Former OMB Director Russ Vought appeared (via phone) with Steve Bannon to outline the substance of the House rule changes won by the 20 Republicans who stood together against the 410 House UniParty members. {Direct Rumble Link} – WATCH:
Russ Vought: McCarthy’s Concessions Are The Biggest Wins Against The D.C. Cartel In 60 Years
The true enemy of a constitutional republic are the Mitch McConnell’s and Nancy Mace’s of the professional political class who build systems to undermine the will of the people under the pretense of representing them. These are the abusers, the professional abusers, the psychologically Machiavellian and inherently evil people within the system of power who operate on false pretense. They are smiley-faced fascists and liars, period.
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.” ~ Taylor Caldwell
[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: We begin with one of the Republican members of Congress who was with Speaker McCarthy on all votes. That’s Nancy Mace of South Carolina. Good morning to you, Congresswoman. Welcome back.
REP. NANCY MACE: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Again and again, 14 times the hard right faction of your party refused to vote for Kevin McCarthy even after he was making repeated concessions to them. How can Republicans possibly govern when your party is so unruly?
REP. MACE: Well, first of all, I want to say number one, Kevin McCarthy, is the only member that- that I know of, that could bring all the different groups together within our own party, because we do have different factions, just like Democrats do. And that’s, that’s the first thing. And then the second thing is that sometimes democracy is messy. It looked kind of like an unnecessary and prolonged food fight last week. And I agreed with many Americans who thought that. I came home this weekend and listened to folks of all sides. I represent a very purple district, I have all sides to serve. And there was a lot of frustration with the prolonged and unnecessary food fight that we had this week. But you saw democracy on full display. And I think that’s healthy to have that kind of debate. I’m glad that it’s over and we can move forward.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I mean, some would say it wasn’t so much democracy as it was dysfunction. The Wall Street Journal Editorial Page was pretty scathing. Said: don’t believe the happy talk this was a healthy display of deliberative democracy. It was a power play. A group of backbenchers saw an opportunity to exploit the narrower GOP margin of five seats to put themselves in positions of power that they hadn’t earned through seniority or influence with colleagues. If this rules package passes, with all the concessions that Speaker McCarthy made, this will leave you beholden, won’t it? To those backbenchers?
REP. MACE: Well, a couple of things I want, I want to say on the rules package, the rules that are governed the way- that will govern the way the House operates. There are some very great good ideas in there like the 72 hour rule, having three days to read a bill before it comes to the floor for a vote, having a path to balance the budget over the next 10 years, ensuring that they’re spending off- offsets, especially with mandatory spending. If you’re gonna increase in one area, then you have to decrease in another. But I will tell you, when I ran for Congress two years ago, I won by one point, and I ran to be a new Nancy in the house. And what I saw last week was a small faction of the 20, who were acting just like the old Nancy, trying to cut back room deals in private, in secret without anyone knowing what else was going on. And when they did the rules package. At the end of the day, there was only one point that was changed. That was on the motion to vacate. That was the only difference in the package that we’re going to be voting on tomorrow that was different from the original package that was proposed. So my question really is today is what back room deals were cut- did they try to cut? And did they get those because we shouldn’t be operating like Nancy Pelosi, this small faction. They’re the ones that are saying they were, quote, fighting the swamp, but then yet went and tried to act like you know, like, they actually are the swamp by trying to do these back room deals. And we don’t know what they got, or didn’t get. We haven’t seen it. We don’t have any idea what promises were made or what gentleman’s handshakes were made. We just, we just have no idea at this point. And it does give me quite a bit of heartburn, because that’s not what we ran on.
(crosstalk)
MARGARET BRENNAN: So Speaker–
REP. MACE: It’s quite ironic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So you are saying Speaker McCarthy is not being transparent about all the deals that he brokered in order to win this job.
REP. MACE: I’m saying there’s a small handful of individuals in that 20 who were trying to cut deals in secret.
