How to Recognize Propaganda (circa 1957)


Armstrong Economics Blog/Tyranny Re-Posted Jul 22, 2023 by Martin Armstrong


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Title 42 to End – Border Crisis is About to Explode


Armstrong Economics Blog/Migration Re-Posted May 10, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Donald Trump noted in his interview with Nigel Farage that the US is expected to receive as many illegal immigrants as the population of NYC. The immigration problem is out of control and there is absolutely no way that the current economy can host such a large influx of undocumented people. Trump implemented Title 42 in March 2020 to curb “mass uncontrolled cross-border movement,” that allowed the government to expel migrants to prevent the spread of COVID.

The CDC and other agencies agreed to Title 42 and it was accepted by both parties. Between March 2020 and January 2023, over 2.7 million migrants were expelled from the US under this temporary law. Trump expelled 69% of migrant families who entered between March 2020 to January 2021. Biden expelled only 20% of migrant families under his term. Millions of people have entered America illegally under Biden, and thousands have died trying to enter America under the false promise that they can seek asylum here. These people cannot simply return to Mexico since millions are not even Mexican citizens. Certain countries, such as Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, and Nicaragua, refuse to accept the deportations of their own citizens. Simply put, these people are stuck with nowhere to go.

Title 42 is set to end on May 11 as COVID is no longer a public health emergency. Vice President Harris is in charge of overseeing the border crisis but has not offered any potential solutions. In fact, she insists that the border is safe and secure whenever she’s questioned. Reports state that tens of thousands of migrants are waiting at the US-Mexico border and plan to enter after May 11. Troy Miller of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) anticipates 10,000 illegal crossings per day once Title 42 ends, but others are predicting a larger influx. Biden stationed an additional 1,500 troops along the 2,000-mile border, but they’re completely outnumbered. The situation is unmanageable and there will be consequences in the coming weeks as towns are overrun with undocumented illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has focused all of its resources on securing Ukraine’s border and has abandoned the crisis at home.

Payback For Backstabbing – Lee Zeldin Endorses President Donald Trump


Posted originally on the CTH on April 24, 2023 | Sundance 

A well-timed counterpunch against the duplicitous backstabbing by Ron DeSantis that took place in August of 2022 is delivered by former New York Congressman and former New York Governor candidate Lee Zeldin today.  Zeldin endorses Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP nomination:

[SOURCE]

If you have followed the deep weeds of GOP politics, you already knew this was likely.

At a key moment in the New York governor race, in late August of 2022, shortly after the Mar-a-Lago raid, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was scheduled to be keynote speaker at a New York City Zeldin dinner/fundraiser.  Before the fundraiser, DeSantis went to pick up a six-figure donor check from Billionaire developer Joseph Cayre of Midtown Equities.

Cayre told DeSantis that he supported Zeldin’s Democrat opponent Kathy Hochul.  The contingency for the contribution appeared to be that DeSantis would cancel attendance of the dinner for Zeldin.  DeSantis took the Cayre donor check and at the last minute cancelled his attendance at the Zeldin dinner. {GO DEEP}

[…] While unable to attend the evening event, DeSantis was in Deal, New Jersey, earlier in the day at the home of Jay Cayre, head of Midtown Equities, sources told The Post. (link)

Team DeSantis tried to sell a story about an emergency funeral the following day for slain police officer Jose Perez as the reason for his cancellation.  However, we did a deep dive on the details and the timeline, and nothing matched the claims by DeSantis. {GO DEEP}

Officer Perez died on August 20th.  The funeral was announced by the family and FDLE on August 26th, to be held August 29th.

When DeSantis left Florida on August 28th to pick up the check from Cayre and then attend the dinner later that night, he was well aware of the Perez funeral the next day.  DeSantis took the time to pick up the check, then cancelled the evening dinner with Zeldin.

Two months later, long after the value of the fundraising would have been useful, on October 30, 2022, DeSantis made a return trip to New York to fulfill his obligation.

