Neil Oliver, the COVID Schemes Cost Billions, but the Aftermath Costs Are Worse Than Money


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 9, 2022 | Sundance

Neil Oliver takes a look at the economics of COVID and how government intervention and spending has crushed the working class.  However, it is not the financial aspects that carry the worst debt in the aftermath, there is a human cost that can never be repaid or recreated.  WATCH:

{TRANSCRIPT} –  “There are debts that can be repaid and debts that can’t. During the time of Covid, vast piles of money were conjured into being by the government, borrowed as if by magic from the distant future. Unimaginable quantities of that funny money were wasted – spent on PPE that didn’t work or that wasn’t needed and is now yet more plastic heaped into landfills or otherwise littering the landscape and seascape. Millions went on the Nightingale hospitals that were never used. Around 37 billion pounds – ten percent of a total of 370 billion pounds set aside for Bounce Back Loans and the Eat Out to Help Out scheme – were lost to fraudsters. £37 billion pounds.”

“Lost to fraud and gone for good. Whatever the final figure for the theft, that money has simply been written off as irrecoverable. Taxpayers will foot the bill for it all eventually of course – along with paying back the rest of the trillions sprayed around with abandon by a government of headless chickens.

Furlough schemes paid billions more to employers so they could pay and thereby retain staff sent home to months of lockdowns during which the economy ground to a halt. All that debt has to be repaid too, by taxpayers. Hundreds of thousands of people, at least – many of them self-employed, did not qualify for any help at all while simultaneously being barred from going to work to try and earn livings for themselves and their families. To add insult to injury, those who received nothing, many who thereby lost everything – who had their noses pressed up against the outside of a window showing a financial feast to which they were not even invited – still have to put their hands in empty pockets to pay for help enjoyed by others but denied to them.

Those debts – including sums squandered, sums exploited by friends of those in power – will eventually have to be repaid, you might reasonably assume, one way or another, even if the sums concerned are so eye-wateringly huge those accounts will be glowing red for decades. It’s only money, you might say. You might say that if you’ve never gone without.

But then there are the other debts. Other debts that can’t be repaid and will never be repaid. Many and determined were the voices that warned and kept warning month after month that society was being undone by lockdown and the masking of faces.

The isolation and, perhaps worst of all, the incessant fear deliberately whipped up by government nudge units and pushed day after day until too many souls didn’t know which way was up, and still don’t. All of it was deliberately inflicted upon millions of people, some of them the most vulnerable – the poor, the elderly, children.

There were warnings of inevitable damage to mental health, to physical health – and so it has come to pass. The NHS has acknowledged what it has described as a “second pandemic” of depression, anxiety, psychosis and eating disorders.

So overwhelmed are specialists they are “bouncing back” many of those in need of help to the GPs who referred them – even those most at risk from suicide, self-harm and starvation. Doctors have warned people will simply die of conditions that must only be left untreated.

And then there are the children, and yet more debts that cannot be repaid. An Ofsted report says face masks and lockdowns have left a generation of our youngest children struggling to crawl, walk, talk, dress themselves, make friends – even to go to the toilet unaided.

Children that are two years old now spent their whole lives in a locked down, masked up world. Many of those of the poorest families spent weeks and months in homes with no outside spaces, stuck in rooms watching screens of one sort or another. The same report revealed children were mimicking the voices of cartoon characters after long hours spent watching and listening to nothing else.

The authors noted, in the simplest terms, that youngsters had missed out on: “stories, singing and having conversations.”

Babies born and raised in masked worlds are: “struggling to respond to facial expressions … particularly anxious and not used to seeing different faces.”

Stories, singing, playing, talking, seeing faces, after being fed and held in loving arms, these are among the most fundamental necessities of childhood. Tens of thousands of years ago our ancestors knew it mattered to tell their children stories, to sing them songs, so that all that had been learned by the ancestors would not be forgotten and the tribe would remain closely bound by the sharing of it all.

That some stories and songs have come down to us from a time beyond the reach of memory is testament to how much they were deemed to matter. Behaviour that was possible and essential around campfires in worlds separated from our own by ice ages, was thrown away by ours. What is lost or denied at the beginning of a life, is not necessarily obtained or regained later.

That an Ofsted report should find such basic life experience knowingly denied to millions of our youngest is appalling, unforgivable and shaming. This is nothing less than neglect – wholesale neglect by society of the most precious and vulnerable resource we have. All of it was avoidable and should have been avoided.

The decision to lock down and to enforce mask wearing was, I say, utterly wrong. And yet, this week, when questioned by this channel, prime minister Boris Johnson said he would not rule out applying lockdowns again in the future.

Obviously, to vow never to lock down again would be a tacit admission by him that they were the wrong move all along – and no modern, self-preserving PM would ever be so honest – but there we are … the lockdowns that did so much needless damage, caused so much unforgivable harm, remain on the table.

There will inevitably be those that say children are resilient – and so they are, thank goodness. But just because children are resilient doesn’t mean we should stress test them to destruction. And make no mistake – some of the ground lost already will never be recovered by many. Our debt to them will remain always unpaid.

Children now are growing up in a world very different to the one most of us remember. To take but one example: online, on social media, are images, videos and posts all pushing the same message – that changing your gender is the cure for all manner of problems.