(crosstalk)
MARGARET BRENNAN: Didn’t they succeed in doing that?
REP. MACE: And not let anybody else know about them. We’re not sure, we don’t know at this point. And that does give me pause and gives me significant heartburn on what direction we’re going to take. I represent a purple district, I have to represent Republicans, Democrats and Independents. I want to know that the positions that I have are going to have a voice that it will have weighed in the conference. There are a lot of members like me that- that have issues with some of the policies that we’re going to be working on. Look at what happened after overturning of Roe v. Wade. We didn’t have a plan and I want as a woman and as a victim of rape want to know that we’re going to be serious. That we’re going to be balanced in protecting the rights of women and protecting the rights of the unborn. There’s a way to do it both and not be guided by one extreme or the other.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, I just want to clarify there because I had asked you initially about the rules package, which is published and would be voted on tomorrow. Are you saying that you’re going to withhold your vote on those published agreements until you know what these back-room deals were?
REP. MACE: I am considering that as an option right now. I like the rules package. It is the most open, fair, and fiscally conservative package we’ve had in 30 years. I support it, but what I don’t support is a small number of people trying to get a deal done or deals done for themselves in private, in secret to get a vote or vote present. I don’t support that. That is just what Nancy Pelosi does. And that’s not what they should be doing. And so, I am on the fence right now about the rules package vote tomorrow for that reason.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Got it. It reportedly includes a pledge that would likely require a $75 billion cut to national security funding. Do you support that part of it?
REP. MACE: I want to see- I want to see it in writing. I want to see what promises were made. And what we are being told is that- that these handshakes, what’s going on these promises will go through regular order and go through the regular appropriations process. I don’t want to see defense cuts. I- again, we don’t, we don’t know what deals were made. And that’s something that we should be transparent about. Sunshine is the best medicine. That’s what we’ve always said. So what, what are we guaranteeing or what promises were made? We should know.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The speaker has reportedly given the Freedom Caucus, that ultra-conservative faction, a third of the seats on the powerful Rules Committee which controls which bills make it to the floor. You’ve called Matt Gaetz, one of its members, a political D-Lister and a fraud. You’ve sparred with Marjorie Taylor Greene, I’ll show our viewers part of that and let them interpret your meaning. How are you going to work with these folks to get anything done for the American people?
REP. MACE: It’s going to be very difficult. Matt Gaetz is a fraud. Every time he voted against Kevin McCarthy last week he sent out a fundraising email. What you saw last week was a constitutional process diminished by those kinds of political actions. I don’t support that kind of behavior. I am very concerned as someone who represents a lot of centrists, a lot of Independents. I have as many Independents and Democrats as I have Republicans in my district. I have to represent everybody. I am concerned that common sense legislation will not get through to get a vote on the floor. And I, for example, we have 12 bills that we’re supposedly going to be voting on in our first week in office. Three of them are abortion- abortion bills and pro-life bills. I am pro-life. But I have many exceptions. But they are not legislation, pieces of legislation, that can pass the Senate and get onto the desk for the president to sign into law. And so if we’re going to be serious about protecting life, for example, maybe we should look at more centrist views, like ensuring every woman has access to birth control, because if you can reduce pregnancies, you can reduce the need or want for women to have abortions, for example, a very common-sense pragmatic point of view. But that’s not what we’re going to be voting on this week. And I am concerned I want to see pragmatic- pragmatics at work, common sense, fiscal, conservative issues at work that represent all views.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Before I let you go, I have to ask you, you have a new colleague from the state of New York, Representative George Santos. He says he’s embellished his resume. You could say he just flat-out lied about work history, education, family background, how can you work with someone like that? And does he need to be removed from office?
REP. MACE: It’s very difficult to work with anyone who cannot be trusted, and it’s very clear his entire resume in life was- was manufactured until a couple days ago when he finally changed his website. It is a problem. If we say we can’t trust the Left when they are telling the truth, how can we trust our own? Americans want transparency, and the one lesson I’ve learned in DC: if you want a friend you can trust, get a dog.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I understand you are a dog fan. All right, Congresswoman. Thank you.
