Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 25, 2022 | Sundance
I have given a great deal of thought to this in the past several years and I am welcoming all opinions. Just to let you know I intend to read every single comment, because ultimately this is important. AND I believe it will become a silent topic in the next two years [As did the recent conversation of Ballots -vs- Votes].
In 2010 the Supreme Court ruled on a campaign finance legal challenge known colloquially as The Citizens United decision. The essence of the decision was a speech issue. In the court’s opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that limiting “independent political spending” from corporations and other groups violates the First Amendment right to free speech.
Prior to CU corporations were limited in financial spending on behalf of political campaigns just like individuals. However, unions were not. Organized Labor Unions could spend unlimited amounts in support of candidates. Corporations were limited like individuals.
At the time of the January 2010 Supreme Court ruling Democrats and Barack Obama were furious. Corporations could not form SuperPACs and spend unlimited amounts of money ‘independently’ supporting candidates.
Federal Election Commission (FEC) rules on coordination and communication between the political campaigns and the independent SuperPACs was/is supposed to create a firewall. However, the obscure nature of that effort has failed miserably.
Real World Example. A SuperPAC can organize a pro-Ben rally, spend on the venue, spend on the banners, t-shirts, rally material etc., and then advertise it. If Ben shows up to deliver a speech, he’s not breaking the rules so long as Ben and the SuperPAC didn’t coordinate the event. Ben just shows up to share his support for the effort, thank everyone and everything is legal in the eyes of the FEC. Yeah, it’s goofy.
More commonly as a result of the Citizens United (CU) case, massive corporate advertising (considered speech) is permitted in support of the candidate; or the corporation can organize ballot collection or get out the vote efforts, etc. Again, as long as they do not coordinate with any “official campaign” ie. Mark Zuckerbucks, yeah, goofy. As a result, expanded corporate spending has massive influence over U.S. elections.
♦ Oppose CU – Democrats opposed the CU decision because they had an advantage with organized labor. Labor unions were considered a representative body of collective individual membership interests and could spend without limit on campaign support. Organized labor unions supported democrats. Factually, Barack Obama won his 2008 election specifically because the SEIU, AFSCME, UFCW, AFL-CIO and other organized labor supported him over Hillary Clinton.
The CU decision watered down this overall Democrat advantage because now corporations funding Republicans could counterbalance the spending support of the labor unions. Democrats stated the CU decision would inject billions into politics and would increase corruption.
♦ PRO CU – Republicans, in a general sense, supported the CU decision mostly because it did level the field with labor unions and also because the corporate lobbyist connections to the republican party meant a lot of corporate money was available to fuel republican Super Political Action Committees (SuperPACs). Factually, the CU decision created the ability of SuperPACs to exist.
The business of politics expanded with the CU decision and ultimately both the DNC and RNC clubs evolved to enjoy this unlimited donor spending.
The business sector of politics expanded as the financial aspects to the it grew. SuperPACs could now fund consultants, polling firms, campaign systems and the money inside politics as a business exploded.
Now we have political campaigns where spending tens-of-millions on a single race is commonplace. The modern ballot collection (harvesting etc) is now funded by this same flow of unlimited financial resources.
At the time of the 2010 Citizens United decision, I personally was in support of the ruling. However, in hindsight the benefits of leveling the field with organized labor have become overshadowed by the negatives associated with corporations now in control of which candidates achieve office.
Money was always a corrupting issue and politicians working on behalf of their donors was always problematic, long before the Supreme Court CU decision. However, CU exploded that problem on a scale that was/is almost unimaginable at the time.
A previous several million-dollar presidential campaign is now a multi-billion-dollar venture, and the corporations are purchasing every outcome.
So, here’s the question….
Knowing what you know now, how do you feel about the Citizens United decision?
The world masters dictating to us, the scum of the earth, have adopted under the pretense of the COVID vaccine the means to shut down migration and travel internationally. This will naturally further restrict global economic growth, and everywhere we turn, these people claiming to be world leaders are leading us into a cliff on the other side of 2032.
We were hoping to hold a WEC in Dubai where everyone can fly into without vaccines — an international reunion face to face. These leaders of the world’s largest economies at the Bali G20 drafted and signed a declaration in which the 20 countries agreed to adopt vaccine passports with the purported goal of promoting global travel and tourism. In fact, any country adopting this will have the opposite impact. I have resigned myself that I will never see Australia, New Zealand, or Europe ever again. Whatever these people can do to destroy the world economy, they are doing
Those who understand what is really taking place and that we are on the edge of global defaults post-2024 are not likely to take these vaccines. Hence, they are really trying to prevent movements that will overthrow governments. Just like communism fell in 1989, our Western economies will collapse, and they cannot prevent it. It will not necessitate massive civil unrest. People are not buying their long-term debt anymore, and when they cannot keep funding this insanity, they will collapse of their own accord. This is not some child’s game of blowing bubbles. We live in the real world.
