Gallup Poll – Gov’t is Our Greatest Problem


Armstrong Economics Blog/Uncategorized Re-Posted Feb 1, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Gallup has just confirmed what our computer has been forecasting especially since 2011. The majority of Americans now say that a lack of leadership from President Biden and Congress is the country’s biggest problem and that means the entire world. Perhaps aliens should have a right to vote for the decisions of the Biden Administration are destroying lives around the world.

The Gallup Poll shows that it is the collapse of confidence in a government that is now viewed as the greatest threat even more so than inflation, ​the immigration crisis, and the state of the economy. Despite Americans suffering economically with higher taxes and inflation reducing the standard of living, they have cited that “the government/poor leadership” is now in the No. 1 spot taking that place from inflation over the past year. Gallup has reported that 21% of Americans name our incompetent government as the “most important problem facing this country today​” compared to the 15% who said so last year, a Gallup Poll found.

​Inflation and the economy ​came in last year as the top two issues — tied at 16% each — followed by the government (15%), immigration (8%), and unifying the country (6%). ​However, over the past year, Americans’ concerns with the economy fell 6% to 10%, with ​inflation falling one point to 15%, and immigration rose 3 points to 11%.

Just wait until they realize that the Biden Administration is so incompetent, it has allowed the Neocons to wage World War III on two fronts – China and Russia. These people will destroy Western Civilization and that is what 2032 is all about.

The Real Cost of War


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Jan 6, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

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.

Shortage of Ordinary Medicines Quickly Becoming U.S. National Health Emergency – Biden Administration Silent, Beach Life is Bliss


Posted originally on the CTH on December 30, 2022 | Sundance 

Underreported and essentially invisible within the mainstream news cycles, a critical shortage of ordinary U.S. medicine has been growing and becoming an emergency situation for many families.  If rationing kicks in fully, be careful about what you post on social media.  Determining allowances based on political ideology is a real concern.

In a general sense the issue is mostly an outcome of the U.S. outsourcing drug ingredient procurement and manufacture to China and India.  Many companies in both of those countries have been struggling with operational interruptions as a result of COVID-19.  As supplies in the U.S. rapidly dwindle, local news media outlets are now starting to pick up on the issue.  WATCH:

(Via Fox Business) – The nationwide shortage of basic antibiotics and critical medications that treat chronic conditions and bacterial infections has become the latest issue to hit the medical world. Consequently, it is forcing many doctors to rely on alternative medicines to treat patients.

“What was once an unthinkable situation—a shortage of basic antibiotics such as amoxicillin and Augmentin to treat ear and skin infections or even medications such as Albuterol to treat asthma—is now a harsh reality,” New York City-based emergency room physician Dr. Robert Glatter told FOX Business.

Even the “shortage of basic medications such as children’s Tylenol—integral to treating fever and mild to moderate pain—is impacting our ability to provide care for our patients,” Glatter said.

Currently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a list of more than 180 current or resolved drug shortages. He said there have been shortages of antivirals such as Tamiflu, which is used to treat high-risk patients with influenza, as well as diabetic medications such as Ozempic due to the “inappropriate and off-label use” of the medication for weight loss and cosmetic purposes.

Glatter predicted that the drug shortage problem rippling throughout the U.S. could last for at least another year, if not longer.

According to federal health officials, intermittent or reduced availability of certain products can occur for many reasons, including manufacturing and quality problems, delays and discontinuations.

However, Glatter said that the problem is in part because the U.S. is currently facing challenges in obtaining raw materials. For instance, source materials for manufacturing the active pharmaceutical ingredients in the majority of drugs come from China, which is dealing with limited production and output of raw materials involved in pharmaceutical manufacturing due to rigid lockdown measures, Glatter said.

The U.S. is also dependent on India for a significant number of generic medications, but India also relies on China for the raw materials used to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients, he added. (read more)

Treasury Dept Makes Rule Determination Undermining Premise of EV Tax Credits Within Inflation Reduction Act


Posted originally on the CTH on December 29, 2022 

Treasury Dept Makes Rule Determination Undermining Premise of EV Tax Credits Within Inflation Reduction Act

December 29, 2022 | sundance | 132 Comments

We accept the named legislation “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) is a legislative misnomer intended to obfuscate the true construct of the bill.  The IRA was factually the ‘green new deal’ program packaged under the guise of an ‘inflation reduction’ premise.  However, in order to discuss the outcome of the content we have to play the game of pretending around the purpose of the legislation.

Within the IRA there was a $7,500 tax credit for American made Electric Vehicles.  The intent of the legislation was to provide incentives for U.S. consumers to purchase ‘sustainable’ and environmentally friendly electric cars, trucks, SUV’s etc made in America.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scored the bill with this legislative intent in mind.   However, the Treasury Department is now taking apart the granular details of the legislation in order to qualify foreign made vehicles for the $7,500 credit. The rules interpretation from the Treasury Dept essentially negates the CBO score, and the outcome is going to be much more expensive than initially stated.

