Posted on originally on the CTH by Menagerie on February 21, 2023
Today is Fat Tuesday, the culmination of the famous season of Mardi Gras.
Debauchery. Bacchanalia. Floats, costumes, beads and masks, and lots of drinking and partying. That’s what we think of when we hear the term Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday.
There is a lot more behind it. Also called Shrove Tuesday, it marks the last day of the liturgical calendar before Lent begins.
After Catholicism spread throughout Europe, many cultures celebrated the final day before Lent began in ways unique to that individual culture. Eggs, and milk were finished off in one day, giving rise to the term Fat Tuesday. In Poland, such things as lard, sugar, eggs, and fruit were forbidden during Lent, and the beloved pączki became a special treat for Fat Tuesday. In Detroit they still sell many thousands of them to long lines of people.
Enjoy your Fat Tuesday, and spare a thought to the next forty days. Why not observe Lent, and use the time to more deeply appreciate Christ’s sacrifice and his love for us?
I am sure you’ve seen people on Ash Wednesday with a cross traced on their foreheads. Many churches have Ash Wednesday services, and all are welcome. It’s a thought provoking way to begin your journey, to center and prepare yourself to make changes, to clean out some baggage and make more room for the truly important things.
This is a repeat post. I hope you will join us the next weeks as we look toward Good Friday and the Cross, with the goal of making ourselves a little more able to celebrate on Easter Sunday.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 18, 2023 | Sundance
Former President Jimmy Carter (98) has chosen to spend his final days at home in Plains, Georgia, in hospice care after a series of brief hospital stays, the Carter Center announced today. [Announcement Link]
While many of us would not be considered “admirers“, it is a rightful thing to keep a good thought and prayer for his family during this stage of his life.
Psalm 23, a psalm of David:
The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restoreth my soul. He guides me along the righteous path for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley in the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou are with me; Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely Your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Posted originally on the CTH on February 10, 2023 | Sundance
David Sacks is a key advisor to Elon Musk and one of the principal aides to Musk during the purchase and subsequent takeover of Twitter by the billionaire entrepreneur.
There has been an ongoing debate about whether Elon Musk was aware of the U.S. government and intelligence community control over Twitter prior to the purchase; with many people saying there is no way that Musk could not know given the scale of the money involved, $42 billion and the due diligence that generally follows such transactions.
However, in this interview David Sacks explicitly states Mr. Musk had no idea how much operational control and influence the government and intelligence apparatus held over the platform prior to the purchase. [Video prompted to 06:15 segment]
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If Sacks is delivering an accurate assessment of the situation, then taking the issue one step further, it stands to reason that Musk has no idea what the core algorithmic code built into the platform actually consists of. Additionally, as CTH has long outlined, then Musk has no idea about the data-processing subsidy arrangement that exists on the platform as an outcome of the partnership.
Readers here are so far ahead of the curve on this story, it’s kind of cool, funny, and yet frustrating at the same time. Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop is all a wild conspiracy theory born from the oddly wired brain of some dude in the corner of the internet; until suddenly it’s not.
Factually, it has been staring at everyone since the operation began in 2011, yet no one was willing to believe it. Apparently, Elon Musk is starting to realize what is inside the communication platform he purchased.
For several years, CTH has been outlining the relationship between DHS and social media. Currently, the headlines are filled with stories about Twitter and revelations of censorship and government influence coming from the purchase of the platform by Elon Musk. However, as I said from the outset of this new moment, I promise you things are not what they seem.
As noted earlier, and it is worth repeating, let me put some context to the dynamic that will hopefully clarify what is going on, and perhaps the context will help explain what you are seeing and what you are not seeing as this unfolds. There are going to be a lot of citations to fill in the details, and understanding the modern Fourth Branch of Government is critical.
♦ Elevator Speech: Twitter was/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 had no idea.
To explain the background activity of Twitter in a way that readers could understand, I used the metaphor of Twitter as Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop.
…”The metaphorical Jack had a great idea, open a coffee shop where the beverages were free and use internal advertising as the income subsidy to operate the business. Crowds came for the free coffee, comfy couches, fellowship, conversation and enjoyment.
It didn’t matter where Jack got the coffee, how he paid for it, or didn’t, or what product advertising the customers would be exposed to while there. Few people thought about such things. Curiously, it didn’t matter what size the crowd was; in the backroom of Jack’s Coffee Shop they were able to generate massive amounts of never-ending free coffee at extreme scales.
