Masks Now Embedded in Japanese Culture


Armstrong Economics Blog/Disease Re-Posted Apr 4, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Comment: You know, mask wearing in japan was officially ended 5 weeks ago. And there has been no change of practice whatsoever. Mask wearing continues at close to 100pct.

Especially among young people mask wearing seems to be here to stay, possibly forever. Somewhere a psychologist will write a book about this phenomenon. Never in my life could I have imagine that the great nation of japan would adopt this practice like people wearing shoes. People driving in their cars on their own are wearing masks for god Sake. Mask wearing is now the primary method of signaling that the wearer is careful, thoughtful and considerate of others.

Reply: The pandemic will go down as the greatest mass social experiment in history. Face masks have become an everyday essential item for most Japanese. Implementing the face mask mandate was seamless in Japan as masks for allergies and disease were already commonplace. Mask sales rose during flu outbreaks years before COVID, especially in high-density cities. Some people wore masks as a fashion accessory or to limit approachability in social interactions. A 2011 poll from News Post Seven found that 30% of those who wore masks did not cite health concerns.

It took three years, but the Japanese government no longer mandates masks. Yet, it has become embedded in the culture. The Japanese culture values respecting one’s community. The government has never admitted that masks did not prevent the spread of COVID in a meaningful way. Instead, politicians continue to wear masks at public appearances, and the prime minister is encouraging people to continue wearing masks around vulnerable individuals. “We are not forcing anyone to wear it or take it off,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters after the mandate ended. “I think there will be more occasions when I will take my mask off.” It is now seen as a respectful gesture for one’s neighbor.

Research institute Laibo conducted a study in February to determine why people are choosing to stay masked. Only 5.5% of 561 respondents said they would not wear a mask. Over half (50.2%) said that wearing a mask simply became a habit, while most (53.4%) said they are still afraid of catching the coronavirus. About 27.8% of respondents said they will wear their masks “unconditionally.”

Masks may have become a cultural norm in Japan. Everyone should have the ability to act on their own free will, but I suspect many feel the need to conform. The studies citing the ineffectiveness of mask usage have been swept under the rug. As the original commenter stated, masks now signal that the wearer is considerate of others. If only the government would come out and let the people know it is safe for both them and their neighbors to breathe in the air.

Sunday Talks – Jim Jordan on Trump Indictment, “The Scariest Thing of All, this Is a Much Bigger Issue.”


Posted originally on the CTH on April 2, 2023 | Sundance

Jim Jordan appeared on Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo to discuss his perspective on the indictment of President Donald Trump by a politically motivated Manhattan District Attorney, and the potential for the House Judiciary Committee to question DA Alvin Bragg.  WATCH:

The only way these radical leftists are going to slow down is if Republican State AG’s and local DA’s start prosecuting Democrats for similar issues.  Match them one-for-one on every attempted case.  Bring the system to its knees and show the political opposition that there’s no benefit to this political targeting.

Now is not the time for words, letters and half-measures.  We are on a war footing now.  The GOP state and local officials need to act like it!

The Ukraine War has been in the Planning Stage since 2013


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Feb 24, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

From the beginning, the United States provided $5 billion to fund the Ukrainian Revolution in 2014. The US-installed interim government launched the civil war against the Donbas on US instructions. Then in 2014, Obama signed a bill authorizing lethal aid to be provided to Kiev. Then in 2015, NATO Commander General Philip Breedlove favors military aid to Ukraine. The US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, John Kerry, and General Martin Dempsey of the Joint Chiefs agreed.

The West has been planning war against Russia using Ukraine as cannon fodder from the very start. The Neocons are a third party unto themselves. There are both Republicans and Democrats in their ranks. These people want war. They do not know how to exist without an enemy. Communism fell, but that did not matter. It was briefly replaced with the War on Terror. When the hung Saddam Hussein, they looked around and said – Ok who is next? Ah! Russia and then China!

Twitter Files – Matt Taibbi Sniffing Around the Senate Intel Committee Connection to Manipulation of Social Media


Posted originally on the CYH on February 20, 2023 | Sundance 

Matt Taibbi is a smart guy, he’ll get there.  I’m not sure why my gut says to trust him, but it does – and I do. Recently he’s been getting hit by the leftists who are asking why Taibbi is not looking at the Trump administration pressure on social media to control and manipulate public information [Twitter Here].

Taibbi has been hitting back against his detractors by saying, there’s no evidence of Trump doing that; yet there is massive evidence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) contacting Twitter to do exactly that.

This is interesting to me and CTH readers because we outlined in real time what the SSCI and HPSCI were doing in order to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy before and after the 2016 election.

What’s fascinating about this… is that the same people who are attacking Taibbi right now, are the same people who received and promoted the propaganda from the SSCI (Burr and Warner) in addition to the HPSCI (Schiff and Swalwell).