With only a week left before the 2022 mid-term election the value of the “fundraising window” had closed.  DeSantis made an innocuous speech about police officer support, and then left New York.  Essentially Zeldin was railroaded by the financial priority of the Florida Governor.

Actions create consequences.

Today, Lee Zeldin endorsed President Trump – who was very gracious in his appreciation and acceptance:

.

So, that’s how that happens….

Neil Oliver – The Peasants Are Revolting


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

For his monologue this week British Pundit Neil Oliver takes a walk around the globe to highlight how an increasingly awake global citizenry are revolting against the professional political class.

From France to the United States and Canada and all the way to Africa and throughout Europe, people are looking at the professional political class and rebelling against the desperate schemes of those barely clinging to power.  Many tremors and trembles are visible amid the action of the people and the responses from the elites that believe they rule them.  WATCH:

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Team DeSantis Expand Astroturf Operations – Hire Team Cruz and Team Youngkin, Immediately Begin Fake Push Polls


Posted originally on the CTH on March 31, 2023 | Sundance 

Everything about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is shallow fakery and manipulative astroturf.

The term “astroturf” is given whenever a political operation attempts to generate the illusion of support where little to no support exists.   Astroturf politics is pure fabrication and highlights the smallness of the candidate for whom the astroturf operation is conducted.

In republican national politics we saw astroturf operations around Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz in 2016, so it doesn’t come as a surprise to see the same individual’s surface again as hired by Team DeSantis to create his 2024 astroturf campaign.  Yesterday’s trip by the meatball to Georgia was pure astroturf, complete with free DeSantis ’24 swag, t-shirts, and various freebies in order to support the artificial optics of the campaign [see video at end].

With the support of Jeb Bush and Karl Rove, team Meatball has hired former Cruz and Youngkin campaign officials to help generate and enhance his illusion.  They even hired people skilled in manufactured polling [WPA intel] to create false data for media to promote. This action comes on the heels of the meatball’s instructions to state senate allies for them to change Florida law, thus permitting him to run without resigning.

WASHINGTON – […] The upper ranks of Never Back Down, a group founded by former Virginia attorney general Ken Cuccinelli, will include top strategists to Sen. Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign, a top adviser to Glenn Youngkin’s 2021 Virginia gubernatorial campaign and senior communications aides involved in former president Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential run, according to a person familiar with the plans, who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private arrangements.

The sheer firepower of the senior team suggests that Never Back Down — which will be able to accept donations of unlimited value and transfers from DeSantis’s state political committee — will have a more expansive role in the 2024 campaign than past presidential super PACs, which have traditionally focused almost exclusively on television and digital advertising.

[…] Phil Cox, a senior adviser to the 2022 DeSantis reelection campaign who has been a point of contact for Republicans hoping to support a White House bid, will serve as a senior adviser to Never Back Down, the person familiar with the plans said. He will work with Axiom Strategies President Jeff Roe, the architect of the 2016 Cruz campaign and the 2021 Youngkin campaign, whose role with the group was disclosed last week.

Kristin Davison, an Axiom consultant who has worked as a top adviser to Youngkin, will join the group as chief operating officer, working with Chris Jankowski — a Virginia strategist who has worked with Cox — who has taken the title of chief executive.

[…] Chris Wilson, a Republican pollster at WPA Intelligence, will lead the data efforts for Never Back Down. He worked on Youngkin’s gubernatorial campaign, and served as director of research, analytics and digital strategy for the 2016 Cruz presidential campaign.

David Polyansky, Axiom’s chief strategy officer, will also join Never Back Down as a senior adviser. He previously worked as a senior adviser to the 2016 GOP presidential campaign of former Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, as top adviser to the Cruz presidential campaign and as a Senate chief of staff to Cruz.

[…] On Monday, Matt Wolking, a deputy communications director for Trump’s 2020 campaign who works at Axiom, announced on Twitter that he was joining the group. (read more)

Right on cue, today Meatball spox Matt Wolking starts promoting a Meatball WPA Intelligence poll for NBC to promote.