Over time, using the justification of parking lot capacity and township regulations, not everyone would be able to park and enter. Guards were placed at the entrance to pre-screen customers. Some were denied. A debate began.”…
Here’s what happened….
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 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.
[Note, the timing here is not accidental. The operational agreement happened at the same time DHS was fine tuning the domestic surveillance systems to monitor social media platforms and target political opposition. See The Fourth Branch.]
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.
[The Intercept] – […] Behind closed doors, and through pressure on private platforms, the U.S. government has used its power to try to shape online discourse. According to meeting minutes and other records appended to a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt, a Republican who is also running for Senate, discussions have ranged from the scale and scope of government intervention in online discourse to the mechanics of streamlining takedown requests for false or intentionally misleading information.
“Platforms have got to get comfortable with gov’t. It’s really interesting how hesitant they remain,” Microsoft executive Matt Masterson, a former DHS official, texted Jen Easterly, a DHS director, in February.
In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned that the threat of subversive information on social media could undermine support for the U.S. government. Dehmlow, according to notes of the discussion attended by senior executives from Twitter and JPMorgan Chase, stressed that “we need a media infrastructure that is held accountable.” (read more)
To streamline the operational efficiencies as the industrial coffee system grew, direct portals between the Washington DC government offices and Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop were created. Officials no longer needed to travel to the location of Jack’s Coffee Shop in order to operate the valves, mixers, grinders and systems to generate the scale of blends being produced.
Experts could now use direct portals to the facility to operate the coffee production systems remotely, with a limited number of specially trained (FBI) coffee engineers doing the laborious tasks and maintenance at the facility.
The badges were intimidating to Jack who went to sleep every night under the realization he no longer had any clue about how the coffee shop communication business was operating.
[…] The extent to which the DHS initiatives affect Americans’ daily social feeds is unclear. During the 2020 election, the government flagged numerous posts as suspicious, many of which were then taken down, documents cited in the Missouri attorney general’s lawsuit disclosed. And a 2021 report by the Election Integrity Partnership at Stanford University found that of nearly 4,800 flagged items, technology platforms took action on 35 percent — either removing, labeling, or soft-blocking speech, meaning the users were only able to view content after bypassing a warning screen. The research was done “in consultation with CISA,” the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
Prior to the 2020 election, tech companies including Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Discord, Wikipedia, Microsoft, LinkedIn, and Verizon Media met on a monthly basis with the FBI, CISA, and other government representatives. According to NBC News, the meetings were part of an initiative, still ongoing, between the private sector and government to discuss how firms would handle misinformation during the election. (keep reading)
After several years of increasing distance from the Coffee Shop operation he initially started, eventually Jack decided it was silly to own an industrial coffee delivery system that he didn’t control. So, Jack decided to sell his shingle to someone else.
Enter, Elon Musk.
Billionaire Elon Musk, a man intimately familiar with large industrial systems and government, had been watching the disgruntled visitors to Jack’s Coffee Shop who were no longer permitted to enter. Musk saw an inequity between the amount of coffee that was available, and the scarcity of the coffee amid a community blacklisted by the operational executives and managers of the shop.
With expressions of both interest and fellowship, Mr. Elon Musk told Mr. Jack Dorsey he would take ownership of Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop and remove any discriminatory guards that were now controlling permitted entry. Jack had no aversion to Elon and eventually a deal was brokered.
After the transfer of sale was complete, Mr. Musk fired many of the guards and then set about checking the payroll to identify which group of shop employees were actually involved in the generation of coffee, and which employees were involved in promotion of the industrial coffee delivery system that were no longer needed.
Within this process, Elon Musk begins to discover the complex nature of what, at least at the surface, appeared to be an uncomplicated coffee shop. Why is there a 500-room glass walled office building on the backside of the coffee shop? What is going on in that GEC building that has anything to do with selling domestic coffee?
The sunlight revelations began surfacing a few months ago when someone of reasonably intelligent curiosity finally asked Elon Musk the right question about this direct portal from DHS into the coffee shop. How Mr. Musk replied might surprise you.
You see, the Jack’s Magic Coffee Shop metaphor is evidenced in the Musk response.
