Making the Taliban Great Again


Armstrong Economics Blog/Humor Re-Posted Sep 14, 2021 by Martin Armstrong

After leaving $35 Billion in military equipment behind, which is more than 42,000 people’s lifetime earnings, this is certainly expected. Biden has shifted the balance of power now because the Taliban are better armed than most others in the region conventionally. We sell arms to countries like Saudi Arabia – we do not give them $35 billion in free arms.

The Story of Prophylactics in Today’s World


This video is a perfect example of misinformation. That is using the current definition of misinformation which is that anything that is not “Officially” authorized by the federal government is misinformation. However keep in mind that “Official” information from any government is often referred to as Propaganda. Therefore misinformation is really ant-propaganda; and also kind of anti new speak!

Something Else Missing


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 15, 2021 | Sundance | 228 Comments

On September 9th, President Joe Biden made the announcement that all employers with more than 100 employees would be required to enforce a worker vaccine mandate.

At the same time Biden announced all federal workers must be vaccinated and issued an updated executive order.  Biden also expanded the federal requirements for contractors, Executive Order Here.

♦ The federal worker requirement has a date for guidance to execute the order listed as Sept. 16th: “The Task Force shall issue guidance within 7 days of the date of this order on agency implementation of this requirement for all agencies covered by this order.” {Section 2.0 link}.  The XO is very vague and generic on the issue of guidance.

♦ The due date for guidance for the contractor order is September 24th: “By September 24, 2021, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force (Task Force) shall, as part of its issuance of Task Force Guidance, provide definitions of relevant terms for contractors and subcontractors, explanations of protocols required of contractors and subcontractors to comply with workplace safety guidance {Section 2.0(b) link}.  However, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has to review the Task Force guidance for feasibility and then approve the guidance.

So, there are three elements: (1) Federal worker mandate; (2) Federal contractor mandate; and the big controversial one, (3) a national worker mandate for companies with over 100 employees.

Focusing on #3, the big one.  The only material from the White House on the BIG CONTROVERSIAL national worker mandate is a small paragraph on the WH COVID PLAN section:

(link)

… That’s it folks.  Almost a week later, and that’s the sum total of everything about the biggest economic and workforce disruption in the history of the nation.  That one paragraph posted on September 10th.

Why is this important?

Well, the U.S. Department of Labor website has ZERO mentions of this national mandate.  ZERO, nothing… nada, zilch. [SEE HERE]

Looking at the OSHA COVID information portal, used by employers and legal execs, will show you the exact same result.  Nothing.  [SEE HERE]

Notice there’s no date for DoL or OSHA delivery of any employer guidance or details.  Nothing.

Think about this.  This is the largest nationwide change to employment eligibility requirement in U.S. history.  Nothing else is even close… and yet, if you didn’t watch the Biden announcement or read the media discussion about the Biden announcement, you wouldn’t be able to find a single detail about it – anywhere.

This is not normal; not even close to normal… even for the federal government.

If there was a federal intent to actually force American workers to get forcibly vaccinated as a condition of employment, there would be daily updates from a massive inter-agency network of compliance offices, regulatory agencies and private sector business interests giving updates and briefings.  And yes, that pertains only to the anticipated guidance part, not to the actual setting of a deadline and working through the implementation phase of the national mandate.

I’m only talking about the basic guidance aspect.  The labor discussions with internal and external customers of the DoL, OSHA, etc. to set a calendar for how to implement “guidance”,  just that part.   There’s nothing.

The absence of even a scintilla of material to indicate the White House or any federal agency is organizing an action plan of how to structure the guidance itself is telling.  The silence of the machine tells us it is not turned on.   The bureaucracy has not been triggered.  The machinery of the federal government has not been instructed to begin any process to execute on the instruction that OSHA will “develop a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated.”  Nothing.

The silence is deafening.

It sure does seem like they have no intention of ever even triggering the process to get OSHA to begin evaluating how they could even begin to pull this off…. and again, for emphasis, I’m only talking about the tiny step of delivering initial guidance to employers that would indicate to them that OSHA was developing a rule.

There’s no deadline for OSHA to generate the guidance – and there’s certainly no deadline for the OSHA rule itself, which will come as an outcome of that initial guidance part.

Some have speculated that Joe Biden’s big White House announcement was nothing more than a distraction. There’s no way for them to ever get over the hurdles that would come from immediate employer backlash on the federal mandate; and they have no intent on even trying.  Meaning, it was all a big distraction -never intended execute- and always intended to clear the national conversation of all Biden-centric controversies and reset the administration.   I’m starting to think that speculation is exactly correct.