Because the $7,500 comes in the form of a tax credit, the IRS (Treasury) is the institution making the determinations for qualification.  Treasury is changing the qualifications to permit basically any EV to qualify, by parsing a difference between a leased vehicle and a purchased vehicle.  Additionally, Treasury is changing the battery sourcing aspect by qualifying essentially any trade agreement as a Free Trade Agreement (FTA), saying the term Free Trade Agreement was undefined in the legislation.

As an outcome & simply cutting to the chase, EV batteries from just about anywhere, inside EV vehicles from basically anywhere, that are purchased as leases from just about any auto manufacturer, will qualify for the $7,500 credit. It’s all a shell game, with the Biden administration determining where the pea is located.

Dec 29 (Reuters) – The U.S. Treasury Department said Thursday that electric vehicles leased by consumers starting Jan. 1 can qualify for up to $7,500 in commercial clean vehicle tax credits, a decision that makes those assembled outside North America eligible.

The announcement is a win for South Korea and some automakers that earlier this month sought approval to use the commercial electric vehicle tax credit to boost consumer EV access. Automakers said the credit could be used to reduce leasing prices.

The $430 billion U.S. Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed in August ended $7,500 consumer tax credits for purchases of electric vehicles assembled outside North America, angering South Korea, the European Union, Japan and others. The new Treasury guidance does not change the definition of what constitutes North American assembly to make more vehicles eligible for EV purchases.

Treasury said it was using “longstanding tax principles” to determine consumer leasing could qualify for the EV tax credit.

The IRA also imposes significant battery minerals and component sourcing restrictions, sets income and price caps for qualifying vehicles and seeks to phase out Chinese battery minerals or components. The commercial credit does not, however, have the sourcing restrictions of the consumer credit.

Senator Joe Manchin, a Democrat who chairs the chamber’s energy panel, urged Treasury to pause implementation of both commercial and new consumer EV tax credits and said they had bent “to the desires of the companies looking for loopholes” and would seek new legislation that “prevents this dangerous interpretation from Treasury from moving forward.” (read more)

From the Wall Street Journal, “One of the documents released Thursday pointed out that because the legislation doesn’t define what a free-trade agreement is, the Treasury Department might consider other types of trade agreements to expand the eligibility. The department didn’t provide examples of such agreements, but trade lawyers have suggested that the 2019 bilateral trade agreement with Japan and the World Trade Organization’s government procurement agreement could be candidates.” (link)

I am reminded of the words from Democrat Congressman Alcee Hastings during the construction of the ObamaCare legislation.  WATCH (10 secs):

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Sen. Cruz: “deeply disturbing” special counsel aiming to indict Trump


One America News Network Published originally on Rumble on December 26, 2022

Texas Senator Ted Cruz warns Attorney General Merrick Garland’s handpicked special counsel to probe former President Trump, Jack Smith, has a history of targeting Tea Party activists. One America’s John Hines has more from Capitol Hill.

A National Security Nightmare Is Happening (Ep. 1917) – The Dan Bongino Show


The Dan Bongino Show Published originally on December 19, 2022 

A national security nightmare is about to unfold. In this episode, I address the dramatic situation, and the ramifications for our country moving forward. I also address the latest Twitter files drop and what it means for our broken FBI.

Looking at DHS Discussion with a New Twitter File Context, We Discover the Inflection Point


Posted originally on the CTH on December 18, 2022 | sundance 

During my trip to DC in the summer of 2020 there were a myriad of disconcerting datapoints assembled; revelations that made sense of the madness and disappointments found everywhere. However, one of the key notations for future reference was to watch the political evolution of DHS and spot the jump where the ideological outlook turns into specific government action.

With the DHS/FBI portal within Twitter, and likely within all social media, now being openly discussed and mainstreamed, it’s worth revisiting an August 2021 tripwire crossed by DHS and then contemplating how that was influenced by a much larger ideological agenda.

The United States Department of Homeland Security made a quiet and alarming announcement on August 13, 2021, creating the official position of the United States Government under the Joe Biden regime. [SEE DHS STATEMENT HERE]  According to the statement if you questioned the orthodoxy of government mandates, or COVID-19 responses from the U.S. government, you were -effective immediately- considered a “terrorist”, specifically a “Domestic Violent Extremist” (DVE).

Most people missed this remarkable development, yet it seemed to underpin a tenuous, unstable and fragile disposition of the current administration.  Within this continuation of the Obama-era initiatives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) seemed rather paranoid in their need to label anyone who would question the COVID-19 response.

Considering the polling at the time, more than half the country would be defined as dissidents and domestic terrorists within our homeland.  Think about that.

DHS – The Secretary of Homeland Security has issued a new National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin regarding the current heightened threat environment across the United States. […] These threats include those posed by domestic terrorists, individuals and groups engaged in grievance-based violence. […] Such threats are also exacerbated by impacts of the ongoing global pandemic, including grievances over public health safety measures and perceived government restrictions. (read more)

Notice the wording of that introductory paragraph.  The government-imposed mandates, mask and vaccination requirements were only “perceived government restrictions.”

