrick Garland to use the full power of the DOJ to stop state level election reform efforts. The worry of successful state level election control is also why the Intelligence Branch now needs to support the federal takeover of elections.
Our elections have been usurped by the Intelligence Branch. Start with honest elections and we will see just how much Democrat AND Republican corruption is dependent on manipulated election results. Start at the state level. Start there…. everything else is downstream.
♦ COLLAPSED OVERSIGHT – The modern system to ‘check’ the Executive Branch was the creation of the legislative “Gang of Eight,” a legislative oversight mechanism intended to provide a bridge of oversight between the authority of the intelligence community within the Executive Branch.
The Go8 construct was designed to allow the President authority to carry out intelligence operations and provide the most sensitive notifications to a select group within Congress.
The Go8 oversight is directed to the position, not the person, and consists of: (1) The Speaker of the House; (2) The Minority Leader of the House; (3) The Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, HPSCI; (4) The Ranking Member (minority) of the HPSCI; (5) The Leader of the Senate; (6) The Minority Leader of the Senate; (7) The Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, SSCI; and finally (8) the Vice-Chair of the SSCI.
Example: When the Chief Executive (the President) initiates an intelligence operation on behalf of the United States, the President triggers a “finding memo.” In essence, the instruction to the intel agency or agencies to authorize a covert operation. When that process takes place, the Go8 are the first people notified. Depending on the sensitivity of the operation, sometimes the G08 are notified immediately after the operation is conducted. The notification can be a phone call or an in-person briefing.
Because of the sensitivity of their intelligence information, the Gang of Eight hold security clearances that permit them to receive and review all intelligence operations. The intelligence community are also responsible for briefing the Go8 with the same information they use to brief the President.
~ 2021 Gang of Eight ~
The Go8 design is intended to put intelligence oversight upon both political parties in Congress; it is designed that way by informing the minority leaders of both the House and Senate as well as the ranking minority members of the SSCI and HPSCI. Under the concept, the President cannot conduct an intelligence operation; and the intelligence community cannot carry out intelligence gathering operations without the majority and minority parties knowing about it.
The modern design of this oversight system was done to keep rogue and/or corrupt intelligence operations from happening. However, as we shared in the preview to this entire discussion, the process was usurped during the Obama era. {GO DEEP}
Former FBI Director James Comey openly admitted to Congress on March 20, 2017, that the FBI, FBI Counterintelligence Division, DOJ and DOJ-National Security Division, together with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the CIA, had been conducting independent investigations of Donald Trump for over a year without informing the Go8. Comey justified the lack of informing Go8 oversight by saying, “because of the sensitivity of the matter.”
Stupidly, Congress never pressed James Comey on that issue. The arrogance was astounding, and the acceptance by Congress was infuriating. However, that specific example highlighted just how politically corrupt the system had become. In essence, Team Obama usurped the entire design of congressional oversight…. and Congress just brushed it off.
Keep in mind, Comey did not say the White House was unaware; in fact he said exactly the opposite, he said, “The White House was informed through the National Security Council,” (the NSC). The unavoidable implication and James Comey admission that everyone just brushed aside, was that President Obama’s National Security Advisor, Susan Rice, was informed of the intelligence operation(s) against Donald Trump. After all, the NSC reports to the National Security Advisor.
Does the January 20, 2017, Susan Rice memo look different now?
Again, no one saw the immediate issue. What Comey just described on that March day in 2017 was the usurpation of the entire reason the Gang of Eight exists; to eliminate the potential for political weaponization of the Intelligence Community by the executive branch. The G08 notifications to the majority and minority are specifically designed to make sure what James Comey admitted to doing was never supposed to happen.
Team Obama carried out a political operation using the intelligence community and the checks-and-balances in the system were intentionally usurped. This is an indisputable fact.
Worse still, the entire legislative branch of Congress, which then specifically included the Republicans that now controlled the House and Senate, did nothing. They just ignored what was admitted. The usurpation was willfully ignored.
The mechanism of the G08 was bypassed without a twitch of condemnation or investigation…. because the common enemy was Donald Trump.