Click here or on the video above to view my most recent interview with the Financial Repression Authority. Our friends at MoneyTalks created a nice overview of the interview that you may read here.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 24, 2022 | sundance
There is a significant lag in all data within the housing market. That said, the third quarter (July, Aug, Sept) data reflects a significant drop in institutional investment within the housing market.
If you look closely at the timing (keep in mind the data reporting lag) what you will notice is that financial institutions began a big surge in purchasing hard assets, specifically real estate, as soon as Joe Biden took office (Jan ’21), and the economic policy became evident. Intangible financial instruments became an immediate risk as the professional financial control groups recognized energy policy would drive inflation (supply side) and devalued money would fuel it (demand side).
As an offset to predictable inflationary policy (the insiders’ game), institutional money (Blackrock, Vanguard etc) was moved into hard assets with tangible value. This shift in asset allocation, institutional sales, helped fuel a false surge in home prices and their valuations. CTH was writing about this in 2021, and sounding alarms as it took place. 25% of all real estate purchases were being made by institutional investors.
The dynamic was predictable. The Biden administration economic policy, energy policy and monetary policy, was going to cause massive inflation. CTH was shouting about it in early 2021 and warning everyone to prepare for waves of price increases that would naturally surface first on high-turn consumable goods, and then embed into longer-term durable goods.
Despite claims to the contrary, this 2021 inflationary explosion had nothing to do with the pandemic or supply chain shortages. It is entirely self-created by western governmental policy; the collective ‘Build Back Better’ agenda. You can see now from the background moves within the financial sectors, they too knew the reality and their money shifts reflected that despite their ‘transitory’ pretending they were mitigating their own exposure.
We the People were yet again going to be victims of specifically intended monetary, regulatory, energy and economic policy.
The investment class rulers of the WEF assembly shifted assets to avoid the pain that we would feel. We “would own nothing and be happy,” and their shifts would position them to own everything and be in control.
Overall govt spending and regulatory controls drove inflation for these past two years. The ‘demand side’ was blamed, despite the lack of demand. I will be proven right when history is concluded with this. Interest rates were raised by central banks in an effort to support the policies that are driving ‘supply side’ inflation, not demand side.
Energy policy was/is crushing the consumer by driving up the cost of all goods and services. To support the overall goal of changing global energy resource and development (a false and controlled global operation), central banks raised interest rates. Various western economies, including our own, have been pushed deeper into a state of contraction by central banks crushing consumer demand, and eliminating investment via increased borrowing costs.
In short, the goal was/is to lower energy consumption by shrinking the economic activity. This, according to the BBB plan, was needed at the same time as energy development was reduced. These economic outcomes are not organic, they are all being controlled by collective western government agreement.
Within this control dynamic, there was always going to be a point where the reaction of the people to their economic reality means the financial control elements need to shift direction. They will always maximize profit and minimized risk, while knowing what the larger objective remains.
Just like every other durable good, housing demand contracts as prices and costs become unaffordable. The loss of equity within your home is damaging to your own value or ability to borrow against it. From the perspective of an institutional asset, that same equity drop is an investment loss. Thus, just as a consumer would exit the housing market, so too will institutional investment groups now control the slow dumping of the asset to remove the equity they pumped into it.
Much of the investment housing will be retained as rental housing, with the monthly rents being part of the returns on the investments. However, as this dynamic unfolds further purchases of houses stop, because the asset overall is declining in value.
(Via Wall Street Journal) – Investor buying of homes tumbled 30% in the third quarter, a sign that the rise in borrowing rates and high home prices that pushed traditional buyers to the sidelines are causing these firms to pull back, too.
Companies bought around 66,000 homes in the 40 markets tracked by real-estate brokerage Redfin during the third quarter, compared with 94,000 homes during the same quarter a year ago. The percentage decline in investor purchases was the largest in a quarter since the subprime crisis, save for the second quarter of 2020 when the pandemic shut down most home buying.
The investor pullback represents a turnaround from months ago when their purchases were still rising fast. These firms bought homes in record numbers last year and earlier this year, helping to supercharge the housing market.
