California has infected the United States as a whole for its insane policies have led to contagions that have unleashed a serious crime wave nationwide. Just Google “Shoplifting in San Francisco” and you will find more than 100,000 hits. This has become a real contagion spreading nationwide. You will also find many YouTube videos showing people just walking in and stealing whatever they want. This has escalated to whole gangs walking into an SF Walgreens or CVS and actually emptying the shelves. They are not prosecuted and they just walk out. At least one thief rode their bike into the store and departed the same way.
What is erupting is many current and former CEOs have issued warnings that this crime wave in California has spread to New York and many other cities. They are warning that this increase in retail thefts across the United States will contribute to INFLATION forcing higher prices, but it is also impacting areas as stores just give up and close. In fact, in June of 2021, nearly 50% of small businesses remained closed. Walgreens has been closing down stores in San Francisco on a grand scale. Between this and all the illegal aliens learning they do not have to pay for things in San Franciso, what was a nice safe city has turned into a place that is no longer the hot spot for tourists.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 14, 2022 | sundance
The political branding and campaign team behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have structured a “Win with Ron 2024” strategy constructed around the politicization of the COVID-19 vaccine. Yesterday, the team launched the effort through the governor’s office [Details Here].
The polarizing federal vaccine and mask mandates continue to create an opportunity for exploitation by political interests. The WWR ’24 team see the opportunity within the republican base for Ron DeSantis to create a 2024 lane by presenting himself in alignment with medical autonomy in a similar vein that a candidate might create with strong support for the second amendment.
To accomplish this brand strategy, the people around DeSantis need to pretend the Florida Governor did not advocate for lockdowns and vaccines in 2020 and 2021; even going so far as to threaten the liquor licenses for non-compliant bars and restaurants. Through a series of continuous and carefully organized drumbeats surrounding the later held position on medical freedom and autonomy, the WWR24 team attempt to rewrite history in advance of his 2024 GOP nomination announcement.
The branding and image strategy for Ron DeSantis has been carefully mapped since early 2022 and includes the coy game of pretending to be above the national political fray while simultaneously dropping into national political issues at carefully constructed moments.
COVID-19 has been poll-tested amid the base of the republican party and positions have been established based on surveyed responses. That’s the background for a rollout that took place yesterday in Florida complete with the creation of a Florida Public Health Integrity Committee. The Florida governor grabs headlines by asking for a state grand jury to “hold the federal government and Big Pharma accountable.”
The ‘medical freedom‘ rollout yesterday included a simultaneously timed 2024 election primary poll showing DeSantis with the highest favorability rating.
As noted within the announcement, “Governor DeSantis has filed a petition to impanel a statewide grand jury to investigate crimes and wrongs in Florida related to the COVID-19 vaccines and further recommend enforcement methods.” Notably absent from the announcement was his own culpability promoting the same programs he now rails against. This hypocrisy is the calling card of political engineering.
Steve Bannon began to weave some of this together earlier today, while being careful not to offend the Cruzbots DeSantis-bots, Harmeet Dhillon sycophants. You can watch Bannon carefully narrate this dynamic in the video below.
However, I have pledged not to participate in the insufferable pretending – so I am being more direct.
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In addition to the organized, televised and highly publicized DeSantis panel PR rollout, which I will note was not needed unless the goal was to enhance public visibility for the enterprise – a staged performance, the team managing DeSantis had a prescheduled follow-up with the assist from Rupert Murdoch, Fox News and Laura Ingraham. {Direct Rumble Link} WATCH:
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Previously Rupert Murdoch offered the WWR24 team to support their efforts throughout all his media companies including Fox News, Fox Business, New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal.
In addition, the billionaire who considers himself kingmaker for the GOP has given DeSantis an unknown number of millions for his book contract with Murdoch owned Harper Collins publishing house.
…. Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never watch the puppet show and not see them.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 14, 2022 | sundance
Mike Lindell appears with Steve Bannon to talk about his progress so far contacting RNC members who will vote for the next chairmanship position in January. {Direct Rumble Link} Currently, Ronna McDaniel, Harmeet Dhillon and Mike Lindell are the top three candidates seeking to take control of the RNC chair position.
Ronna McDaniel is the current chair akin to Mitch McConnell (Tim Scott ’24), Harmeet Dhillon represents party interests in alignment with Kevin McCarthy (Ron DeSantis ’24), and Mike Lindell is the outsider voice in the MAGA lane. WATCH:
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President Trump has announced on Truth Social that he will be making an announcement about something tomorrow. Perhaps President Trump is planning an endorsement for the RNC chair in this race.