Crowdfunders raise money to help children bypass the NHS and obtain puberty blocking drugs from private sources, and to pay for private operations to remove breasts, or to construct them, or to reshape genitals, or to remove internal anatomy including the womb. No one can honestly claim to know the long-term consequences of taking such steps.

This is another epidemic.

Between 2014 and 2015 there were around 700 referrals each year to the Gender Identity Service at London’s Tavistock clinic. That number rose to around 2,600 each year between 2019 and 2020.

That more and more children are unhappy, at the existential level, and reporting feeling uncomfortable with the sexual identity they were born with, is undeniable and poses all manner of questions in urgent need of answers. It is almost as though Gender Dysphoria had mutated to become as airborne as Covid ever was.

There is also, anyway, a growing preoccupation with the sexuality of children – all children. In Scotland and Wales, government surveys ask children as young as 13 about their “sex lives”, enquiring about what age they were when they first had sex, how long it has been since they last had sex.

Those are not even the most intrusive or intimate of the questions in those surveys. If I had been asked questions like those, by relative strangers, when I was 13, my explicit instructions from my parents were to run for home.

The incessant, relentless push to spend more and more time talking to children about sex and gender means I personally find it hard not to conclude that we are, as a society, being increasingly familiarised with the thought of sexually active children. Why would that be? To what end? For whose benefit? Certainly not necessarily the benefit of children who are, anyway, below the legal age of consent.

Life is short. Childhood is shorter still and, judging by what schools and other manifestations of officialdom want to talk to them about, have them think about, getting shorter every day.

Psychologists have known for years that children must be socialised by the age of four. If they have not become by then children able to take up their place in society – through mixing and playing with their peers and being supervised by responsible adults, whose faces they can see, whose mouths they can watch forming words, and all the rest of it – then at the most fundamental level they never will.

More and more it feels like the needs of children are being set aside and overlooked – sacrificed to ensure the wellbeing, comfort or objectives of their elders. Childhood itself is under attack, sullied by earlier and earlier confrontation with, and initiation into, the ways of adults.

During the time of Covid, the needs of children were put last. Education compromised or abandoned altogether. Play reduced to an afterthought, contact with family and friends forbidden. We could argue all day about the threat posed to children by the vaccines. Undeniable harm however has been done by two years of the mass psychosis of their elders.

More has been taken from children than might ever be measured. That debt will never be repaid.” (LINK)

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Two Not Guilty Verdicts and Two Jury Deadlocked Outcomes in Trial of Four Men Accused of Gretchen Whitmer Kidnapping Plot


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 8, 2022 | Sundance 

While we have not followed the case as closely as some, the original framework of the federal case against men accused in the kidnapping plot of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer seemed seriously sketchy from the outset.  When it was revealed that twelve FBI operatives were involved in the plot {LINK}, well, it looked like a classic entrapment case.

Six total suspects were arrested of the group of 18 total plotters.  Twelve of the eighteen were feds.  Two men took a plea deal for lesser charges leaving four men to stand trial.

After four weeks of testimony, the jury was given the ability to consider an entrapment defense. Four days of deliberations have resulted in a not guilty verdict for two of the suspects and a hung jury on two more.

MICHIGAN – A federal jury didn’t find four men suspected of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer guilty Friday.  

Brandon Caserta, 34, of Canton, and Daniel Harris, 24, of Lake Orion, were found not guilty of conspiring to kidnap, a potential life offense.  The jury was hung on conspiracy charges against Barry Croft Jr., 46, of Bear, Delaware, Adam Fox, 38, of Wyoming. 

Harris and Caserta were additionally found not guilty on additional weapons charges and will be released from detention. […] The U.S. Attorney’s Office could retry Fox and Croft, who remain jailed, on their unresolved counts. (more)

Julie Kelly followed the case closely, and she posts the following article [SEE HERE]

(AmGreatness) – […] A roster of FBI agents and experts took the stand during the three-week trial, which was temporarily delayed due to one participant’s COVID diagnosis; Dan Chappel, the lead informant and government’s star witness known as “Big Dan,” explained how he brought the makeshift group of alleged “militia” members together after he was hired by the FBI in March 2020. Chappel created encrypted chat groups and organized excursions for field training and surveillance of Whitmer’s cottage. (He, along with other FBI informants, posed as leaders of two “militia” groups, at least one of which was created by the FBI.)

For his work over a six-month period, Chappel, a truck driver for a U.S. Postal Service subcontractor, was compensated at least $60,000 by the FBI in cash and gifts such as a new laptop, tires, and a smart watch.

Prosecutors mostly relied on conversations secretly recorded by FBI assets as evidence of wrongdoing; two men charged in the same indictment had pleaded guilty and testified for the government in exchange for lighter prison sentences. (read more)

Ken Bensinger, from Buzzfeed News, covered the trial extensively, and he has a lengthy outline showing just how sketchy the case was; including the extreme lengths the federal prosecutors took to stop the defense from presenting the most damning evidence of the federal involvement [SEE HERE].

(BUZZFEED) – Despite the government’s extraordinary efforts to muzzle the defense, a jury in Grand Rapids federal court on Friday acquitted two men on charges including conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on the other two who had been charged.

As a result, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta are now free men, while Adam Fox and Barry Croft return to jail and await a decision by the Justice Department on whether to try them a second time.