REP. MACE: I am a huge dog fan. Thank you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Thank you. Nancy Mace. Thank you for your time this morning. (link)
While everyone was focused on the House Speaker battle this week, a few interesting stories were overwhelmed and deserve to be revisited.
Matt Taibbi released Twitter File drop #12 (IC Infiltration) and Twitter File Drop #13 (FBI Specifics) using information from his access to the internal documents of the social media platform. Additionally, columnist Lee Smith wrote an excellent and extensive outline showing the arc of the FBI involvement in social media, as specifically centered around former FBI Legal Counsel James Baker.
In the Taibbi release (Twitter File #12) he outlines how Senate Select Committee Vice-Chair Mark Warner was instrumental in framing a media narrative that boxed in Twitter, forcing them to allow the intelligence apparatus through the front door.
Within the Russiagate and intelligence state storyline, the one person who has not been given enough scrutiny is Senate Mark Warner. In fact, Warner was elevated to his position inside the SSCI in January of 2017 specifically as an outcome of the 2016 election. Senator Warner replaced Senator Dianne Feinstein with the specific mission to coverup the committee involvement in 2016 election operations.
As noted by Taibbi, “In September, 2017, after a cursory review, Twitter informed the Senate it suspended 22 possible Russian accounts, and 179 others with “possible links” to those accounts, amid a larger set of roughly 2700 suspects manually examined. Receiving these meager results, a furious Senator Mark Warner of Virginia – ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee – held an immediate press conference to denounce Twitter’s report as “frankly inadequate on every level.”
However, what Taibbi doesn’t outline is the frontside story of Warner’s purpose throughout 2017.
Senator Warner’s activities involved two parallel tracks. (1) to cover for the SSCI operation that led up to the 2016 election: and then (2) to continue the Trump-Russia narrative as an attack weapon against the Trump administration. Within 2017 and 2018 all of Mark Warner’s activity was conducted with those two overarching objectives in mind.
In the period between January and May 2017 Warner’s goal was to get a Special Counsel installed. After the Mueller appointment, Warner then shifted to providing fuel for the media to assist the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel narrative. Taibbi’s article about Warner and Twitter is hitting on the latter part of that agenda in the fall of 2017.
Basically, the intelligence community and the Senate Intel Committee that facilitates them, wanted all of the various social media platforms to join their Trump-Russia creation. Twitter couldn’t find any evidence of Russian propaganda activity, so the intelligence community manufactured it and then used the media as a weapon to make Twitter admit to a situation that didn’t exist.
While the SSCI was manufacturing this narrative through social media pressure, Weissmann and Mueller began pushing dubious accusations -even some indictments- against weird Russian entities including the now infamous Concord Catering group. The indictments themselves were based on complete nonsense, promoted via press releases and media statements and then sealed within the DOJ National Security Division.
The Russia election interference claims were never intended to reach a courtroom, they were created by the special counsel purely for public consumption. That’s also why Senator Warner was so focused on controlling WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. In order to retain the fraud about the Russians hacking the DNC servers, the intelligence community needed to keep a bag over Assange. Mark Warner using covert communication to Adam Waldman, a pro-bono lawyer for Assange, was part of that effort.
They all knew the Trump-Russia narrative was a fraud, but that narrative was the tool they were using to coverup everything that happened before the 2016 election. The Trump-Russia narrative was part of the bigger fraudulent construct to justify a variety of schemes including the investigation of President Trump and the removal of Michael Flynn as National Security Advisor.
Maintaining the Trump-Russia narrative was ultimately the objective of Senator Warner and pressure was put upon traditional media and social media to retain it.