The coordinated astroturf effort is extremely visible, and makes the meatball look smaller than a spaghetti-o.

Next up is an exceptional video explanation by Randy of what happened in Georgia yesterday.

Everything noted in the ‘on-the-ground’ video in Georgia is describing pure astroturf.

If Casey DeSantis had any shame or humility, she would be embarrassed for her Meatball.  However, as Casey takes counsel from Cindy McCain while shopping for tiaras and drapes, the general optics are that Mrs. Meatball is one of the biggest pushers of the 2024 enterprise.

IRS Makes Visit to Matt Taibbi Home on Day of His Congressional Testimony


Posted originally on the CTH on March 28, 2023 | Sundance

If there is one additional person that I would be certain is under full spectrum surveillance, it’s dissident comrade Matt Taibbi.  With the background of Twitter and the DHS national security interests still part of the social media construct, you can be sure all elements of the administrative state have a focus on his internal search requests.

One of the reasons why I give Matt Taibbi a lot of credit, is because I am well aware how the shadow dwellers, what DC would call ‘stakeholders’, are watching him; yet he persists on his reviews and investigations.

Secondly, given his general Michael Hastings aligned disposition, Taibbi would be the first person to dismiss his own risk status.  Something akin to, ‘nah, they wouldn’t‘, but oh yes, they would.

On the day that Taibbi was giving testimony to the House committee reviewing the ‘Weaponization of Federal Government’, an IRS agent just happened to coincidentally visit his home.  Committee Chairman Jim Jordan now wants to know if the two coincidences are connected.

(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter Monday to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions.

Mr. Taibbi has provoked the ire of Democrats and other journalists for his role in researching Twitter records and then releasing internal communications from the social-media giant that expose its censorship and its contacts with government officials. This effort has already inspired government bullying, with Chair Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission targeting new Twitter owner Elon Musk and demanding the company “identify all journalists” granted access to the Twitter files.

Now Mr. Taibbi has told Mr. Jordan’s committee that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter. The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft. (read more)

Madoff – Hiding the Real Fraud


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Jan 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: I know you saved Mercedes making back their $1 billion lost all because they listened to the fake news about how the pound and the dollar would crumble in the face of the euro. I read the 2011 Barron’s article on your forecast. It was OK to publish that when they thought you would be wrong. Where is the follow-up when you proved to be the only one who was correct? The same can be said of the New York Times and especially Bloomberg. It is obvious that they will not report on the success of your forecasts because they are leading society at the direction of the Deep State.

Keep up the good work. We need someone independent in this time of darkening clouds.

JWN

REPLY: Let me explain something. All the hype about Bernie Madoff is also FAKE NEWS. On December 10th, 2008, Madoff’s sons Mark and Andrew covered themselves most likely at their father’s direction, and told authorities that their father had confessed to them that the asset management unit of his firm was a massive Ponzi scheme. They even supposedly told them it was “one big lie”. The next day, agents from the FBI arrested Madoff and charged him with one count of securities fraud. There was no possible way the FBI would arrest someone like that without an independent investigation.

The Securities and Exchange Commission had previously conducted numerous investigations into his business practices. Vere did ANY audit uncover such a massive fraud. It was then on March 12th, 2009, when Bernie Madoff simply pleaded guilty to 11 federal felonies and admitted to turning his wealth management business into a massive Ponzi scheme. He was not even indicted. He pled simply to what is known as an “information” so nothing was even presented to a grand jury. That is UNPRECEDENTED!

The banks all claimed that they had “no idea.” Before he died, Madoff did an interview where the headline was that the Banks had to have known. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that the banks were NOT involved or had no idea.  That is legally impossible. As a client of a bank of that size especially, the bank must fill its files with KNOWN YOUR CLIENT rules.

In my case, we had companies set up for each note in Turks & Caicos. The bank actually sent someone down there to audit the legal structure behind every account. There is simply no way a bank can even claim it had no idea. That was a serious RED FLAG that the Madoff case was not what it appeared.