The outcome of the trial is a stunning rebuke to the prosecution, which at times appeared to view the case — one of the most prominent domestic terror investigations in a generation — as a slam dunk. The split verdict calls into question the Justice Department’s strategy, and beyond that, its entire approach to combating domestic extremism. Defense attorneys in the case, along with observers from across the political spectrum, have argued the FBI’s efforts to make the case, which involved at least a dozen confidential informants, went beyond legitimate law enforcement and into outright entrapment.

It may also leave the two defendants who chose to plead guilty and testify for the government, Ty Garbin and Kaleb Franks, wondering whether they made the right choice. (read more)

From the outset in October 2020, everything around the “plot to kidnap” Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer seemed sketchy, almost silly.   The goofy similarities and suspicions were familiar to those who remembered the sketchy October 2018 “mail bombing plot” that involved Cesar Sayoc.

It just didn’t seem coincidental that both 2018 and 2020 FBI exploits involved weird frameworks, odd suspects and obviously both operations just happened to culminate in October of an election year… Surprise!

Add to that suspicion all that was known about the FBI’s intense political motivations found in their activities over the past several years, including the sketchy attempt to frame candidate Donald Trump for a vast Russian election conspiracy, coordinated with the opposing candidate, Hillary Clinton, and well, suspicious cats were increasingly suspicious of the FBI engineered mess.

By the time FBI Director Chris Wray was questioned about the content of Sayoc’s Acme “mail bombs”, and he said they were comprised of: “energetic material that can become combustible when subjected to heat or friction,” yes, it could have been anything from matchsticks to coffee cream, well, eyes were rolling.  When the DOJ then sealed the evidence against Sayoc and all court documents behind the shroud of super-duper national security secrecy, the FBI political motives again seemed transparent.

That’s the backdrop two years later for the FBI’s vast Michigan militia plot to kidnap Whitmer…. and the side-eye from anyone who has ever paid attention to these matters.  Apparently, the results of the jury deliberations highlight the same likely federal intentions.

Yes, we live in rather remarkable times.

Primary Witness to Material Within Hunter Biden Laptop Says Active Two-Star General Has Warned Him About Pending U.S. Government Retaliation


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 8, 2022 | Sundance 

Emerald Robinson has a great interview with Jack Maxey from Switzerland. Maxey was the first person to receive a full hard drive copy of the Hunter Biden laptop from Rudy Guliani. After media, Senate and U.S. government officials refused to take action, Maxey went to Switzerland in order to complete a full forensic audit of the laptop content in a neutral jurisdiction. {Background}

Previously, Maxey outlined [Daily Mail article and Video Here] his intent to share the full contents of the original files, and all of the retrieved deleted files, with the public so that people can see the scale of depravity and Biden family corruption within the evidence.  In this interview with Emerald Robinson, Maxey states the full and searchable email archive will likely be completed early next week.

Additionally, in this interview Maxey goes into greater detail about the larger issues surrounding impediments to the release of information, including how the laptop contained access certificates to enter the Defense Department database.   Maxey tried to get the DoD to address the issue without success, until he found a direct conduit to a two-star general who took the certificate codes, deactivated the access and thanked him for his diligence.

Unfortunately, that same general then told Maxey he needed to focus on securing the safety of himself and his family, as the full weight of the U.S. interests, including the intelligence apparatus and defense apparatus, will likely target him.  Emerald Robinson does a good interview.

https://frankspeech.com/embed/NDY0NTk=

You can visit Emerald Robinson Substack HERE

Emerald Robinson on The Absolute Truth HERE

In my opinion, it is Maxey’s forensic review of the data and statements about making it all public, that triggered/pressured the collective western media to begin admitting the laptop issues were real and start covering the details.

Biden Administration Admits to Creating Strategic Disinformation for Their Intents in Ukraine – Meanwhile Big Tech Claims They Will Target Anyone Who Intentionally Uses Disinformation


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 7, 2022 | Sundance

Riddle me this my friends:  The White House has officially admitted to creating misinformation, disinformation and malinformation as part of their strategic campaign against Russia in Ukraine.  NBC news gleefully embraces the strategy {SEE HERE}.  However, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has an official agency mission {SEE HERE} to “help the American people understand the scope and scale of Mal, Dis, and Misinformation activities,” and Google/Big Tech have officially aligned with both U.S. government interests, promising to target, remove and penalize any entity engaged in Mal, Dis and Misinformation activities.

Please think about the inherent questions.  On one hand the White House and Intelligence Community is admitting they are purposefully and intentionally creating misinformation, and on the other hand the White House and Intelligence Community are promising to target the origin of misinformation.  In the middle, Big Tech speech police are saying they will be the arbiters of what constitutes misinformation.   See the problem?

Before ‘circling back’ to the previously emphasized CTH position, first take a look at how “senior administration officials” are admitting to NBC the creation and promotion of misinformation under the auspices of weaponized false intelligence reports:

(Via NBC) – […] three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the [mis]information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.

[…] Coordinated by the White House National Security Council, the unprecedented intelligence releases have been so frequent and voluminous, officials said, that intelligence agencies had to devote more staff members to work on the declassification process, scrubbing the [mis]information so it wouldn’t betray sources and methods.

[…] The idea is to pre-empt and disrupt the Kremlin’s tactics, complicate its military campaign, “undermine Moscow’s propaganda and prevent Russia from defining how the war is perceived in the world,” said a Western government official familiar with the strategy.