This example highlights the collapse of the system. Obama, the Executive Branch, collapsed the system by usurping the process; in essence the process became the bigger issue, and the lack of immediate Legislative Branch reaction became evidence of open acceptance. The outcomes of the usurpation played out over the next four years, Donald J. Trump was kneecapped and lost his presidency because of it. However, the bigger issue of the collapse still exists.
The downstream consequence of the Legislative Branch accepting the Executive Branch usurpation meant both intelligence committees were compromised. Additionally, the leadership of both the House and Senate were complicit. Think about this carefully. The Legislative Branch allowance of the intelligence usurpation meant the Legislative Branch was now subservient to the Intelligence Branch.
That’s where we are.
Right now.
That’s where we are.
Term-3 Obama is now back in the White House with Joe Biden.
NOTE: Former Obama National Security aide and counsel to the President, Lisa Monaco, is in her current position as Deputy Attorney General, specifically to make sure all of these revelations do not become a legal risk to Barack Obama and the people who created them. The SSCI confirmed Monaco for this purpose because the Senate is just as much at risk.
Term-1 and Term-2 Obama usurped the ‘check and balance‘ within the system and weaponized the intelligence apparatus. During Trump’s term that weaponization was covered up by a compliant congress, complicit senate intelligence committee, and not a single member of the oversight called it out. Now, Term-3 Obama steps back in to continue the cover up and continue the weaponization.
Hopefully, you can now see the scale of the problem that surrounds us with specific citation for what has taken place. What I just explained to you above is not conspiracy theory, it is admitted fact that anyone can look upon. Yet….
Have you seen this mentioned anywhere? Have you seen this called out by anyone in Congress? Have you seen anyone in media (ally or adversary) call this out? Have you seen any member of the Judicial Branch stand up and say wait, what is taking place is not okay? Have you seen a single candidate for elected office point this out? Have you seen anyone advising a candidate to point this out?
This is our current status. It is not deniable. The truth exists regardless of our comfort.
Not a single person in power will say openly what has taken place. They are scared of the Fourth Branch. The evidence of what has taken place is right there in front of our face. The words, actions and activities of those who participated in this process are not deniable, in fact most of it is on record.
There are only two members of the Gang of Eight who have existed in place from January 2007 (the real beginning of Obama’s term, two years before he took office when the Congress flipped). Only two members of the G08 have been consistently in place from January of 2007 to right now, today. All the others came and went, but two members of the Gang of Eight have been part of that failed and collapsed oversight throughout the past 15 years, Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell.
♦ TECHNOLOGY – On a global scale – the modern intelligence gathering networks are now dependent on data collection to execute their intelligence missions. In the digital age nations have been executing various methods to gather that data. Digital surveillance has replaced other methods of interception. Those surveillance efforts have resulted in a coalescing of regional data networks based on historic multi-national relationships.
We have a recent frame of reference for the “U.S. data collection network” within the NSA. Through the allied process the Five Eyes nations all rely on the NSA surveillance database (U.K, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and U.S.) The NSA database provides the digital baseline for intelligence operations in defense of our allies. The portals into the NSA database are essentially an assembly of allies in like-minded ideological connection to the United States.
Unfortunately, there have been some revelations about the NSA database being used to monitor our allies, like in the example of Germany and surveillance on Angela Merkel’s phone. As long as “the good guys” are operating honorably, allies of the United States can feel confident about having protection from the NSA surveillance of global digital data. We warn our friends if we detect something dangerous etc.
The U.S. has nodes on communication pipelines to intercept and extract data. We have also launched hundreds, perhaps thousands, of satellites to conduct surveillance and gather up data. All of this data is fed into the NSA database where it is monitored (presumably) as a national security mechanism, and in defense of our allies.
However, what about data collection or data networks that are outside the NSA database? What do our enemies do? The NSA database is just one intelligence operation of digital surveillance amid the entire world, and we do not allow access by adversaries we are monitoring. So what do they do? What do our allies do who might not trust the United States due to past inconsistencies, ie. the Middle East?