Given the nature of the 2024 contest as it is being carried out by the schemes, plans and strategies of the background participants, I would love to see President Trump endorse Mr. Lindell and force the RNC into a position that would create a bigger potential for a second party to break through.
Let the club reject Lindell, sooner or later the Republican party needs to be fractured. Continuing to work on reforming a party that connives for its own interest and hates the voting base is not sustainable.
The DNC wants power. The RNC wants money. The DNC uses money to get power. The RNC uses power to get money. The ideology of the DNC drives their donor activity. The donor activity of the RNC drives their ideology. This is the only current difference between the two clubs, two wings of the same vulture.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 14, 2022 | sundance
As we have often discussed on these pages, inflation would ultimately moderate and plateau not because prices were dropping but rather because of the calendar cycle.
As the economy cycles through a year of large price increases, the current inflation rate cycles through to the period when prices first increased. This calendar cycle means continued price increases are lower as a percentage and thus the inflation rate appears to modify despite prices continuing to rise. [BLS Report]
This scenario, prices remaining high and continuing to climb – yet lower as a percentage, now provides the justification for the federal reserve to state inflation is moderating.
(Via NBC) – Amid signs that price growth in the U.S. economy is rapidly cooling, the Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it was slowing the pace of its rate-hiking program designed to tackle inflation — but that more hikes were still on the table.
The Federal Open Market Committee said it was increasing its key federal funds rate by 0.5%, after announcing four-straight 0.75% hikes at its most recent meetings. In its Wednesday statement, the Fed said it continues to target an inflation rate of 2% over the long term and would continue to increase the federal funds rate to do so.
“Inflation remains elevated, reflecting supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic, higher food and energy prices, and broader price pressures,” the committee said.
But bringing down inflation is likely to come at the cost of higher unemployment in the short term: The Fed said it now projects the 2023 unemployment rate to average 4.6%, equating to hundreds of thousands of more jobless workers compared with the current rate of 3.7%.
The Labor Department on Tuesday reported that annual inflation clocked in at 7.1% in November — the lowest reading in more than a year. While it is still high compared to the 2% level at which the Federal Reserve typically seeks to hold down inflation, the most recent number signals that the galloping price growth earlier this year is fading. (read more)
Prices will never drop because the supply side pressure from a new energy policy remains as the driving factor.
Demand has dropped throughout 2022 as the U.S. economy, gauged in units of product sold, has contracted. Consumers are not buying non-essential goods or services as the costs of housing, fuel, heating, electricity, overall energy and food prices continue rising.
Despite the economic contraction that is lowering energy use, rapidly increasing energy costs continue to be the driving force of inflation.
This period of depressed economic activity will continue as unemployment begins to become problematic. As a nation we will remain in this economic malaise as long as Green New Deal, Build Back Better, energy policy is maintained.
On the positive side the economic shrinking is reversable with new energy policy; however, the opportunity to make that change is several years away. In the interim, the cost of living will remain the biggest challenge for the foreseeable future, and the inbound open-border migration will keep wages depressed.
Under the economic program of Joe Biden wages must be depressed in order to avoid production inflation (higher labor costs) from piling atop the energy policy inflation. Thus, the border influx will continue.
The gap between the haves and have nots is also going to explode in the next five years.
COMMENT: Mr. Armstrong, I just want to congratulate you on creating Socrates. I am a real estate aficionado and Socrates has beaten the Case-Shiller Index which peaked in June of 2022 and even the Redfin Index which peaked in May 2022. Socrates peaked at a high in December 2021 ahead of everyone. Your model has shown a 34% drop into October where everyone is saying a 20% drop by the end of next year is likely. I just wanted to write because you and Socrates have beaten everyone in the real estate forecasting business and you do not even make that a big deal. Socrates is amazing.
I just wanted to share that because you do not even bother pounding your chest about real estate.
Thank you so much
LR
REPLY: Socrates is forecasting so many aspects of the world economy I do not have the time to pound my chest and if I did, I would probably end up in the hospital for it gets so many things right. It covers a fair sampling of real estate around the world and I do know we have many major real estate companies tuning in. Thank you for your comment. I have not had the time to look at either of those two indices as of yet.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2022 | Sundance
The profound thoughts of great consequence can only flow from the consequential minds of the most profound.