Multiple U.S. officials acknowledged that the U.S. has used [mis]information as a weapon even when confidence in the accuracy of the information wasn’t high. Sometimes it has used low-confidence intelligence for deterrent effect, as with chemical agents, and other times, as an official put it, the U.S. is just “trying to get inside Putin’s head.” (read more)

Despite the aligned ideological spin NBC puts on the context, the bottom line is that senior officials in the U.S. government are lying in an effort to create and support a propaganda campaign against Vladimir Putin and Russia vis-a-vis the Ukraine conflict.

The justification for the manipulation of information, the creation of dis/mal/and misinformation, and the propaganda campaign writ large, is based on a position that the U.S. is on the virtuous side of the conflict.  Where virtue is determined by the officials creating the lies.  Yes, lying for the public good, is essentially now the admitted narrative.

Putting aside the creation of lies to advance a strategic geopolitical objective, the bigger admission in the U.S. government statements is that much of the information coming to the American public -from them- is manufactured, false, fabricated and wrong.

Simultaneous to this admission of manufactured lies, the platforms of big tech and social media are saying they will target, remove and block any content that contradicts the official government position.  In the case of Google, the dominating search engine for information over the internet, they state it is an infraction against their policy to espouse a claim “that contradicts official government records.”  Yet, the U.S. government is officially admitting the information they are creating for the government records, is self-admittedly false.

Not wanting to overinflate the CTH position, but this now admitted reality is exactly why we have taken the following position.

…”There is no such thing as “disinformation” or “misinformation”.  There is only information you accept and information you do not accept.  You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.”… 

There are only two elements within the public discussion of information, truth and not truth.

In an era filled with “fact-checkers” and institutional guardians at the gates of Big Tech, let me explain exactly why it is important not to accept the speech rules of the guards.

When you accept the terms “disinformation”, “misinformation” or the newest lingo, “malinformation,” you are beginning to categorize truth and lies in various shades.  You are merging black and white, right and wrong, into various shades of grey.

When your mind works in the grey zone, you are, by direct and factual consequence, saying there is a problem.  You are correct, however, this is where people may make a mistake. That problem is supposed to be there.

It is not a solution to the problem to try and remove the grey simply because it takes too much work to separate the white pixels from the black ones.  You were born with a gift, the greatest gift a loving God could provide.  You were born with a brain and set of natural instincts that are tools to do this pixel separation, use them.

If you define the grey work as a problem you cannot solve on your own, you open the door for others to solve that problem for you.  You begin to abdicate the work, and that’s when trouble can enter.  The sliding scale of Pinocchios is one of the most familiar yet goofy outcomes.

Put more clearly, when you accept the terminology “disinformation”, you accept a problem.  The problem is then the tool by which authorities will step in to make judgements.  Speech, in its most consequential form, is then qualified by others to whom you have sub-contracted your thinking.

When you willingly sub-contract information filters to others, you have lost connection with the raw information.   CTH was founded upon the belief that truth has no agenda, nor does it care about you, your feelings, or your opinion of it.  It just sits there, empirically existing as evidence of information in its most pure form.

The search for truth, in all things, is the mission objective of this assembly.  Often, we don’t like the truth; often, the truth is bitter, cold, challenging and even painful to accept.  However, the truth doesn’t care.  Information in its most raw form is ambivalent to your opinion.  If you struggle to accept these things, that’s when you need grey.  The New York Times is not called the “grey lady” accidentally.

Personally, I am an absorber of information – perhaps on a scale that is unusual.  But I do not discount information from any form until I can put context to it and see if the information makes sense given all the variables present.  When something doesn’t feel right, it’s almost always because it isn’t right.

Often, I find myself struggling in the grey and complex.  It is not unusual to spend days researching, digging, clarifying a situation, only to discover the path to finding the truth is in another direction entirely.   Erasing everything and starting over is frustrating, but it is genuinely the only approach that works; and often finding truth is supposed to be difficult, that’s why it is rewarding.

In the digital information age, we are bombarded with information.  It is easy to be overwhelmed and need to find something or someone who has better skills at separating the black grains from the white ones.  All opinions in this quest should be considered; thus, it is important to allow the free flow of information.

I am not necessarily a speech absolutist.  There is some language that needs to be constrained if we are to participate in a respectful society, with grandma’s rules and knowing the audience.  The CTH has guidelines for comments for this exact reason.  However, those constraints need to be based on a set of inherent values.   When it comes to information it is important to draw a distinction from speech.

There needs to be an open venue for all information. Unfortunately, when we begin to apply labels or categorization to information, there’s an opportunity for information to be manipulated – even weaponized.  Saul Alinsky spent decades pondering the best techniques to weaponize information and speech.  Alinsky’s intentions in the endeavor to change society by changing how language and information was used were not good. He devoted his completed rulebook book to Lucifer.

Be careful about anyone saying we need to label or categorize information in order to control or remove speech from the discussion.

You were not born with a requirement to believe everything you are told; rather, you were born with a God-given brain that allows you to process the information you receive and make independent decisions.

Unfortunately, the collectively aligned group of U.S. Govt, the Intelligence Community and now Big Tech, are saying they will put every roadblock they can muster in your way as you attempt to navigate through the misinformation they control.

With that in mind, I would finish with this.  Be kind to those who cannot see through the misinformation, and do not invest too much time trying to convince them.  Convincing is an endless quest, because it transfers the responsibility of discernment from them to you. They will become dependent on you and that my friends can be a heavy weight upon you.