The answers to those questions highlight other data collection networks. So, a brief review of the major players is needed.
♦ CHINA – China operates their own database. They, like the NSA, scoop up data for their system. Like us, China launches satellites and deploys other electronic data collection methods to download into their database. This is why the issues of electronic devices manufactured in China becomes problematic. Part of the Chinese data collection system involves the use of spyware, hacking and extraction.
Issues with Chinese communication company Huawei take on an added dimension when you consider the goal of the Chinese government to conduct surveillance and assemble a network of data to compete with the United States via the NSA. Other Chinese methods of surveillance and data-collection are less subversive, as in the examples of TicTok and WeChat. These are Chinese social media companies that are scraping data just like the NSA scrapes data from Facebook, Twitter and other Silicon Valley tech companies. [ Remember, the Intelligence Branch is a public-private partnership. ]
♦ RUSSIA – It is very likely that Russia operates their own database. We know Russia launches satellites, just like China and the USA, for the same purposes. Russia is also very proficient at hacking into other databases and extracting information to store and utilize in their own network. The difference between the U.S., China and Russia is likely that Russia spends more time on the hacking aspect because they do not generate actual technology systems as rapidly as the U.S. and China.
The most recent database creation is an outcome of an ally having to take action because they cannot rely on the ideology of the United States remaining consistent, as the administrations ping-pong based on ideology.
♦ SAUDI ARABIA – Yes, in 2016 we discovered that Saudi Arabia was now operating their own intelligence data-gathering operation. It would make sense, given the nature of the Middle East and the constant fluctuations in political support from the United States. It is a lesson the allied Arab community and Gulf Cooperation Council learned quickly when President Obama went to Cairo in 2009 and launched the Islamist Spring (Arab Spring) upon them.
I have no doubt the creation of the Saudi intelligence network was specifically because the Obama administration started supporting radical Islamists within the Muslim Brotherhood and threw fuel on the fires of extremism all over the Arab world.
Think about it., What would you do if you were Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE, Jordan, Oman or Yemen and you knew the United States could just trigger an internal uprising of al-Qaeda, ISIS and the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood to seek your destruction?
Without a doubt, those urgent lessons from 2009, 2010, 2011 triggered the formation of the Arab Intelligence Network as a network to defend itself with consistency. They assembled the network and activated it in 2017 as pictured above.
♦ Israel – Along a similar outlook to the Arab network, no doubt Israel operates an independent data collection system as a method of protecting itself from ever-changing U.S. politics amid a region that is extremely hostile to its very existence. Like the others, Israel launches proprietary satellites, and we can be sure they use covert methods to gather electronic data just like the U.S. and China.
As we have recently seen in the Pegasus story, Israel creates spyware programs that are able to track and monitor cell phone communications of targets. The spyware would not work unless Israel had access to some network where the phone meta-data was actually stored. So yeah, it makes sense for Israel to operate an independent intelligence database.
♦ Summary: As we understand the United States Intelligence Branch of government as the superseding entity that controls the internal politics of our nation, we also must consider that multiple nations have the same issue. There are major intelligence networks around the world beside the NSA “Five-Eyes” database. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel all operate proprietary databases deploying the same tools and techniques for assembly.
The geopolitical conflict that has always existed has now shifted into a digital battle-space. The Intelligence Agencies from these regions are now operating as the backbone of the government that uses them, and has become dependent on them. [<- Reread that].
Once you accept the digital-era intelligence apparatus of China, Russia, Saudi-Arabia, The United States and Israel, are now the primary national security mechanisms for stabilization of government; then you accept the importance of those intelligence operations.
Once you understand how foundational those modern intelligence operations have become for the stability and continuity of those governments…… then you begin to understand just how the United States intelligence community became more important than the government that created it.
From that point it is then critical to understand that domestic intelligence operations are underway to monitor the electronic communication of American citizens inside our own country. YOU are under surveillance. The parents who confront school boards are under surveillance. The political operatives inside the FBI are monitoring everyone who comes onto the radar, that is why the National School Boards Association asked the White House, then the DOJ, to have the FBI start targeting parents. Are things making sense now?