The chains that bound your expressions of liberty and freedom were essentially being defined as mere figments of your imagination.  The rules and denials of activity that we are forced to live by, under the auspices of “public health and safety measures“, were described as perceived demands.

Most people missed this inflection point, but it was a substantive change in messaging from the United States Government.

The needle then being forced into the arm of federal workers by the Federal Government was not the problem.

It was the public perception of a forced medical treatment, and the need to control that perception that became the priority of the Dept of Homeland Security.

It was our perception of what they are doing that became the problem as outlined in this DHS bulletin.  Here is where you must overlay the Twitter File revelations about the action the government took as an outcome of that shift.  What followed in the censorship/control of social media by the same government agency, DHS, was an outcome of this ideological moment.

In essence We The People must correct our wrong-thoughts to eliminate carrying ‘the wrong perception’.  Dear leader appreciates your compliance.  At the time CTH noted to all readers the DHS statement was full blown Stazi-level propaganda.  The bulletin continues:

[…] Through the remainder of 2021, racially- or ethnically-motivated violent extremists (RMVEs) and anti-government/anti-authority violent extremists will remain a national threat priority for the United States. These extremists may seek to exploit the emergence of COVID-19 variants by viewing the potential re-establishment of public health restrictions across the United States as a rationale to conduct attacks. Pandemic-related stressors have contributed to increased societal strains and tensions, driving several plots by domestic violent extremists, and they may contribute to more violence this year.

[…] There are also continued, non-specific calls for violence on multiple online platforms associated with DVE ideologies or conspiracy theories on perceived election fraud and alleged reinstatement, and responses to anticipated restrictions relating to the increasing COVID cases. (link)

This became the official position of the United States Government toward citizens in our nation.  It is from this perspective that outreach and instructions to Twitter and various social media platforms originated.

Hopefully, in hindsight, you can see the importance of that narrative shift and how it ended with real consequences amid the speech platforms.

However, I want to move deeper, beyond that moment in 2021, deeper into the context that had taken hold of the various apparatus of government institutions.  Back to that moment when the shift in approach became evident, albeit ignored for its consequence.

Immediately after Barack H Obama was successfully installed in office, something began to shift.  While the U.S. media had always been biased, manipulative and dishonest, there was something bigger and deeper that changed after The Lightbringer achieved power and began his process of fundamental change.

The shift in the national security deployment, coincided with the merge between the intelligence apparatus and the new platforms of social media.  The speed of the shift was directly connected to the speed of technology that was driving communication.

Together the intelligence apparatus, the customary U.S. media and Big Tech began testing how far and how fast they could control the outlook of Americans.  Few people were paying attention to it…. there were some… but not many, and most of those who did notice were not connecting the dots to the actual tests.

The shift in attack direction from media (social and traditional) was alarming.

Normally the bias we encountered was framed to excuse or justify the transparently guilty of accountability.  Bad people doing bad things were downplayed, excused and defended.  However, in 2011 & 2012, the new era of controlling public opinion took shape and the system partners began falsely accusing the transparently innocent.

Read that again, because it was a profound difference, and inflection point.

Public opinion propaganda shifted from excusing the transparently guilty, to framing the transparently innocent.

Together with ideological institutions in government (Obama’s crew ie. DOJ etc.), the customary U.S. media and Big Tech system control operators began testing how far and fast they could control the outlook of Americans… to accuse the transparently innocent

Some transparently innocent examples included, George Zimmerman (Trayvon Martin), Police Officer Darren Wilson (Mike Brown), the Baltimore Six accused (Freddy Gray), Nick Sandmann, Kile Rittenhouse, and then ultimately the biggest example, Donald J Trump.  Take a transparently innocent person and manipulate a public narrative to make them guilty.

In combination with this new use of the public-private partnership to target the transparently innocent, the social media platforms were instructed to remove content that ran counter to the false presentations.

Now, fast forward throughout a decade of the ideological shift (2011 to 2021) and what did the 2021 DHS terrorism bulletin do?

It expanded the targeting of the transparently innocent.

Instead of specific targets based on personage, the system of collaboration and control by DHS now extended to a whole of government effort to define people as ‘domestic terrorists.’  This is one long continuum of targeting the transparently innocent.

The target holds the same ideas, outlooks, worldviews, and expectations of Liberty and Freedom they held yesterday, last week, last month and perhaps even long before 9-11-01.  However, now you are the problem.  You are guilty. You are an extremist.

You didn’t change at all. Something else changed.  But notice how the spotlight on what changed is YOU, and not the origin of the change?

You are the problem. It’s not the fault of those fundamentally changing the structures of freedom or liberty, you shifted to become the guilty party.

Can you see how they did that?

Can you see how the cancer cells of beta-test accusations against the transparently innocent metastasized and weaponized into a system that now uses the institutions of government against all of us, against the average American who might not accept the specific demands of government, ie. mask wearing, vaccinations, etc.

This government effort, a continuation of a narrative engineering strategy that originated in the aftermath of Obama’s election, specifically included the weaponization of social media and the compliance of the system operators who controlled Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Microsoft, YouTube, etc.

How can we help people to see this, to understand what took place?

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