If 80 million Americans are unvaxxed, and even if only a quarter of those are Main Street employed, the entire social and economic system would grind to a halt if 20 million heavily productive people quit working for 100+ employee companies and went to work much smaller operations.  Remember, this is the workforce that was called “essential workers” last year.  They were essential for a reason.

A grocery chain cannot lose 20 essential people per store, + warehouse and distribution, and still function.  A WalMart cannot lose 50 essential workers per store, + warehouse and distribution, and still function.  A hospital or hotel cannot lose 20 to 50 essential workers per operation and still function.

Ford? GM? Auto-workers in general?  Labor Unions? AFSCME? SEIU?  Police, Fire, Emergency First Responders? I cannot see a reasonable scenario where the national worker vaccination mandate is even feasible with an eligible 80+ million unvaccinated holding out.

I would not be surprised to see nothing more ever said about this “National Employment Vaccine Mandate.”

Prompted to 18:30

President Trump Responds to Report of Mark Milley Warning China in the Event Trump Decided to Attack


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 161 Comments

How many times did President Trump say ‘my good friend Xi’?   Military combat against China was the furthest thing from the mind of President Trump in that sphere of geopolitical threat.  President Trump was engaged with China on an economic level.  Economic security is national security; that was the essence of his doctrine.

In this interview segment on Newsmax, President Trump affirms the absurdity of any report that he would have considered a military strike against China.  WATCH:

If General Milley ever took such action, he should be charged.  However, Bob Woodard and Robert Costa have a sketchy history of making stuff up; and then hiding behind anonymous sources.

Outbreak of Measles in Virginia and Wisconsin Afghan Refugee Settlements Forces Pause in New Arrivals


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 87 Comments

We have actually seen this issue before as a result of the Obama open border policy.  A measles outbreak in Virginia and Wisconsin amid refugees from Afghanistan has caused the U.S. State Department to pause the program for further arrivals.

[…] The Virginia Department of Health initially said Friday that three people who arrived from Afghanistan had been diagnosed with the measles in northern Virginia. The agency said it was informing people who risked possible exposure at places that included Dulles International Airport and two local hospitals. (read more)Posted in Cultural Marxism, Enterovirus (EV-D68), Infectious Disease, Legislation, media bias, Press Secretary – Biden

California Recall of Governor Newsom – Results and Open Discussion Thread


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 313 Comments


It’s highly unlikely the land of the Moonbats could actually have enough remaining non-Moonbats left to take back control of the tribe.  However, there is a slight chance because some of the moderately insane have joined forces with the non-Moonbats to show they are not happy with the behavior from the leader of the tribe, Comrade Gavin Newsom.

Unfortunately, the heavily controlled asylum inmates are in charge of counting the tribe’s votes, and Comrade Newsom has been aggressively bribing the moderately insane elements with free stuff to regain their tribal support.  Additionally, leaders from around the country have been flying in to lend their support and provide money for the bribes.

That said, most observers believe Comrade Newsom will survive the challenge to his power; thereby dooming the non-Moonbats to a life of conscription.  Ballots were mailed to the tribe in mid-August.  And voters could either mail their ballot via USPS union collection, or drop-off their vote in-person at drop boxes, or at their county elections office by 8:00 pm PT tonight.

(CBS) “While polls in the summer indicated a close race, a Berkeley IGS poll released Friday showed the “no” vote leading the “yes” vote 60.1%-38.5% among likely voters. Newsom’s team is confident he’ll prevail in the recall attempt, and privately, Republican campaigns in the state concede their internal polling indicates the recall will fail.” (link)

It will likely take a few days for the total results, but the preliminary stuff could come out later tonight.

New York Times Results Here – SF Chronicle Results Here

DOJ Allows Three U.S. Intelligence Contractors To Pay Their Way Out of Criminal Charges After Being Caught Working With Foreign Government To Hack U.S. Cell Phone Systems


Posted Originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 71 Comments

This thread might be well worth pulling for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the DOJ National Security Division allowing three former Intelligence Community Contractors to pay their way out of criminal charges. {Main DOJ Press Release Here}  It appears that criminal operatives that come from within the Fourth Branch of government are allowed to get a “first-of-its-kind resolution.”

Apparently it looks like three men Marc Baier, 49, Ryan Adams, 34, and a former U.S. citizen, Daniel Gericke, 40, all former employees of the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) or the U.S. military, left the contractor employment of the USIC in 2016 and went to work for the United Arab Emirates.   It appears the three were experts in computer intrusion; meaning they were hackers for the U.S. government working inside the intelligence system.