Now, investors are reducing their buying activity in line with the decline in overall home sales, which have slumped with mortgage rates rising fast. (more)
At a macro level, if you bought a home in the last 18 months, or refinanced your home to pull out equity, you still have significant downside exposure. Home prices will continue dropping until they plateau on the downside at the price that existed in roughly June of 2021.
The drop in value is directly related to the regional purchases by the institutions. In areas where higher percentages of overall home sales were made by institutional investors, the subsequent drop in value will be larger (see chart above). In areas where actual people purchased homes to live in, the drop in value will be less significant.
I keep getting this buying question, so with the above in mind I will answer it in the most brutally honest way I can present…..
At a macro level, if you are going to purchase a home on this downslope, look at the historic valuation of that property (or a comparable property) in/around approximately the spring of 2021. Start there, and put your offer in that vicinity, then hold firm without any emotional attachment to it. Do not purchase another groups loss.
Posted originally on the conservative treehouse on November 23, 2022 | Sundance
Comrades, Dear Leader wants to help you with correct thoughts this Thanksgiving.
The administration cares about you. With magnanimous intent Dear Leader provides the correct guidance for your discussions. Please follow the transcript as outlined for your family gathering this year. All the best comrade citizens will be reciting it. [Source]
Good citizenship begins at the family table by honoring Dear Leader’s accomplishments.
Dear Leader provides appropriate instructions for the way all good citizens should thank him. It is no longer your burden to say, “this holiday we celebrate and are thankful for friends and family.” Instead, Dear Leader is providing thoughtful guidance, so you do not have to worry about appropriate thinking.
The United Nations proposed a new method to funnel money out of developed nations during the COP27 meeting – climate reparations. The United Nations is still negotiating who will pay what, but rest assured, the US will likely pay the most. President Biden fully supports the idea in addition to the $1 billion he was granted last year to fight third-world climate change. China is considered a developing nation, according to the UN, and will not contribute to the global fund despite being the largest polluter in the world.
The ”loss and damage fund,” as it is known, would take money from rich nations in an attempt to change the weather and prevent natural disasters that would take place even if humans did not inhabit Earth. The funds would primarily be sent to countries in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Fears are sparking that this would act as a confession, and developing nations could sue developed nations and/or businesses for additional compensation.
Trump attempted to get America out of the Paris Accord. The GOP-majority House will likely not vote in favor of this measure. Our best bet is to hope they kick the can down the road until Biden’s term has ended.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 21, 2022 | Sundance
The American Farm Bureau price estimation for the Thanksgiving Day basic foodstuffs seems underestimated every year. However, this year with grocery store prices jumping dramatically the basic Thanksgiving Dinner as calculated is up 20% [Data Here]
(AFB) – Spending time with family and friends at Thanksgiving remains important for many Americans and this year the cost of the meal is also top of mind. Farm Bureau’s 37th annual survey provides a snapshot of the average cost of this year’s classic Thanksgiving feast for 10, which is $64.05 or less than $6.50 per person. This is a $10.74 or 20% increase from last year’s average of $53.31.
The centerpiece on most Thanksgiving tables – the turkey – costs more than last year, at $28.96 for a 16-pound bird. That’s $1.81 per pound, up 21% from last year, due to several factors beyond general inflation. (read more)
On the positive side of things, we note two points: #1) the third wave of food inflation should crest the beginning of December; and #2) a lot of readers here were proactive and purchased holiday ingredients long before the massive price increases showed up. Great job.
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Although, as WeeWeed has noticed, this year is making everyone a little spicy…
Former Commander of US Army General Ben Hodges admitted that Putin’s successor will be “much worse.” This is what I have warned, as Putin is surprisingly a middle-of-the-road leader compared to others. Hodges believes that the Russian government is already split on the Ukraine war, as many have personally faced sanctions and monetary losses. People think that the war can end by simply removing Putin, but this is simply not true.
The West began discussing reparation payments from Russia months ago. Consequently, losing the war could mean losing Russia. More than just the Donbas area is on the line as we have seen nations and empires divided after wars countless times. Hodges believes a Russian loss would lead to a complete disintegration of the Russian state.
“Under a Russia break-up scenario, you could have a lot of new nuclear-armed states that were divided amongst one another on ethnic lines,” he said. “That raises fears about conflict, spill-over and escalation and nationalism. How do you manage those nuclear weapons? How do you prevent a sort of statelet from going rogue?” This would only lead to growing civil unrest and wars among newly created states. History will never surprise us — it always repeats.
Removing Putin will not end the war. There are men waiting in line behind Putin who would rather nuke us all into oblivion before watching their nation dissolve. This is why I say that the West must abandon Ukraine and urge peace. Ukraine could not defeat Russia without Western aid, and Russia could not be controlled without the checks and balances of the West. The politicians do not understand that there will be no winner in this war.