Remember, “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.” ~ Max Ehrmann

“Some people are just fucking nuts”…

Living in the Past – Stalin v Lenin


Armstrong Economics Blog/Russia Re-Posted Apr 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

COMMENT: Hi,
I live in Finland/Helsinki. The Soviet Union attacked Finland in 1939, Stalin was one who arranged a false flag in Manila. A lot of Finnish soldiers and civilians died. But we survived. We Finnish people know Russians extremely well. It is a historical fact that Russians always arrange false flags and try to slave other nations and people. And that is happening just now in Ukraine. Putin attacked Ukraine and he is trying to slave Ukraine.
Best Regards from Finland

JT

REPLY: It is important to not judge a country by its leaders. There are always left and right in every country and no country enjoys 100% approval of its people. Just look at the United States. There are ONLY three presidents who won with 60% or more, FDR 1st term, Johnson following Kennedy’s assassination, and Richard Nixon who promised to end Vietnam. All others won with just a few points over 50%. In the 2008 Election of Obama v McCain score his victory with just 52.9%. Even Lenin warned not to put Stalin in charge.

It is wrong to judge Russia by Stalin and today the powers that be just hate the Russian people and attribute everything to Putin. It is essential to also understand that there is a left and a right in Russia that still prevails today and Putin is a moderate that if ignored by the West, will drive Russia into the hands of the extreme right.

We MUST understand history for there has always been a question of where Russia begins and ends and who constitutes the Russian people. These questions have been debated by Russian thinkers themselves for centuries post-Russian Revolution which ended more than 300 years of tsarist rule. Believe it or not, Putin is NOT trying to resurrect the Soviet Union for that was not even the vision of Lenin – but Stalin.


At first, Lenin was revered as the architect of the new Russia. He was the elder statesman of the Bolshevik revolution. Stalin, on the other hand, was what we would call a Neocon. He was the ambitious party leader with visions of absolute authoritarian control. The two clashed not only over their political vision for Russia but also on a very personal level hurling insults steeped in grudges. It was this battle that actually proved to be too much for Lenin resulting in his premature death.

The conflict between these two Russian leaders reached a climax in the last days of December 1922. This is when 2,000 delegates from all over the former Russian empire gathered together in Moscow to create a new state which would become the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The vision of this new state was starkly different between the two men. There were republics of Ukraine, Belarus, and Transcaucasia, which were formally independent of Russia. When Georgy Chicherin, the Soviet Russian commissar for foreign relations, signed the treaty with Germany where each surrendered their claims against the other for war reparations in July 1918, there was a problem of unity. Ukraine and Belarus were independent before 1919 but were then overrun by the Bolsheviks in 1919. They had objected to forgiving Germany.

Ukraine and Belarus took the position that the Russian authorities had no right to speak on behalf of Ukrainian and Belarus. In Georgia, there too they objected insisting that their rights as the members of an independent republic were violated. This is was ultimately set in motion the birth of the final version of the Soviet Union.

It was in August of 1922 when Joseph Stalin created a special commission to recommend a new political model of relations between the communist Party’s Central Committee, Russia and the republics. Stalin’s proposal was called the “autonomization of the republics” whereby the formally independent republics would be incorporated into the Russian Soviet Federation with rights of autonomy. However, the Russian Federation would become the central authority subordinating the formally independent republics. This resulted in a rebellion with the Georgians led the revolt against Stalin’s model. They were joined by the Ukrainians and Belarusians.

This conflict between Lenin’s vision of a union more akin to the United States model and Lenin’s vision of absolute central power resulted in the heated conversation with Feliks Dzerzhinsky, who was the head of the secret police and a supporter of Stalin. Stalin and many of his supporters, such as Ordzhonikidze and Dzerzhinsky, were actually non-Russians. Stalin was Georgian and Dzerzhinsky was actiually Polish. Interestingly, Felix Dzerzhinsky was remembered in St Petersburg on a Commemorative plaque dedicated him.

But the stroke prevented him from taking any decisive steps against them. Two days later, a commission of party officials, led by Stalin, placed strict limitations on Lenin’s activities, effectively isolating him. They said the restrictions were designed to prevent the worsening of Lenin’s health. But they also served a political purpose.

Lenin could not attend the congress and he certainly did not trust Stalin. Consequently, the paralyzed Lenin dictated his famous thoughts on the nationality question in a document he sent to the party leadership. It was a letter titled “On the Question of Nationalities or ‘Autonomization.’” On December 31st, 1922, he attacked Stalin’s policies criticizing the rights provided to the republics by the Union treaty, deeming them inadequate to stop the rise of Great Russian nationalism. Lenin called this threat as “great-power chauvinism.” To Lenin saw these people as non-Russians who he did not trust and feared for the future of the Russian people.

In Lenin believed that Stalin, who was not Russia, posed a major threat to Russia. He viewed Stalin’s dream of the USSR as a threat to the unity of state which he was correct. Lenin’s idea of a union of independent states would be sustained by local autonomy taking into account their local customes. Lenin was prepared to replace the Union he had originally proposed with a looser association of states with the centralized powers to be confined to matters of defense and international relations exclusively. Lenin also maintained that the republics should retain the right of secession to prevent Stalin’s central dominance of authority.

I highly recommend watching the movie Mr. Jones. While this will NOT show the battle between Lenin and Stalin, it will show the ruthlessness of Stalin that Lenin feared. But Stalin was NOT a Russian, but he has tarnish the reputation of all Russians ever since. It is ironic that Stalin was a Georgian, which is in the Caucuses bordering Turkey where they hate Russians for the very oppression of Stalin.