In essence, the ancillary media attack hounds are attacking Taibbi because at the end of the research trail Taibbi is following he will find the same names of the ancillary media who are attacking him.

[SEE SHORT THREAD HERE]

In my opinion, Taibbi is on the right trail in following the SSCI and HPSCI manipulation of the social media platforms, specifically Twitter.  In addition to the SSCI creating the structure that supports the intelligence weaponization by DHS and FBI, Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr and then Senate Intel Vice-Chair Mark Warner are at the epicenter of it.

I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it’s been true since the outset of my own research discoveries of the issue four years ago.  The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative couldn’t exist without the SSCI participating in it.   This is why I have talked and written so much about it.

Factually, and I say this with no compunction for attribution, if you want to tell the public the story of the larger issue, the absolute best starting point is how SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner told SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to leak the Carter Page FISA application to then Politico journalist Ali Watkins.   It’s an easy story to outline because there is ample evidence to highlight it, including open admissions by the DOJ and FBI (in documented court records) that the leak event on March 17, 2017, took place.

That week in mid-March, 2017, when Mark Warner leaked the Page FISA application followed two days later by James Comey testifying to congress (March 20th), was/is the most openly documented evidence-based story that leads to everything that follows.

On March 17, 2017, Senator Mark Warner leaked the FISA in order to stimulate the media to support the demand for a Trump-Russia special counsel.  On March 20, 2017, holding the exact same motive, FBI Director James Comey first made the public admission that President Donald Trump was under FBI investigation for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.   Senator Warner and Director Comey held the exact same motive.

Everything done by the SSCI before and after that mid-March event, touches everything before and after the special counsel was appointed.  It’s like a fulcrum point that creates massive tentacles into the entire apparatus of the effort by the legislative branch, the executive branch, the intelligence community and the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel to cover it up.

Expose that moment on March 17, 2017, and the entire house of cards built by Weissmann/Mueller and the DC media apparatus collapses.

There is not another single moment during the entire arc of the Trump-Russia madness, that creates the inflection point as well as the March 17, 2017, leak.  EXAMPLE:

(Source)

Keep cheering on Matt Taibbi.  Keep supporting him as he follows this trail.  Yes, you know where it ends, but you are a select rare few who have followed this story.  Taibbi can blow it wide open if he continues.

Additionally, remember and understand that the entirety of the media apparatus was in on this scheme.

Every single outlet promoted the narrative that was collectively pushed by Senator Mark Warner, Director James Comey, the corrupt intelligence apparatus and the Robert Mueller special counsel.  They are all opposed to Taibbi following this trail.

This is Why I am Against Needless Wars


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Feb 8, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The human costs that these disgusting politicians lie to our faces, look down upon us as the scum beneath their feet and then pretend they actually care.

\

The Great Lou Dobbs Nails It


Posted originally on the conservative Tree house on February 8, 2023 | Sundance 

Sundance is that quietly salty cuss who prefers to swing the sharp machete alone amid the deep weeds; clearing the path simply for the sake of creating clarity and larger understanding about the topography of the stuff the professional political class would prefer to keep hidden in the weeds.   At times, he settles himself atop the bluff, opens his lunchbox and thermos to eat a simple sandwich, shirt sleeves will suffice as a napkin, while looking at the flow coming into the clearing…

Amid this era of insufferable pretending, our dear and rebellious non-pretending CTH friend, the Great Lou Dobbs, is a voice to cherish – he gets it.  There is a wisdom that comes with age and experience battling against the Machiavellian schemes of the professional political class; it also can make you quick-tempered, and that’s ok. Hell, it’s to be expected.

In this brief video segment {Direct Rumble Link}, Lou Dobbs cuts to the chase when analyzing the Republican party rebuttal to the Joe Biden state of the union speech.  Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee-Sanders delivered the remarks, they were poignant deliberate and accurate; however, they were also party managed, and party approved.

Just as Lou Dobbs has accurately and presciently called the Wall Street play-by-play for decades, amid the multinational schemes of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce & Business Roundtable, Mr Dobbs accurately notes the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) as the originating approvers for the prepared rebuttal.  WATCH:

The Great Lou Dobbs is 100% correct.

The approved GOPe script, a construct of multinational financial influence and background motive, was/is intended to write President Donald Trump out of the Republican political framework. Governor Huckabee-Sanders went along with the plan. She, along with all of the non-pretenders, knows this, as all of them do. It is a sad acceptance to realize just how metastasized the political cancer has become, and how few can hold firm against the power of the corrupt political apparatus.

As I said last night, Huckabee-Sanders points about the damage from the Biden administration were accurate and well delivered.