Everyone just skipped over the fact that the SEC conducted multiple audits and found nothing. That included looking at bank accounts and positions on hand. That did NOT add up to a PONZI scheme where you are taking money from one person to pay another which is the actual structure of Social Security. The current generation’s contributions are tasked to pay the previous generation.

Add to that, HSBC, which has been itself indicted for money laundering more than once, stood out as the largest “victim” of Madoff’s scheme – $1.5 billion. HSBC pays countless fines for every scandal they seem to be in the middle of.

In my case, the Bank said they had no idea where the money was after they stole it. How does $1 billion leave a bank without a withdrawal of some sort? Had it not been for my clients standing with me and doing what I told them to do and then sued HSBC, they would have gotten nothing, the government would have claimed I lost it all and the ban was not responsible. The government then put a gag order on me to stop me from helping my clients against the bank! If the bank was not trying to take my client’s money to cover their losses in Russia, then why put a gag order on me if the bank did not do anything wrong?

Then to hide my profits, the receiver handed the notes we issued to HSBC for them to redeem for $606 million pocketing $400 million profit stolen from my company. A former employee bumped into a former HSBC official and he asked what the hell went on. The bankers bluntly told him, the deal offered by the government was too good to pass up. When I asked a NY lawyer why no banker ever is charged or goes to jail, he laughed and said: “You don’t shit where you eat!”

Remember the 1995 collapse of the British Barings Bank because of a “rogue” trader? Nicholas William Leeson was an English former derivatives trader whose claimed fraudulent, “unauthorized and speculative trades” resulted in the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank, the United Kingdom’s oldest merchant bank. Leeson was convicted of financial crime in Singapore court and served over four years in Changi Prison. At the time, I owned a Brokerage House I was asked to bail out by the Japanese government. At our Hong Kong office, Barings wanted to open an account to trade with Leeson in charge.

I knew the corruption of the banks and if the trade went wrong, they would claim he was not authorized. That was the standard operational procedure. Knowing the inside of the industry out, I insisted on a letter from the Board of Directions expressly laying out the credit line for Leeson they requested from my company. I got the letter. So when Leeson supposedly went belly up, guess what. I was quietly paid when everyone else it was said Leeson was a rogue trader.

The New York Post journalist Isabel Vincent who wrote Gilded Lilly, the wife of Edmond Safra, had called me and asked that since I had said that Republic National Bank, Edmond Safra’s, had been illegally trading in my accounts, did I think they were laundering money for the Russian mafia “as they were doing in Madoff’s?” I said I did not know. All I could tell was there were countless errors constantly being put into my accounts and then backed out. At first, I assumed they were “parking trades” in my accounts to use my cash for their margin. Of course, if the “error” was backed out to a different account, they indeed, they were engaging in money laundering.

The court-appointed forensic accountant even wrote to the court about the unprecedented errors in the accounts. The government refused to provide account information to allow them to audit what was going on. The court-appointed counsel, David Cooper, I believe was doing everything he could to help the government cover everything up. The forensic accountant then sent letters to the Judge, and he took no action.

You now have the FTX scandal. You will see that there will NEVER be a trial that would expose all the money laundering where the Democrats had Zelensky, which supposedly needed money to defend his country and fee starving Ukrainians, hand the money to FTX who then happened to be the #2 donor to the Democrats for the midterms. Guess what! Sam Bankman-Fried was charged in the most corrupt court in the nation – the Southern District of New York. The Court of Appeals admitted on page 97 of US v Ziccehtello, that judges are altering transcripts and changing the very words spoken in court.  That is 20 years in prison if you or I alter court documents. They do it all the time. When I confronted Judge Richard Owen about this practice, so many people showed up in court to see what would happen. The lawyers said you can’t accuse a federal judge of committing a crime. I said you all say they do it. They responded. Yes, but you cannot accuse them of doing it. The judge got scared and admitted it in public but claim it wasn’t material.