So, as you can see, this is a very complex subject. Putin is not a follower of Stalin wheras other behind him are. So we should be very care what we wish for when it comes to Regime Change. Just maybe they know this as well and want Regime Change to ensure war. Very interesting indeed. We should NOT judge Putin by Stalin or all Russians for that matter. That is the propaganda of the Neocons who are still fighting against Stalin.

COVID Outbreak on 100% Vaccinated Cruise Ship


Armstrong Economics Blog/Vaccine Re-Posted Apr 7, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Princess Cruises requires all passengers and crew members to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Yet, a ship of only vaccinated individuals recently docked in San Francisco after experiencing a COVID outbreak. “Guests and crew vaccination rates were at 100 percent,” the company confirmed after saying it has been operating under CDC guidelines for the entire pandemic.

Around 70% of cruise liners reported layoffs and furloughs due to the pandemic. The industry lost at least $63 billion between 2020 and 2021 when cruise ships were either prohibited from operating or experienced a decline in travelers due to fear. There are numerous examples of cruise ships experiencing COVID outbreaks despite vaccination mandates to board.

The CDC recently lowered cruise ship risks to “moderate; level 2” after deeming them “highest-risk- level 4” after the initial omicron outbreak. They never prohibited cruises during flu season or nearly dismantled an entire industry for a virus with a negligible death rate. The vaccine does not prevent infection. The vaccine does not prevent transmission. This is yet another unintentional case study proving that this was never “a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

Is Biden also a War Criminal Bringing Civilization to a Complete Collapse?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Ukraine Re-Posted Apr 6, 2022 by Martin Armstrong

Biden has declared that “major war crimes” are now being discovered in Ukraine as Russian forces retreat from areas around Kyiv. In a total propaganda move where he just takes whatever Zelensky says at face value who is a puppet intended to create World War III because the ability of government to continue to function under Keynesian Economics is coming to an end. On top of that, Biden is desperate to change the focus from his own corruption and that of Hunter Biden hoping to change the topic. Biden is denying any independent investigation just taking the word of Zelensky who has done NOTHING but tried to create war with Russia refusing to comply with the 1991 Belgrade Agreement of Neutrality and the Minsk Agreement which was to allow the Donbas to vote on their own independence.

Biden has set in motion World War III calling Putin a war criminal which by the same standards would have applied to every president during times of war. The US has refused to address all the claims of war crimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lybia, etc. The US admitted to killing civilians in Kabul in a drone attack. Who is responsible for that war crime? Under Biden’s definition, he himself is also a war criminal for Kabul. That too was a brutal, cold-blooded execution-style but the US is exempt from being tried in the ICC for the US refuses to be judged for war crimes in the Netherlands.

Biden’s rationale for ratcheting up US sanctions on Moscow now targeting Putin’s daughters is outrageous. Biden said: “Responsible nations have to come together to hold these perpetrators accountable.” Biden has further increased sanctions targeting Putin’s two adult daughters. Why are they responsible for this?

Biden has DESTROYED the world economy and abused the SWIFT system that has shown it is now not independent but just a political tool. China would be absolutely braindead at this point if it did NOT set up its alternative to SWIFT. More and more countries are starting to side with Russia. Even India has seen its action of Biden as totally reckless. Biden’s constant expanding sanctions have cut off Russia entirely just as FDR did to Japan. If history repeats, I would NOT live in Washington, LA, Chicago, or New York. They can be taken out with supersonic nukes and there is nothing Biden can do to stop it. He needs to be removed from the office. Every administration has sought world peace. Biden seeks ONLY war.

There will NEVER be a return to NORMAL and only a madman would act like Biden deliberately destroying international relations that took decades to establish. You will not cause Putin to recoil, and any regime change will only lead to people behind Putin who are FAR more Neocon than Putin.

Rome lasted for 1,000 years, but it collapsed in just 8.6 years. History is repeating. Biden has been FAR WORSE than anything I personally would have speculated. The forecasts come from Socrates, not me personally. There is NO human being who would have postulated that ANY world leader would be this outrageous. Indeed, 8.6-years from the time Biden took office will be 2029.65 (August 25th, 2029).  Just as our models are warning that the French Fifth Republic will come to an end by 2030, the same is true for most Republics that will include the United States.

There Is Something Very Troublesome About the Western Govt, Post-COVID, Rules-Based Order


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 7, 2022 | Sundance 

While the western media quickly jumped from the COVID crisis to the Ukraine crisis, in the background of current events there is a lot of activity amid western government that does not look very democratic.

The word ‘autocracy‘, with all its variants, has been used a lot frequently by western government politicians as they attack the ideology of Russia, China and essentially every national leader who does not join their “rules-based order” club.  There is so much linguistic repetition from the same western leadership, it’s impossible not to see this autocracy narrative as some form of talking point that stemmed from some G7 or NATO collaboration meeting.

It does not seem coincidental the new catch phrases of “autocracy” vs “rules-based order” surfaced at the tail end of the COVID crisis, when Build Back Better shifted from a talking point into an actual set of western legislative constructs  perhaps intended to codify the emergency powers those same officials deployed.