When they went to work for the UAE, they helped develop hacking tools that were later used to hack into U.S. cell phone networks and operating systems.   They were supposed to register as free-lance hackers, they didn’t; and they were not allowed to help foreign governments hack into U.S. systems, which they did.  When the FBI and U.S. authorities caught them, the three hackers then worked out a deal with the Dept of Justice to pay a fine and give up their security clearances.

DOJ –  On Sept. 7, U.S. citizens, Marc Baier, 49, and Ryan Adams, 34, and a former U.S. citizen, Daniel Gericke, 40, all former employees of the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) or the U.S. military, entered into a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that restricts their future activities and employment and requires the payment of $1,685,000 in penalties to resolve a Department of Justice investigation regarding violations of U.S. export control, computer fraud and access device fraud laws. The Department filed the DPA today, along with a criminal information alleging that the defendants conspired to violate such laws.

According to court documents, the defendants worked as senior managers at a United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.)-based company (U.A.E. CO) that supported and carried out computer network exploitation (CNE) operations (i.e., “hacking”) for the benefit of the U.A.E government between 2016 and 2019. Despite being informed on several occasions that their work for U.A.E. CO, under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), constituted a “defense service” requiring a license from the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), the defendants proceeded to provide such services without a license.

These services included the provision of support, direction and supervision in the creation of sophisticated “zero-click” computer hacking and intelligence gathering systems – i.e., one that could compromise a device without any action by the target. U.A.E. CO employees whose activities were supervised by and known to the defendants thereafter leveraged these zero-click exploits to illegally obtain and use access credentials for online accounts issued by U.S. companies, and to obtain unauthorized access to computers, like mobile phones, around the world, including in the United States.

“This agreement is the first-of-its-kind resolution of an investigation into two distinct types of criminal activity: providing unlicensed export-controlled defense services in support of computer network exploitation, and a commercial company creating, supporting and operating systems specifically designed to allow others to access data without authorization from computers worldwide, including in the United States,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Mark J. Lesko for the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Hackers-for-hire and those who otherwise support such activities in violation of U.S. law should fully expect to be prosecuted for their criminal conduct.” (read more)

Three orcs trained within the Fourth Branch system, left with their credentials and went to work on their own to make more money.  They got caught using their USIC skills to attack companies inside the United States.  Those who guard the Fourth Branch, gave them a fine and revoked their credentials.  A special tier of justice for a special class of criminal.

Senator Rand Paul Questions Secretary Anthony Blinken About Afghanistan Withdrawal and Drone Attack Killing Aid Worker


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 97 Comments

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul caught Secretary of State Anthony Blinken off-guard when he asked him about the target of a U.S. drone attack near Kabul airport.  Blinken noted the investigation about who was killed is ongoing, which begged the follow-up question from Senator Paul: “Don’t you think you should know who you are going to kill before you kill them?”

Senator Bob Menendez Threatens Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and All Further Pentagon Nominations


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 54 Comments

Protecting the interests of the Fourth Branch of Government is not a partisan issue.   [♦ TEAM One – The Department of State is aligned with the CIA.  Their media PR firms are CNN, CNNi and the Washington Post. Their ideology is favorable to the United Nations.  Their internal corruption is generally driven by relationship with foreign actors.  References: Hillary Clinton, Clinton Global Initiative, John McCain, Qatar, Muslim Brotherhood, Samantha Powers, Susan Rice, Cass Sunstein, Brookings Institute, Lawfare, China-centric, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Council on Foreign Relations.]

In this example, Democrat Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez targets the Pentagon Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin for not appearing to answer questions about Afghanistan.  Showcasing the out of balance power of the Senate, Menendez threatens to block defense department nominations as a consequence to Austin for defying the Fourth Branch of Government.

This Really Happened


Posted originally on the conservative tree house on September 14, 2021 | Sundance | 345 Comments

Alexander Vindman was the national security council operative who worked with the CIA to frame Donald Trump by leaking a manipulated transcript of a presidential phone call.   Today he tweeted this about General Mark Milley:

The Lieutenant Col. who broke chain-of-command and usurped his authority is complaining about the Joint Chief’s Chairman breaking chain-of-command and usurping his authority.

Yeah, you really can’t make this up folks.

NSC resistance member Alexander Vindman constructed a false story about the Trump-Zelenskyy phone call; he shared the false story with CIA operative Eric Ciaramella (a John Brennan resistance associate and former NSC member). Ciaramella then makes contact with resistance allies Sean Misko & Mary McCord working within the House Intel Committee.

Mary McCord (former DOJ-NSD and current Lawfare) then helps Eric Ciaramella create a fraudulent intelligence community whistle-blower complaint to submit to her former DOJ-NSD lawyer, now Intel Inspector General, Intelligence Community Inspector General Michael Atkinson.  And that folks, was how the entire impeachment operation got started. {link}