All the press was there AP, New York Times, Bloomberg, NT Post, you name it. NOT a single member of the press reported what took place that day. OMG! Exposing the federal courts corruption? Impossible!

If a case is a high profile, you will NEVER see the truth in the media.

Lancet Joins the Fake News Crowd?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Press Re-Posted Jan 17, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

04:22

COMMENT: I think fake news is global and it definitely appears to be some sort of international manipulation of society. Here in Germany, it might be worse than there across the pond. We have fake news over COVID, now hiding the vaccine injury crisis. The press has its agenda. I guess they are like the North Korean military. They get free food so they lie and oppress everyone else.

I don’t see this is going to ever change. You are right. We simply have to crash and burn for these people will never report the truth. It always comes down to them against us. You are the legend and you have paid the price for that title.

Best wishes, always.

Hans

PS Dubai may be the only place we can all get together again. Think about it!

As pointed out by Norman Fenton and Martin Neil, The LANCET appears to have lost its reputation for independence and joined the crowd over COVID and fake news. As they pointed out in this article, on May 6th, 2021 “The Lancet published a blatantly flawed study of the effectiveness of the Pfizer covid vaccine on the population of Israel, claiming it was 95% effective.” Then on May 17th, 2021, Fenton and Neil submitted a rapid response 250-word letter explaining why the study was flawed. The LANCET refused to even publish their letter to the editor.

I did not get vaccinated BECAUSE I have worked with governments around the world. I have been called into just about every crisis since 1985 BECAUSE I understand the game, which is all wordsmithing. Once the government began pushing the COVID vaccines and locked down the world, knowing how politics works, I decided to hunker down and refused to get vaccinated for ONE MAJOR REASON! Once the government crossed that line and became authoritarian using COVID, I knew that there would NEVER be any accountability whatsoever. Now that people have been seriously injured by these vaccines, the government will continue to call it a conspiracy theory for they will NEVER admit a mistake or that they were bribed.

I was NEVER anti-Vax. My children got all the normal vaccines. Once in a while, I would take the flu shot. I know someone who thought he was getting a flu shot and they gave him the COVID vaccine and he became seriously ill. A lawyer I know took the vaccine so he could travel, got the blood clots, and now cannot fly. Now as the elite fly to DAVOS, they want only pilots who were NOT vaccinated.

The major medical industry has failed society. My doctor retired and a new younger doctor took over his practice. He asked me if I was vaccinated. I responded resoundingly – NO! He responded GOOD!. I suggest if your doctor just follows the crowd and the government, get someone else.

Bidenomics – Amazon Announces 18,000 Layoffs, and They Are Not Alone – Imports and Exports Drop


Posted originally on the CTH on January 5, 2023 | Sundance 

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.

Clinton Crony and Deep State Operative Mike Morell Predicts an al-Qaeda Attack on the West in 2023


Posted originally on the CTH on January 1, 2023 | Sundance

Abraham Lincoln once said, “No man has a good enough memory to make him a successful liar.” Lincoln somewhat underestimated the Mike Morell types of the world, who have become liars as a profession. {Direct Rumble Link}

Mike Morell was the former acting CIA director in the aftermath of Benghazi when General David Petraeus was removed from the position. Morell is a Clinton crony who not only constructed the infamously fabricated talking points used by Susan Rice to blame the Benghazi attack on a YouTube video, Morell was also the guy moved into position to protect Clinton in the aftermath of the terrorist attack, and then years later in July 2016 the same Mike Morell penned the first Trump-Russia thesis in the New York Times.

After successfully doing his job to protect Clinton in the aftermath of Benghazi, Mike Morell was hired by CBS President David Rhodes.  Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes is David’s brother.  Mike Morell now continues to work for CBS and today he declared a likelihood that a “U.S. or western interest” is likely to be attacked by an al-Qaeda affiliate in 2023.

 CBS National Security Contributor Predicts a Terrorist Attack in 2023

Where is Ms Haines now? She’s Joe Biden’s Director of National Intelligence (ODNI)