That said, her acquiescence to the machinery of the professional republican system is both disheartening and pathetic.

Oh sure, she will backtrack sometime soon, filled with artificial pearl-clutching prose and promises of mistaken intent…. that’s the way it rolls. But once you see the strings attached to the marionettes you can never unsee them. Authenticity, trust and integrity are lost in sunlight moments when decisions are made.

CTH noted several weeks ago that based on the background moves in advance of Ron DeSantis’s reelection efforts, it became increasingly clear the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) was going to play a bigger role in 2024 in full alignment with the GOP establishment.

In some ways the leveraging of the RGA is the difference between the Big Club’s 2016 (Jeb!) effort, and the 2024 (Ron!) effort. It was obvious in 2022 with the amount of money the RGA poured into the FL governor’s coffers, a reelection race with a consistent double point lead, the RGA was not doing it for the 2022 reelection – they were building the DeSantis war chest for 2024.

The DeSantis management and branding group are in alignment with, and in close coordination with, the RGA.

At CTH we accept things as they are, not as we would wish them to be.

The Big Club is fooling many, but not here, not now and not today – or ever.

Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never return to that moment in the performance when you did not see them.

There are far more of us than them, and once people realize the scale of the duplicity and professional Republican corruption, the backlash against this Big Club branding and management team -together with their “influencers” and willing conscripts- is going to leave a lot of “conservative pundits” very isolated, alone and irrelevant.

:::SPIT:::

Giddy Up, Elon Musk Identifies the State Dept Origin Behind Twitter Content Control Mechanisms


Posted originally on the CTH on February 6, 2023 | Sundance

… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation.  The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept.

The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link).   However, when you overlay the expanded Dept of State mission that Obama delivered, transferring GEC intent to domestic operations, suddenly the background of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop makes sense.  [Musk Tweet Link]

[Musk Tweet Link – GEC Center Link]

Readers here are so far ahead of the curve on this story, it’s kind of cool, funny, and yet frustrating at the same time.  Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop is all a wild conspiracy theory born from the oddly wired brain of some dude in the corner of the internet; until suddenly it’s not.

Factually, it has been staring at everyone since the operation began in 2011, yet no one was willing to believe it.  Apparently, Elon Musk is starting to realize what is inside the communication platform he purchased.

For several years, CTH has been outlining the relationship between DHS and social media.  Currently, the headlines are filled with stories about Twitter and revelations of censorship and government influence coming from the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk.  However, as I said from the outset of this new moment, I promise you things are not what they seem.

As noted earlier, and it is worth repeating, let me put some context to the dynamic that will hopefully clarify what is going on, and perhaps the context will help explain what you are seeing and what you are not seeing as this unfolds.  There are going to be a lot of citations to fill in the details, and understanding the modern Fourth Branch of Government is critical.  The bigger picture also explains why SSCI Chairman Mark Warner said “people will die” if the seized Trump Mar-a-Lago documents become public.

♦ Elevator Speech: Twitter is to the U.S. government as TikTok is to China. The overarching dynamic is the need to control public perceptions and opinions. DHS has been in ever increasing control of Twitter since the public-private partnership was formed in 2011/2012.  Jack Dorsey lost control and became owner emeritus; arguably, Elon Musk had no idea (you’ll see proof toward the end).

To explain the background activity of Twitter in a way that readers could understand, I used the metaphor of Twitter as Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.

…”The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business.  Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.

It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there.  Few people thought about such things.  Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.

Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter.  Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers.  Some were denied.  A debate began.”…

Here’s what happened….

In/around 2011 and 2012 the U.S. Government, Obama administration and the U.S. State Dept., came into Jack’s Coffee Shop and asked him for help.

The govt officials needed to deliver massive amounts of coffee to their allies in Egypt, Libya and the middle east to support the Arab Spring party.  Jack told the officials he was willing to help but didn’t have the capacity to deliver on that scale.  The officials told Jack not to worry, they would handle that aspect – he just needed to agree to the partnership and let them utilize his business.  Jack agreed.

[Note, the timing here is not accidental.  The operational agreement happened at the same time DHS was fine tuning the domestic surveillance systems to monitor social media platforms and target political opposition. See The Fourth Branch.]

Over the next several weeks, months and eventually years, Jack watched as hundreds of new employees flooded into the business to facilitate the rapid expansion.  Along with a myriad of new faces, new equipment was delivered, and soon Jack found himself looking at heavy industrial equipment erecting large buildings in the back lots of the property.  Coffee urns were replaced with massive industrial coffee delivery systems that far exceeded anything Jack ever imagined.

Business was booming, but slowly Jack realized he had lost control.  Jack was riding a dragon.