Senator Mark Warner and the FBI officials who manufactured the Trump-Russia ruse, were leaking to the media. The FBI officials who transferred into the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel were also retaining that ruse. Any individual or evidence that would expose the Trump-Russia ruse as a fraudulent construct of the intelligence apparatus was considered a threat.
With Weissmann and crew in charge of the DOJ National Security Division, and the FBI counterintelligence operations as they pertained to Russia, all of the elements to retain fraud were in place. The DOJ-NSD then delivered false attestations to the FISA Court to retain the premise.
Mark Warner was selling the narrative from his position as SSCI Vice-Chair, while people like Dan Jones, Adam Waldman and Fusion GPS were spinning fabricated evidence to media that was supported by FBI and Intel Community leaks. It was all one big propaganda push in one direction and Senator Mark Warner was a big part of it.
It wasn’t until very late in December 2017 and January 2018 when we began to see real evidence that all of these stories were being manufactured from within the DOJ, FBI and SSCI. That’s when people found out about Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Nellie and Bruce Ohr, and a variety of DOJ and FBI officials who were removed in 2017 and 2018 as their activities started to become public.
Given the nature of our current political dynamic, some may find this interesting; I did.
Because it is rather lengthy, I have prompted the video to begin at a certain place pertinent to our current conversation. Just hit play and then exit when you find yourself no longer interested; but try to stick with it at least through to the Senator Mark Warner and Adam Waldman stuff. WATCH:
.
COMMENT: Good Morning Mr. Armstrong, a long-time reader and client of Socrates and your conferences. I just read your entry for Belarus drafting 18 to 60-year-olds. I had a feeling that eventually, that would take place here in the states. I can tell you without a doubt, I will never comply. My family has served in WWII and Vietnam. We have given enough. I absolutely despise our government. I am wondering if this is part of the continued collapse of the government. With such low recruitment levels and the political fallout from the past few years, they must realize people will not be forced to serve. Especially those with the means to defend themselves. Is this a main component of civil unrest here with separatist movements? Just curious if you can elaborate on what you think will happen when they institute a draft here.
All the Best.
J
REPLY: My family has fought in every war since the American Revolution. My cousin still has the musket on his wall from the American Revolution. I lost half of my high school friends to Vietnam and my father and his three brothers were all in World War II and my grandfathers on both sides of the family were in World War I. There is no question that in a time of war, the first shot fired is both silent and never against an enemy. It is always against any truthful reporting of events.
The Defense Casualty Analysis System (DCAS) Extract Files contain records of 58,220 U.S. military fatal casualties of the Vietnam War. The government propaganda site, Wikipedia also directed by the Deep State, has low-balled the casualties claiming in total, all US and allied military deaths reached 282,000. We claim that is a victory for the VC lost 444,000 to possibly 666,000. The civilians who died have been low-balled with estimates of 405,000 up to 627,000. Just turn to Britannica and you get:
“In 1995 Vietnam released its official estimate of the number of people killed during the Vietnam War: as many as 2,000,000 civilians on both sides and some 1,100,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters.”
President Lydon Johnson knew there was no reason to enter Vietnam. He knew we could not get out easily. Still, he committed the country to war because the Neocons wanted it.
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This is a famous photograph from Vietnam that is probably the most memorable of all time. You see South Vietnamese forces following terrified children. At the center is 9-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phùc, as she and other children are running from an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places on June 8, 1972. The plane accidentally dropped napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. As always, just the collateral damage of war. The terrified girl had ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing. This photo was taken by Nick Ut of The Associated Press that captured the horror of Vietnam worldwide. It was 1972 when President Nixon said enough and promised to bring the troops home.
This 9-year-old make girl running from napalm, Phan Thi Kim Phúc, had profoundly changed her forever. Such people are tormented for a lifetime. They wake up at night dreaming over and over about the horror of those events for the rest of their lives. Kim Phúc was bitter and full of hatred she said. Later, she picked up the Bible and converted to Christianity. Today, she lives in Toronto with her family and helps other children victims of war around the world. It is those who survive who are profoundly tortured for the remainder of their lives. That is the real cost of war that nobody cares about.