What kind of democracy, or rules-based order mindset, was the European Commission carrying when they decried the overwhelming national election in Hungary?  Surely if the EU wanted to celebrate democracy, they would cheer for the high voter turnout that reelected Prime Minister Viktor Orban, yet they did exactly the opposite.  Apparently, some democracies are more valued than others.

At the same time the EU is clutching pearls over the results in Hungary, another western ally, Canada, is codifying the government’s emergency act power to seize property without due process.  As we are directed to be distracted by everything Zelenskyy, it might be worth noting that Ontario Bill 100 is about to permanently change the rules of permitted political protest. You can read about Bill 100 here and watch the economic debate here.

Essentially, Bill 100 gives the Canadian government the power to seize your home, finances, bank accounts and assets if you take part in any form of protest that would create economic harm to any loosely defined entity.  Protest at the border, lose your house; at least that’s the threat they are about to make into a law.

It seems rather incredulous to me that securing a corporate financial interest would override the concerning possibility of forever losing liberty and freedom for the individual citizen. However, in this new post-COVID ‘rules-based order’, that’s the official justification from the Canadian government.  Slippery slope and all that accepted, this Ontario Bill 100 is a few slides beyond the slippery.

Similar actions are taking place in New Zealand and Australia, where codifying the emergency powers of public health officials post-COVID rules, is at the forefront of their legislative and constitutional reform efforts.

Creating new era ‘rules-based democracy’ stuff is filling up the business end of western government attention in Europe, North American and the land down under.

But it’s not just Europe, Canada, New Zealand and Australia doing this.  In the United States we have a combination of new restrictions on liberty and freedom around emergency health issues in combination with J6 “threat to democracy” outcomes being created.  The J6 committee is looking at Trump supporters the way the EU commission is looking at Hungarian citizens.

Add it all up, and this new version of western democracy doesn’t look like it is based on the same principles the older version, the non-rules-based version, was using.

These new “rules of democracy” are also being overlaid by new rules for discussing democracy as found in the guidelines from the tech overlords.

Google just recently announced, in the era post-COVID, they will no longer tolerate content that “makes claims that are demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in an electoral or democratic process.

So, if you are to speak against the new “rules of democracy”, or the legislation that is going through the “democratic process” in the EU, NZ, AU, Canada or the United States, you can be targeted by the online Google wrong-think police.  Isn’t that convenient considering the effort to codify the totalitarian tendencies of the new “western democracies.”

If you speak against the newer version of the ‘rules-based order‘, the leaders of western democracies will enjoy protection from the internet police.  A rebellious sort, as defined by a person who still thinks independently, might say that sounds almost autocratic or something.

There was always a concern that any political leader who granted themselves extreme powers, under the pretense of the pandemic threat, would never want to relinquish that scale of control over their citizens.  Indeed, it can be argued we are seeing those concerns come to fruition with supportive action from ruling elites in the various parliamentary and congressional offices.

A wise fellow of steward-minded disposition stated today that if U.S. government officials were genuinely concerned about the welfare of Americans, they would immediately be holding legislative sessions to ramp up energy production, cut through regulatory hurdles, lower gasoline prices, seal our borders and prepare our national food stocks for a concerning global food shortage.

Perhaps, just perhaps, if a legislative body was truly representative of the citizens, they would be using a few billion taxpayer dollars to purchase or offset fertilizer costs, help farmers with diesel fuel prices and work earnestly to insure full harvests this year.

Alas, the only nation worthy of such financial consideration is a tenuously manipulated -by them- country called Ukraine.

These new western democracy rules certainly appear to be rules of priority for the few, and not rules that would be a priority for the many.   Perhaps that’s the whole point.  Maybe that’s the bigger picture.

As it appears by action and consequence, this new western, post-COVID, ‘rules-based order’ is focused exclusively on providing benefit for the self-described elites.

I wonder what will happen if the many just don’t comply?…

… Or have the autocrats thought about that with the open border rules coming May 23rd?

DC Feds Arrest Two Men Pretending to be DC Feds, Who Gave Free Stuff to DC Feds


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 6, 2022 | Sundance 

This evening, DC federal agents arrested two men who were pretending to be DC federal agents, who provided free stuff to the DC federal agents.

The two men arrested, Arian Taherzadeh (40), and Haider Ali (36), pretended to be part of a federal agency conducting federal investigations in Washington DC.

First things first, the plot worked.  Federal law enforcement agents in Washington DC, took gifts including housing and other free stuff from the impersonators pretending to be federal law enforcement.

The media reports the motive of the two characters was to get “close” and form relationships with the federal agents that worked and operated around Washington DC, including the U.S. Secret Service detail for Jill Biden.  As outlined by the Associated Press, the impersonators, Taherzadeh and Ali, operated in/around Washington DC as if they were part of the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS), and the local feds bought it.  Best men.

(Via Associated Press) – […] Prosecutors allege Taherzadeh and Ali had falsely claimed to work for the Department of Homeland Security and work on a special task force investigating gang and violence connected to the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. They allege the two posed as law enforcement officers to integrate with actual federal agents.

Taherzadeh is accused of providing Secret Service officers and agents with rent-free apartments — including a penthouse worth over $40,000 a year — along with iPhones, surveillance systems, a drone, flat screen television, a generator, gun case and other policing tools, according to court documents.

He also offered to let them use a black GMC SUV that he identified as an “official government vehicle,” prosecutors say. In one instance, Taherzadeh offered to purchase a $2,000 assault rifle for a Secret Service agent who is assigned to protect the first lady.