As the years progressed, thousands of new employees moved into the offices of the new buildings and massive pipelines were producing incredible scales of coffee.  Jack noted offices of the United Nations Human Rights Commission were now creating unique blends of coffee for international distribution, and the European Commission had an entire suite of specially trained coffee production engineers creating alternate combinations and flavors.

By 2018, Jack had essentially become an “owner emeritus”; his name was on the shingle, but the day-to-day operation of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop had turned into an industrial park complex.

Jack saw his personal wealth attached to the success of the business, but operationally, his only responsibility was traveling to symposiums and venues where he would stand on stage and wax philosophically about the future of a coffee delivery organization he no longer controlled.  Day-to-day operations were now controlled by experts in the scale of massive industrial coffee.  Those experts came from the Dept of Homeland Security.

[The Intercept] – […] Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.

“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.

In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” (read more)

To streamline the operational efficiencies as the industrial coffee system grew, direct portals between the Washington DC government offices and Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop were created.  Officials no longer needed to travel to the location of Jack’s Coffee Shop in order to operate the valves, mixers, grinders and systems to generate the scale of blends being produced.

Experts could now use direct portals to the facility to operate the coffee production systems remotely, with a limited number of specially trained (FBI) coffee engineers doing the laborious tasks and maintenance at the facility.

The badges were intimidating to Jack who went to sleep every night under the realization he no longer had any clue about how the coffee shop communication business was operating.

[…]  The extent to which the DHS initiatives affect Americans’ daily social feeds is unclear. During the 2020 election, the government flagged numerous posts as suspicious, many of which were then taken down, documents cited in the Missouri attorney general’s lawsuit disclosed. And a 2021 report by the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University found that of nearly 4,800 flagged items, technology platforms took action on 35 percent — either removing, labeling, or soft-blocking speech, meaning the users were only able to view content after bypassing a warning screen. The research was done “in consultation with CISA,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing, between the private sector and government to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election. (keep reading)

After several years of increasing distance from the Coffee Shop operation he initially started, eventually Jack decided it was silly to own an industrial coffee delivery system that he didn’t control.  So, Jack decided to sell his shingle to someone else.

Enter, Elon Musk.

Billionaire Elon Musk, a man intimately familiar with large industrial systems and government, had been watching the disgruntled visitors to Jack’s Coffee Shop who were no longer permitted to enter.  Musk saw an inequity between the amount of coffee that was available, and the scarcity of the coffee amid a community blacklisted by the operational executives and managers of the shop.

With expressions of both interest and fellowship, Mr. Elon Musk told Mr. Jack Dorsey he would take ownership of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and remove any discriminatory guards that were now controlling permitted entry.  Jack had no aversion to Elon and eventually a deal was brokered.

After the transfer of sale was complete, Mr. Musk fired many of the guards and then set about checking the payroll to identify which group of shop employees were actually involved in the generation of coffee, and which employees were involved in promotion of the industrial coffee delivery system that were no longer needed.

Within this process, Elon Musk begins to discover the complex nature of what, at least at the surface, appeared to be an uncomplicated coffee shop.  Why is there a 500-room glass walled office building on the backside of the coffee shop?  What is going on in that GEC building that has anything to do with selling domestic coffee?

The sunlight revelations began surfacing a few months ago when someone of reasonably intelligent curiosity finally asked Elon Musk the right question about this direct portal from DHS into the coffee shop. How Mr. Musk replied might surprise you.

You see, the Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop metaphor is evidenced in the Musk response.

Twitter owner Elon Musk has no idea that a DHS portal into the coffee shop existed and what it would be for.  WATCH:

.

To put it in brutally honest terms, the State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring).  However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in…. The United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.

You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is.  Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.

Regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd datapoints only reconcile in one direction.  The State Dept started it, but now DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.

Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt controlled enterprise.

If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.

Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating any consequential public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding Mr. Musk selected information about their prior Twitter operations.  DHS is still the ghost in the machine.

TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.

The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.

Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment.  Until then, we keep watching and smiling…

Support CTH Here ~

[Musk Tweet Link]

Resources:

Large Numbers of FBI Agents Work Inside Twitter 

Govt Structured Cloud Computing is Social Media operating System

Tech Platforms Connected to DHS Portals

Examples of Govt Influence of Social Media Content

[…] “Intelligence agencies backed new startups designed to monitor the vast flow of information across social networks to better understand emerging narratives and risks.” [HERE]

Understanding Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop

Leaked DHS Documents Showing Connections

Why Govt Fears Discovery of Relationship

Only in America


Armstrong Economics Blog/Politics Re-Posted Feb 5, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Only in America where we have Democratic politicians preaching about the greed of the rich at a $10,000.00 a plate campaign fund-raising event held at John Kerry’s home. Yes it was $10,000 to get in.

Categories: Politics