QUESTION: Sir, Discussing Ukraine with a friend, I brought up the Belgrade Agreement of 1991. Searching the internet I found one article besides your blog spot that references it. I couldn’t find it. Do you have a copy? Censorship at its finest.
Keep up the good work.
DK
ANSWER: That is really unbelievable. The agreement was reached in 1994 following the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Al Gore was quoted by the Guardian on December 18, 1993: “Ukraine is deceiving us all” and that its nuclear policies were “evil.” As the Guardian reported that the Ukrainian “government and its parliament are already in NATO’s bad books for refusing to make good their promise to abandon nuclear weapons.” It was Ukraine that was threatening the entirety of Eastern Europe for their hatred of Russians dating back to ethnic cleansing from the Nazi era was alive and well. You absolutely cannot trust anything Ukraine would ever agree to. I have warned that when shaking hands with Ukraine, you better forget counting your fingers; you need to make sure you still have your arm. Even the IMF has said that Ukraine is the most corrupt country in Europe. NOTHING they say can be trusted.
There was a very real deep fear that Ukraine would not only make sure that the cold war would continue, but they also were highly radical and would use nuclear weapons to claim Russia fired first. Ukraine is a country that is not trusted by its neighbors. It is absurd propaganda that they are fighting for Democracy by refusing to allow the Donbas to vote when they absolutely hate the people there. But the West refuses to protect the Donbas also because they are simply Russians. This one-sided view of human rights allows Ukraine to propel the entire world toward World War III.
Every document you look at and the press pre-2022 cast Ukraine as a dangerous country dominated by corruption and engulfed still in this view of ethnic cleansing from the days of Hitler. Because the CIA protected the Ukrainians, they have never been held accountable, and they are now propelling the world into war.
But Adalaide University just published a study on how Ukraine has been using BOTS to manipulate the world’s opinion to support Ukraine and the destruction of Russia. Ukraine has always been disliked by its neighbors because of its support for Hitler. They have long been considered radicals and linked to the Nazis all because Hitler promised to allow them to create their own country.
Ukraine was NEVER a country before the USSR. They were more like the Kurds in Iraq. The borders they are fighting for were merely drawn for administrative purposes by the USSR. They were the ones who pushed for the collapse of the USSR, and they were the ones who immediately began forming an army of 400,000 that scared the hell out of all their neighbors.
By 1992, they were fighting to take over the Russian fleet. Even Dick Cheney was deeply concerned because Ukraine was irresponsible, and their hatred of Russians from the Nazi days surged to the surface. They had more nuclear weapons than China at the time.
James Baker went to negotiate and argued that Ukraine should surrender its nuclear weapons. There were never trusted. Just like the Serbs in Bosnia, the hatred ran very deep. Ukraine took the position that it would only surrender its nuclear weapons if Russia did. Their arguments were simply colored with Russian hatred. They instantly formed an army after 1991, and the Belgrade Agreement was finally reached in 1994, where they agreed to surrender their weapons and remain neutral, with NATO vowing not to invade, and Russia took the same position. Only then did Ukraine agree to surrender its nukes, for they realized that NATO did not trust them and would regard Ukraine as a terrorist state hostile to Europe.
Ukraine then argued it would cost too much to surrender all its nukes. They were the third-largest nuclear power in the world. They then demanded all sorts of guarantees, which they have violated today, but they also extorted money from the United States to disarm their nukes. To cement the deal, Bill Clinton paid Ukraine $175 million to return the nukes to Russia, and Russia, in return, provided the nuclear power rods for Ukraine. Of course, FAKE NEWS seems to be repainting history with the current color of fashion.
The Ukrainian Civil War was started by the UNELECTED government installed by the US & NATO. They immediately sent an army to attack the Russians in the Donbas. They called it an “anti-terrorist operation,” all to pretend they wore white hats. The Ukrainian people did NOT vote for this war. This was instigated by the West. I warned from the outset that our computer back in 2013 pinpointed Ukraine as the place where World War III would begin. It is now being driven to destroy Russia for climate change. This is NOT my personal opinion. Sorry, I wish it were. Then I could be wrong like any person. But this is the computer projecting, and it has been dispassionate.