♦ Public Private Partnership – The modern Fourth Branch of Government is only possible because of a Public-Private partnership with the intelligence apparatus. You do not have to take my word for it, the partnership is so brazened they have made public admissions.
The biggest names in Big Tech announced in June their partnership with the Five Eyes intelligence network, ultimately controlled by the NSA, to: (1) monitor all activity in their platforms; (2) identify extremist content; (3) look for expressions of Domestic Violent Extremism (DVE); and then, (4) put the content details into a database where the Five Eyes intelligence agencies (U.K., U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand) can access it.
Facebook, Twitter, Google and Microsoft are all partnering with the intelligence apparatus. It might be difficult to fathom how openly they admit this, but they do. Look at this sentence in the press release (emphasis mine):
[…] “The Group will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.”
Think about that sentence structure very carefully. They are “adding to” the preexisting list…. admitting the group (aka Big Tech) already have access to the the intelligence-sharing database… and also admitting there is a preexisting list created by the Five Eyes consortium.
Obviously, who and what is defined as “extremist content” will be determined by the Big Tech insiders themselves. This provides a gateway, another plausible deniability aspect, to cover the Intelligence Branch from any oversight.
When the Intelligence Branch within government wants to conduct surveillance and monitor American citizens, they run up against problems due to the Constitution of the United States. They get around those legal limitations by sub-contracting the intelligence gathering, the actual data mining, and allowing outside parties (contractors) to have access to the central database.
The government cannot conduct electronic searches (4th amendment issue) without a warrant; however, private individuals can search and report back as long as they have access. What is being admitted is exactly that preexisting partnership. The difference is that Big Tech will flag the content from within their platforms, and now a secondary database filled with the extracted information will be provided openly for the Intelligence Branch to exploit.
The volume of metadata captured by the NSA has always been a problem because of the filters needed to make the targeting useful. There is a lot of noise in collecting all data that makes the parts you really want to identify more difficult to capture. This new admission puts a new massive filtration system in the metadata that circumvents any privacy protections for individuals.
Previously, the Intelligence Branch worked around the constitutional and unlawful search issue by using resources that were not in the United States. A domestic U.S. agency, working on behalf of the U.S. government, cannot listen on your calls without a warrant. However, if the U.S. agency sub-contracts to say a Canadian group, or foreign ally, the privacy invasion is no longer legally restricted by U.S. law.
What was announced in June 2021 is an alarming admission of a prior relationship along with open intent to define their domestic political opposition as extremists.
July 26 (Reuters) – A counterterrorism organization formed by some of the biggest U.S. tech companies including Facebook (FB.O) and Microsoft (MSFT.O) is significantly expanding the types of extremist content shared between firms in a key database, aiming to crack down on material from white supremacists and far-right militias, the group told Reuters.
Until now, the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism’s (GIFCT) database has focused on videos and images from terrorist groups on a United Nations list and so has largely consisted of content from Islamist extremist organizations such as Islamic State, al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Over the next few months, the group will add attacker manifestos – often shared by sympathizers after white supremacist violence – and other publications and links flagged by U.N. initiative Tech Against Terrorism. It will use lists from intelligence-sharing group Five Eyes, adding URLs and PDFs from more groups, including the Proud Boys, the Three Percenters and neo-Nazis.
The firms, which include Twitter (TWTR.N) and Alphabet Inc’s (GOOGL.O) YouTube, share “hashes,” unique numerical representations of original pieces of content that have been removed from their services. Other platforms use these to identify the same content on their own sites in order to review or remove it. (read more)
The influence of the Intelligence Branch now reaches into our lives, our personal lives.
In the decades before 9/11/01 the intelligence apparatus intersected with government, influenced government, and undoubtedly controlled many institutions with it. The legislative oversight function was weak and growing weaker, but it still existed and could have been used to keep the IC in check. However, after the events of 9/11/01, the short-sighted legislative reactions opened the door to allow the surveillance state to weaponize against domestic enemies.