The official estimate of civilian deaths in World War II stands at a total of 70–85 million. The actual military deaths were 21,000,000 to 25,500,000. There is ALWAYS an equal amount of civilian deaths in times of war. Those in power never want to talk about that.
That slow grinding creak you hear in the background; that’s the U.S. economic engine running without oil and beginning that slowdown phase just before it stutters and stalls completely. Alas, the pretending continues…
As noted by the Wall Street Journal, an economic gaslighting institution with a central mission to maintain pretenses, “business surveys show U.S. factory activity declined in December, the Institute for Supply Management and S&P Global both said this week. Separately, S&P Global said Thursday that U.S. services-sector businesses reported a decline in output for the third month running in December.” This comes as “U.S. imports dropped more, by 6.4% on the month, as Americans cut back on holiday-related purchases, including items from other countries such as computers and autos.”
Keep in mind, November retail sales—which included consumer spending at stores, online and at restaurants—fell 0.6% from the prior month for their biggest decline of 2022, according to the Commerce Department. Manufacturing output declined in November as well, the Fed reported, while U.S. home sales fell for a record 10th straight month.
Into this mix of economic metrics, driven by a collapse in disposable consumer income and high energy prices, now we begin to see the number one business expense being curtailed.
(Market Watch) […] Amazon.com Inc layoffs will affect more than 18,000 employees, the highest reduction tally revealed in the past year at a major technology company as the industry pares back amid economic uncertainty.
The Seattle-based company in November said that it was beginning layoffs among its corporate workforce, with cuts concentrated on its devices business, recruiting and retail operations. At the time, The Wall Street Journal reported the cuts would total about 10,000 people. Thousands of those cuts began last year. (more)
Amazon is not alone, “Vimeo said Wednesday that it will cut its workforce by 11% as part of a broader effort to reduce costs, citing deteriorating economic conditions” (link). Additionally, Salesforce Inc. is laying off 10% of its workforce and reducing its office space in certain markets, extending a brutal period for tech job cuts into the new year.”
We can anticipate more reports like this from Reuters, “Samsung Electronics Co Ltd’s quarterly profit will likely plunge 58% to its lowest in six years as a global economic downturn saps demand for electronic devices and clouds the outlook for the memory chip industry. With consumers and businesses reducing spending and investment in the face of high inflation and climbing interest rates, smartphone makers and other clients held back memory chip orders, while smartphones sold for less as demand suffered, analysts said.”
Electronics, cars, furniture, durable goods of all types and varieties are plummeting in sales. Consumers are being squeezed by inflation, housing, energy and food costs, and spending priorities are being reevaluated yet again. Compare the impact on ‘real wages’ -vs- the 2007/2008 economic crisis.
From a purely fraudulent accounting perspective, however, the drop in U.S. imports will help boost calculations of U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter because trade deficits subtract from overall output, or gross domestic product.
U.S. consumers not purchasing imported goods makes the health of the U.S. economy look less bad; but it’s an illusion akin to smiles in the bread lines.
In other economic news, I did some real estate analysis over the past several days and it’s safe to say there is a steep downward trajectory in the data I use. Again, home values are nuanced on a regional level, but my model is pretty close in averaging.
If buyers do not absorb the seller’s loss in equity (which no one should ever do), in my SWFL area a $450k home listing is going to sell around $380k at the high side (actual value based on economic indicators and buyer ability). That rough estimate, while slightly offset due to general inflation, should trend nationally over the next 12 to 18 months. That means macro home prices dropping around 15 to 20% nationally over the next 12 months.
If you are a home buyer, put your offers around 15 to 20% below current asking price without any emotional attachment to it. Don’t flinch, remain ambivalent and walk away if refused. The recovery to current price will take around a decade. If you are a seller and get an offer within -10% of asking, consider yourself lucky and jump on it.
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!
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