Once again Kamala Harris delivers an oration that leaves the audience speechless in conclusion. “The ability To See What Can Be, Unburdened By What Has Been” 40 seconds, WATCH:
Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2022 | Sundance
Tucker Carlson hits the bullseye in a late show segment discussing the framework of the Twitter social media company. Stunningly, Carlson is the first person to ask the question that we have outlined for years, it is the essence of how Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop evolved. {Direct Rumble Link}
“It’s all pretty weird. Could it be that while the rest of us imagined that Twitter was a social media site … could it be that Twitter was actually, maybe primarily, a propaganda tool and intelligence gathering apparatus for a variety of intel agencies?” ~ Tucker Carlson
Yes. Exactly this. Yes. It’s not that DHS had a portal into Twitter, it’s that DHS took over the operation of Twitter and controlled every element of it. That’s also why profits and losses were never part of the viability equation. DHS controls Twitter operations, that’s the essential baseline for Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop. Well done Tucker Carlson. WATCH:
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Once you change your reference point and review the data from a different perspective, things make sense. DHS doesn’t operate on the backbone of Twitter, Twitter operates on the backbone of DHS. The information and content on Twitter exist, or not, by the permission and authority of the national security state, DHS.
Narratives can be enhanced or throttled. Public perceptions can be uplifted or deemphasized. Candidates can be boosted or dismissed. Control over the public conversation is not simply in the hands of Twitter executives, the platform content is shaped by the guiding hand of the controlling interest – the government.
So why did they permit it to be sold? Again, control.
Every non-Twitter, non-DHS controlled, information and discussion site is a watering down of the influence of Twitter. The inability to influence a platform like Truth Social would be particularly troublesome. So, launder the handling of the DHS platform to Elon Musk and create the illusion of a refresh.
Twitter 2.0 now rebrands with a renewed ability to influence. Not accidentally, a pro DeSantis shaping is part of the objective. In the eyes of the control state Rumble and Truth Social represent the threat that is Donald Trump, while Twitter and YouTube representing the controlled alternative, Ron DeSantis.
There are trillions at stake.
The ‘magic’ inside Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop is the intelligence community ability to shape, mold and create the illusion of choice.
♦ 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 has no idea, well, at least no more of an idea than he does about the financial underwriting of the purchase itself.
The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, influencing public opinion, and then ultimately controlling the outcomes.
Tens of millions of Brazilians are on the streets in protest of their fraudulent election. Do you see any of those voices on Twitter?
The Twitter social media company residing on the backbone of DHS would help explain why.
[…] 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 [INFORMATION] 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.
[…]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. (more)
Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2022 | Sundance
Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard had an interesting discussion on her podcast today [LINK] which included Carlson retelling the story of the NSA conducting surveillance on him during a prior attempt to gain an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After recounting the NSA story, Tucker then went on to outline a conversation with representative Mike McCaul after the Texas republican and incoming Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee described Carlson as an agent of Russia. When Carlson got into an argument with McCaul over the accusation, McCaul went on to tell Carlson his intelligence community briefers were the ones who provided the information.
Overall, if you have an understanding of our prior CTH outline of The Fourth Branch of Government, this interview fits into that aspect perfectly. Additionally, expand your perspective as you listen to Carlson outline the details; remind yourself of the stakes within the domestic surveillance network from their perspective; then overlay the current headlines surrounding Twitter. Tucker Carlson is coming darn close to the center of the target. WATCH (prompted to 40:05):
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The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) has a vested interest in keeping the public unaware of the details behind the U.S. surveillance state. All of the institutions that were created after 9/11/01, specifically including the Dept of Homeland Security, the DOJ National Security Division and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), would go to extreme lengths -under the auspices of national security- to maintain the framework of the surveillance state they represent.
Penetrating this matrix is almost impossible as you are seeing from the Executive Branch (DOJ) and Judicial Branch (federal courts), as the institutions have an umbrella of protection by shouting for a ‘national security’ shield. There are trillions at stake, and the system of utilizing social media to conduct internal domestic surveillance is part of the process.
Barack Obama specifically enveloped the social media sphere by recruiting Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, Microsoft and Apple into the DHS system. Essentially what formed as an outcome of the mutually beneficial agreements was a Big Tech oligarchy (a monopoly of sorts). The construct was intentional, because within an oligarchical system no rogue oligarch will be permitted to put the group at risk.
Knowing the same DHS systems are all operating within Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, Microsoft, Apple etc., you can see how a risk vector is presented to the group if any individual partner were to go rogue. This reality forms the baseline to understand that Elon Musk would never be permitted to put the larger DHS surveillance system agreement at risk.
No matter how much people might advocate for Elon Musk’s purity of motive, the one motive that does not exist is the motive to expose the government link to the all-inclusive DHS/FBI surveillance state using social media platforms. The peer group, essentially fellow tech oligarchs, and the U.S. government would simply not allow it.
This reality is why there is a disconnect between what has been released in the Twitter Files and the absence of evidence/information specific to the DHS/FBI portal. The government side of the network will always be protected under the guise of ‘national security.’ Elon Musk, who is not directly in control of the data being released to show bias within the platform, is never going to be permitted to show how the DHS/FBI surveillance operation is conducted. It’s just not going to happen.