For the Ukrainians who cheer war, I remind you of the story of Croesus, king of Lydia. He asked the Oracle at Delphi if he would win if he waged war upon Persia. The Oracle replied, “A great empire will be destroyed.” He took that as his victory. He lost, and the collapse of the great empire was his. Ah, how stupidity causes history to repeat. Ukraine will be utterly destroyed. Their view of a nation-state will be but a fleeting moment of greatness. They are destroying all the lives of their own people simply because of their hatred of Russians and their quest for ethnic cleansing. Everyone supporting Ukraine in this hatred will suffer the same fate. Post-2032, we will get to redesign our government from the ground up. Nothing will remain standing like the fallen statutes of Egypt and Rome. Our time will come.
Zelensky was elected on a promise to end corruption, yet, he has stashed more money offshore than any former leader in Ukraine. He promised to end the civil war and seek peace with Russia. He lied to gain power and has done exactly the opposite. This guy puts money before his own country while hiding it offshore, as the Pandora Papers confirm, and refuses to negotiate or honor the Minsk Agreement because fools would stop sending money to his government, and the well would quickly dry up.
The day before Putin came to defend the Donbas, Zelensky stood up and said he would seek to reestablish nuclear weapons. That ended Ukraine’s 1994 agreement to remain neutral. This was like 1962 when Russia put nukes in Cuba.
The people who never question anything about Ukraine are the same people who believed COVID was like the black plague and you would die without a vaccine and a mask. People are so easily manipulated. Unfortunately, if they were not, how would you get people lining up to fight and die on a battlefield when the very BEST they could ever hope for is to return unharmed to a family who is still there?
Bots manipulate public opinion in Russia-Ukraine conflict
A view of a store after the Russian bombing of the Ukraine city of Kharkiv on 15 March, 2022. Credit: KMimages.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide have found bots have had a major online presence during the war between Russia and Ukraine.
The researchers analyzed 5,203,764 tweets, retweets, quote tweets, and replies posted to Twitter between February 23, 2022, and March 8, 2022, containing the hashtags #(I)StandWithPutin, #(I)StandWithRussia, #(I)SupportRussia, #(I)StandWithUkraine, #(I)StandWithZelenskyy and #(I)SupportUkraine.
“We found that between 60 and 80 per cent of tweets using the hashtags we studied came from bot accounts during the first two weeks of the war,” said co-lead researcher Joshua Watt, an MPhil candidate in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Adelaide’s School of Mathematical Sciences. “This drove more angst in the online discourse and even impacted discussions surrounding people’s decision to flee or stay in Ukraine.”
“We observed increases in words such as ‘shame,’ ‘terrorist,’ ‘threat,’ and ‘panic.’ Pro-Russian human accounts were having the largest influence on discussions of the war – particularly on accounts which were pro-Ukraine. To our knowledge, this is the first body of published work which addresses online influence operations in the context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.”
“In the past, wars have been primarily fought physically, with armies, air force and navy operations being the primary forms of combat. However, social media has created a new environment where public opinion can be manipulated at a very large scale.”Co-lead researcher Joshua Watt, MPhil candidate in Applied Mathematics and Statistics from the University of Adelaide’s School of Mathematical Sciences.
Fellow co-lead researcher, Bridget Smart, a Masters student in Applied Mathematics and Statistics, added: “Our research identifies that this is happening during the Russia-Ukraine war and provides a statistical framework which quantifies the extent to which this is happening. This work extends and combines existing techniques to quantify how bots are influencing people in the online conversation around the Russia-Ukraine invasion. It opens up avenues for researchers to understand quantitatively how these malicious campaigns operate, and what makes them impactful. This research has identified that social media organisations may need to be better equipped for detecting and handling the use of bots on their networks. It has identified that governments may need to have stricter policies on social media organisations, and that social media can be a vital tool during conflict.”
It is heartbreaking to see these disabled Ukrainian soldiers here in the halls of Congress being used as pawns to pressure our Congress to give American’s hard earned tax dollars to Zelensky. I’m calling for an audit of funds to Ukraine and to fund and secure our border. pic.twitter.com/mLID5nFPds
After sending off funds to Ukraine for nine months, people are requesting an itemized bill to find out where billions of taxpayer funds were spent. The newly flipped House called for an audit of Ukrainian funds and a reprioritization to secure America’s own border. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused the Biden Administration of bringing in disabled Ukrainian soldiers as “pawns” when negotiating for additional funds. With the recent FTX blow-up, it is more apparent than ever that these funds to Ukraine have been mishandled.
A deep-dive audit into the handling of Ukrainian funds would lead to Biden’s impeachment, but this could never happen as too many players would crumble. This situation is larger than Biden conjuring up his own money laundering scheme single-handedly, as people on both sides have their hands in the endless war fund pot.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America
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