After the Patriot Act was triggered, not coincidentally only six weeks after 9/11, a slow and dangerous fuse was lit that ends with the intelligence apparatus being granted a massive amount of power. Simultaneously the mission of the intelligence community now encompassed monitoring domestic threats as defined by the people who operate the surveillance system.
The problem with assembled power is always what happens when a Machiavellian network takes control over that power and begins the process to weaponize the tools for their own malicious benefit. That is exactly what the network of President Barack Obama did.
The Obama network took pre-assembled intelligence weapons (we should never have allowed to be created) and turned those weapons into political tools for his radical and fundamental change. The target was the essential fabric of our nation.
Ultimately, this corrupt political process gave power to create the Fourth Branch of Government, the Intelligence Branch. From that perspective the fundamental change was successful.
This is the scale of corrupt political compromise on both sides of the DC dynamic that we are up against. Preserving this system is also what removing Donald Trump is all about…. And like I said in the precursor, I doubt Donald Trump fully comprehends the motives of his opposition.
World-renowned Economist Martin Armstrong joins Maria Zeee to discuss what he describes as “Hell” in 2023, the recession we are already in, the rise of civil unrest, and more – but he says Schwab WILL fail! Click here to learn more!
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 30, 2022 | Sundance
It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..
Right before the pandemic would hit a few months later…. Despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, all of them saying Trump’s 2017 steel and aluminum tariffs on China, Canada and the EU would create massive inflation, it just wasn’t happening!
Overall year-over-year inflation was hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; yup, that was our inflation rate. The rate in the latter half of 2019 was firmed up with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate basically remained consistent. [See Below] The U.S. economy was on a smooth glide path, strong, stable and Main Street was growing with MAGAnomics at work.
A couple of important points. First, unleashing the energy sector to drive down overall costs to consumers and industry outputs was a key part of President Trump’s America-First MAGAnomic initiative. Lower energy prices help the worker economy, middle class and average American more than any other sector.
Which brings us to the second important point. Notice how food prices had very low year-over-year inflation, 0.5 percent. That is a combination of two key issues: low energy costs, and the fracturing of Big Ag hold on the farm production and the export dynamic:
(BLS) […] The index for food at home declined for the third month in a row, falling 0.2 percent. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs decreased 0.7 percent in August as the index for eggs fell 2.6 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables, which rose in July, fell 0.5 percent in August; the index for fresh fruits declined 1.4 percent, but the index for fresh vegetables rose 0.4 percent. The index for cereals and bakery products fell 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.3 percent in July. (link)
For the previous twenty years food prices had been increasingly controlled by Big Ag, and not by normal supply and demand. The commodity market became a ‘controlled market’. U.S. food outputs (farm production) was controlled and exported to keep the U.S. consumer paying optimal prices.
President Trump’s trade reset was disrupting this process. As farm products were less exported the cost of the food in our supermarket became reconnected to a ‘more normal’ supply and demand cycle. Food prices dropped and our pantry costs were lowered.
The Commerce Dept. then announced that retail sales climbed by 0.4 percent in August 2019, twice as high as the 0.2 percent analysts had predicted. The result highlighted retail sales strength of more than 4 percent year-over-year. These excellent results came on the heels of blowout data in July, when households boosted purchases of cars and clothing.
The better-than-expected number stemmed largely from a 1.8 percent jump in spending vehicles. Online sales, meanwhile, also continued to climb, rising 1.6 percent. That’s similar to July, 2019, when Amazon held its two-day, blowout Prime Day sale. (link)
Despite the efforts to remove and impeach President Trump, it did not look like middle-class America was overly concerned about the noise coming from the pundits. Likely that’s because blue-collar wages were higher, Main Street inflation was lower, and overall consumer confidence was strong. Yes, MAGAnomics was working.
Additionally, remember all those MSM hours and newspaper column inches where the professional financial pundits were claiming Trump’s tariffs were going to cause massive increases in prices of consumer goods?