The Twitter Files represent a gateway of discovery into how government assisted creating “Oligarchical Systems.” Surveillance systems delivering mutual benefits called public-private partnerships were formed. Readers here are months ahead of where the arc of this story is destined. However, oligarchical beneficiaries will always defend the system against rogue oligarchs who become a threat. There will never be an end that includes the national security state being exposed.
Surveillance of domestic communication, to include surveillance of all social media platforms, is now the primary mission of DHS. The information is gathered by social media, funneled by direct portals into the DHS network then distributed to DOJ-NSD and FBI officials as well as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
This communication surveillance & information control network is the primary mission of DHS. They are not going to let Elon Musk put that at risk. That is why the focus of any Twitter File release can only be Twitter internally. Musk is not in control of these decisions. The DHS national security apparatus is in control.
The four pillars of the Fourth Branch of Government are: DHS, ODNI, DOJ-NSD and the revised/political FBI. All four pillars were created as an outcome of the Patriot Act. These institutions – as specifically named – represent the domestic surveillance state. The subsidiary institutions like TSA etc, exist under their authority.
There is no oversight or counterbalance to this created system. The Fourth Branch exists using the shield of “national intelligence” to hide their activity. Domestic surveillance is done by the intelligence apparatus under one big connected system, operated by the ODNI and DHS.
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.
If TikTok is a national security threat, then 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.
Everything we are watching unfold is a DHS controlled, and FBI mitigated, release of information.
Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2022 | Sundance
Arguably, Glenn Greenwald has been the most critical voice about the rise of the U.S. surveillance state and generational shift of the U.S. intelligence apparatus to conduct domestic surveillance on American citizens. There’s a reason Greenwald lives in Brazil where no extradition treaties with the U.S. government exist.
Curiously, when it came time to release information about DHS connections to Twitter, Glenn Greenwald was not considered as an acceptable outlet for the information. Instead, Matt Taibbi and Bari Weiss were selected by Elon Musk to represent his sunlight and transparency interests. However, in this brief video Greenwald gets to interview Taibbi about his findings. {Direct Rumble Link}
Interested viewers will note Taibbi’s #1 takeaway from his review of the Twitter Files data is that evidence of the DHS connection to Twitter exists. Taibbi speaks of the “instructions” coming into Twitter from U.S. government officials. Yet, curiously missing from the documented evidence provided by Taibbi was anything showing a paper trail of this instruction pathway he is describing. WATCH:
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Greenwald is smart, strategically smart; Greenwald also knows why he was not selected to review the files. Glenn artfully guides Taibbi to discuss elements of the story that perhaps Taibbi himself doesn’t recognize are being shaped for his reporting. Note: “we don’t know how the ‘ask’ works yet.”
Full Video Below (segment begins at 33:00-minute mark)
Posted originally on the CTH on December 13, 2022 | Sundance
Axios has an interesting article today [SEE HERE] about the success of Bari Weiss and her wife Nellie Bowles website launch on the back of the Twitter Files release.
Axios – Bari Weiss, the New York Times columnist turned independent newsletter writer, has hired ten full-time employees and over a dozen contractors to help build her new media company, The Free Press, Weiss told Axios in an interview.
[…] Weiss launched The Free Press last Thursday, four days ahead of schedule, to capitalize on the media coverage around her “Twitter Files” reporting.
In less than a week, The Free Press has accrued more than 105,000 followers on Twitter and its flagship newsletter has added an additional 25,000 free and paid subscribers.
Weiss’ Twitter following itself has exploded in that time, growing from more than 500,000 followers to more than 900,000 in less than a week.
Last year, Marketwatch reported that Weiss made over $800,000 from her newsletter alone, which at the time had 14,000 paid subscribers. The newsletter has more than double that number of paid subscribers today.
The big picture: Weiss, alongside other independent writers like Matt Taibbi, are gaining newfound attention with Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter. (read more)
Keep watching….
According to the latest conservative headlines, TikTok is bad because the social media app tracks users via Chinese servers; billionaire Elon Musk is the savior of all things speech related; Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will be the savior of the Republic for 2024; approved republican candidates are the way forward for the future; and support for Ukraine spending has never been higher.
Ignore that all U.S. social media apps track users on U.S. servers with U.S. government access; not a single Twitter File release has shown the documented activity within the intelligence community portal to the platform; billionaire donors and Wall Street multinational interests are funding DeSantis management and branding efforts; Ukraine funds are cycling back to U.S. politicians; and for some curious reason the voices of the Brazilian people are mysteriously missing from ‘free speech‘ Twitter.
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America