Prosecutors said four Secret Service employees were placed on leave earlier this week as part of the investigation.

The plot unraveled when the U.S. Postal Inspection Service began investigating an assault on a mail carrier at the apartment building and the men identified themselves as being part of a phony Homeland Security unit they called the U.S. Special Police Investigation Unit.

Prosecutors say the men had also set up surveillance in the building and had been telling residents there that they could access any of their cellphones at any time. The residents also told investigators they believed the men had access to their personal information. (read more)

Best men.

Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Mark Milley, Sees Ukraine as a Long-Term Protracted Battle


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on April 5, 2022 | Sundance

April 5, 2022 | Sundance | 152 Comments

In the lead-in to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, all of the U.S. involvement in the country was operated by bureaucrats and politicians from the U.S. State Dept, CIA, Intelligence Community and Senate.  The Pentagon played a far lesser supportive role.

As a consequence of that previous investment, the current U.S response to the Russian “special military operation” has been spearheaded by the same DoS officials, intelligence agencies and politicians.  The Ukraine engagement is a political operation using NATO and western allies.   As we saw in the Afghanistan withdrawal, the Pentagon is a tool for the politics.

The division between the two interests (Pentagon vs State Dept) surfaces most quickly and easily when things SNAFU, and the blame casting begins. That’s when the division becomes noticeable to the public.  The important point to remember is this… despite the involvement of NATO in the current Ukraine response, it is not the Pentagon calling the shots, it’s the state dept.

Earlier today, Army Gen. Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee “[Ukraine] is a very protracted conflict.”  Milley anticipates many months, if not years, of combat fighting inside Ukraine as Putin carves out the eastern side of the country permanently.

According to Milley, “I think it’s at least measured in years… this is a very extended conflict that Russia has initiated. I think NATO, the U.S., Ukraine and all of the allies and partners supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time,” he said.  The nature of Milley’s remarks outlines what will likely become an insurgency/proxy war funded by the United States for years against Russia.

As much as JC Milley is a political figure, Milley is operating his role under the assumption and direction of what the State Dept is creating.  As a consequence of that long-term conflict prediction, the Pentagon is recommending several new rotating military bases for U.S. troops in eastern Europe.

It is also critical to recognize what is not being said by those same DoS and U.S. intelligence officials.  The absence is deafening. What is not being advanced is any discussion of a diplomatic resolution or negotiated settlement.  Milley’s defense request is predicated on a position that no diplomatic solution will be advanced.  This is a key part of both General Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s testimony.

Ukraine cannot fight without the United States sending money and weapons.  Combine that with Austin and Milley’s statements about Ukraine, and what you quickly see, albeit undiscussed in media, is that a long-term war is baked into this cake.  The United States will not allow Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to enter negotiations with Vladimir Putin.

When we review western media statements about Putin not willing to enter “peace talks” with Zelenskyy, keep the testimony from Milley and Austin at the forefront of your mind.

Why would Putin enter any negotiations with Zelenskyy, knowing the U.S. position is to carry out a long-term insurgency war in Ukraine against Russian military forces?   What would be the purpose of Putin talking with Zelenskyy when the U.S. is openly saying the Ukraine military will be used by the State Dept. to maintain a conflict against Russian forces?

Russian President Putin knows the only group he could negotiate with are in the United States.   However, that truth would expose the puppet strings, so the United States government must play the pretend game.

The position of Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a puppet to the U.S. State Dept and Intelligence Community interests, is inherent in the Pentagon position.  If Zelenskyy was free to make decisions, Austin and Milley could not be so assured as to put a timeline on the Ukraine conflict.

This context becomes increasingly important as we look at how the media are positioning all resources to support a protracted war.  Anyone who is not 100% pro war in Ukraine, for whatever length of time the DoS/IC determine is needed, is immediately cast as a Putin apologist.

This war emanated from the bowels of politics via U.S. political influence in Ukraine to the extreme.  This level of U.S. involvement in Ukraine ultimately triggered Putin to say enough, and he started the “special military operation.”   In many ways the operation is not so much against Ukraine – but more against the U.S. involvement in supporting Ukraine against Russia.

Because it started from political origins, the Ukraine conflict will continue to be run from the nerve center of U.S. politics, the U.S. State Dept, the U.S. Senate, and CIA operations.  The actual Pentagon involvement will be transport and logistics for State Dept military operations.

Do you remember when the DoS Benghazi mission was attacked, and the Pentagon had no idea there was even a U.S. operational mission taking place in eastern Libya?  That same “Operation Zero Footprint” disconnect is what I am describing above.  It’s likely the Pentagon has very little idea what the State Department and CIA are doing in Ukraine right now.

This context is also why the propaganda around Ukraine in the United States has been so critical and important.  We will see this level of propaganda continue so long as it is the DoS/CIA running the western response to the war.

What makes this conflict a little more interesting, is the need for the U.S. to control the information.  We have seen the initial first phases of their control with Big Tech saying they will not permit anything that does not follow the official U.S. government narrative on social media.

Additionally, the State Department launching their own cyber-control division is an extension of this same intent.  They are planning for the long-term usefulness of Ukraine as a proxy battle against Russia.

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Websites like CTH, who talk honestly about the background of what is happening in Ukraine, may eventually need to start using coded language in order to share information.  There are trillions at stake, and the people who control the events are not going to permit too much exposure.