Well, exactly the opposite happened [BLS report] Import prices were continuing to drop:
This was a really interesting dynamic that no-one in the professional punditry would dare explain.
Donald Trump’s tariffs were targeted to specific sectors of imported products. [Steel, Aluminum, and a host of smaller sectors etc.] However, when the EU and China respond by devaluing their currency, that approach hit all products imported, not just the tariff goods.
Because the EU and China were driving up the value of the dollar, everything we were importing became cheaper. Not just imports from Europe and China, but actually imports from everywhere. All imports were entering the U.S. at substantially lower prices.
This meant when we imported products, we were also importing deflation.
This price result is exactly the opposite of what the economic experts and Wall Street pundits predicted back in 2017 and 2018 when they were pushing the rapid price increase narrative.
Because all the export dependent economies were reacting with such urgency to retain their access to the U.S. market, aggregate import prices were actually lower than they were when the Trump tariffs began:
[…] Prices for imports from China edged down 0.1 percent in August following decreases of 0.2 percent in both July and June. Import prices from China have not advanced on a monthly basis since ticking up 0.1 percent in May 2018. The price index for imports from China fell 1.6 percent for the year ended in August.
[…] Import prices from the European Union fell 0.2 percent in August and 0.3 percent over the past 12 months.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on July 30, 2022 | Sundance
At first blush I’m inclined to see Jose Ruben Zamora as the Latin version of Jamal Khashoggi; which is to say, he glows CIA.
Yesterday in Guatemala, the government arrested a “journalist” and “businessman” named Jose Ruben Zamora who was the publisher of a national newspaper and strong opposition voice against the conservative government of President Alejandro Giammattei [WSJ link]. Today, Guatemalan President Giammattei is reported to have survived an assassination attempt, leaving people injured as a result of gunfire [details sketchy].
(Via WSJ) – […] Guatemalan police arrested José Rubén Zamora, a businessman and renowned journalist who heads the elPeriódico newspaper, at his house in a tree-lined residential neighborhood in the capital after a judge issued an arrest warrant against him, the country’s attorney general’s office said.
“This is a political persecution,” Mr. Zamora told reporters, flanked by policemen, in front of his house. A group of people gathered at the site, shouting: “You are not alone! You are not alone!”
The head of the anticorruption unit at the attorney general’s office in charge of the investigation, Rafael Curruchiche, said the arrest had nothing to do with Mr. Zamora’s work as a journalist but with his business activities.
[…] Associations of journalists, human-rights advocacy groups and some legal experts denounced Mr. Zamora’s arrest as an assault on freedom of speech and open intimidation in reprisal for the newspaper’s coverage. (read more)
I’m sorry to say this, but in this new political era – when associations of multinational media organizations and NGO type human rights groups suddenly start protesting the arrest of a journalist suspected of criminal activity, I no longer grant the benefit of doubt.
In this new era, we have passed through the looking glass. NATO now represents the manipulative globalist bad guys in collusion with corporations; Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is a corrupt grifter and transparent tool of the U.S. State Dept and CIA; WaPo’s Jamal Khashoggi held all the optics and behaviors of a western intelligence agent; and the U.S. media have become narrative engineers who willingly feed on a constant stream of false information by intelligence assets intent on shaping American opinion.
As a result, when all the betters who tell me that J6 was a bigger threat to democracy than 9/11; the same people who call Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro a dictator; the same people who claimed Chairman Kim Jong-Un was a mad man; are also telling me to suspect Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei of being a strong-armed dictator arresting the poor and virtuous journalist Jose Zamora, who uses his hair to knit sweaters for homeless kittens, my suspicious cat crawls atop the tree of cynicism and gives me the side-eye.
Then we overlay how much various central American nations are influenced by the United States government, and, well, we find ourselves being predisposed toward the opposite of what the narrative engineers claim.
Public skepticism is the result of what Senator Grassley recently called “institutionally corrupt” U.S. government behavior.
Guatemalan police have arrested José Rubén Zamora, president of elPeriódico and a vocal critic of the country’s government https://t.co/M7OoRq2rxc
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