Twitter owner Elon Musk has no idea that a DHS portal into the coffee shop existed and what it would be for. WATCH:
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To put it in brutally honest terms, the State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring). However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in…. The United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.
You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is. Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.
Musk advisor David Sacks specifically states Elon Musk had no idea. However, regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd datapoints only reconcile in one direction. The State Dept started it with GEC, but ultimately DHS, via CISA, controlled Twitter.
Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt controlled enterprise.
If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.
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. DHS is still the ghost in the machine.
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.
Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment. Until then, we keep watching and smiling…
[…] “Intelligence agencies backed new startups designed to monitor the vast flow of information across social networks to better understand emerging narratives and risks.” [HERE]
CTH has never pretended or played the game of pretending, but several people have discussed the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing today on the Twitter censorship issue… and thus, some reminders and clarifications of inside DC politics are needed.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, hereafter called the House Oversight Committee or HOC, has a very specific function in DC circles that apparently too few understand. Once again, let us be clear while trying to explain decades of false information founded upon arcane legislative outlooks.
This article is specific only to the House Oversight Committee.
Within Washington DC, the HOC has a very specific and unique function. What Fox News is to corporate conservative punditry, so too is the HOC to the same DC system of pretending. The House Oversight Committee is the “Chaff and Countermeasures” committee. The HOC operates for both parties with the same mission.
The House Oversight Committee was/is created by the House legislative leadership to make money for the party in control of the Chair. When the House Speaker is notified of a DC corruption issue, inside his/her office they will often be heard saying, “give it to oversight.” The intent of that instruction is to give the issue to the HOC, so they can hold hearings, create soundbites and fundraise from the issue.
Making money for the party in control of the Chair is the primary function of the House Oversight Committee. The HOC does not exist to create accountability or oversight; the HOC exists to exploit the issue for fundraising and satiate the base voters of the party in control of the Chair. The HOC presents the illusion of accountability by constructing soundbites and member performances which are then broadcast on television for appearances to the voting audience. It is essentially theater.
The HOC is a “general oversight’ committee, not a committee of “specific jurisdiction.” Thus, the HOC is the vehicle where Democrats and Republicans publicly display their political initiatives, frame their narratives and then broadcast them on MSNBC, CNN (Democrats) or FOX NEWS (Republicans).
Depending on the issues at hand, the HOC committee members are generally those performance actors best known to the audience of both parties. This is not accidental; this is by design. Again, for emphasis, I am only talking about the HOC, a “generalized oversight” committee. Only this specific committee has this specific mission.
A hot button topic enters the committee ecosphere. Specifically trained staffers and performance artists, uniquely qualified to put on theatrical productions (both parties), are then deployed to assist the representatives in creating the soundbites that hopefully will go viral and assist them with fundraising and opportunities to say, “here’s what we are doing.” Outlining this construct is not an exhibition in cynicism; this is the reality of what the HOC is designed and created to do.
When you see the HOC performing at their best, you will see lots of soundbites created.
The Chair of the HOC is always part of the House Speaker’s close inner circle. From that association you will discover by training, by habit, and by consequence, the HOC framework is developed to sustain the process itself as an end result. The questioning is the sum total of all accountabilities. The performance is the interview; the conversation is the point; the smoke is the fire.
Oversight, in the HOC framework of narrative creation, has evolved into reveling in the endless process (a fundraising proposition) and, as a consequence, it completely ignores the end point, misses the bottom line, doesn’t actually SEE the subject matter, and never actually applies accountability toward what might be discovered. This is why you end up with high blood pressure, frustrated with the questions not asked, and throwing bricks at the screen or monitors when viewing.
The point of HOC hearings is to create what are now described as “viral moments” that can be used to generate money. The second, and lesser objective, is to give the illusion of accountability while not actually ever holding anyone or anything accountable. See prior HOC reference points like Fast and Furious, IRS targeting, Benghazi which outline the latest intent with the Twitter censorship issue.
If you watch the HOC Twitter hearing through the prism of expecting some form of accountability for the violations of the First Amendment, you will be frustrated and disappointed. However, if you watch the HOC Twitter hearing through the prism of how well the panelists will do at raising money from their performances, then you can evaluate the effectiveness; the proverbial winning and losing.
The HOC is designed by House leadership to perform the same basic function for both Democrats and Republicans. The HOC committee assignments are selected based on the theatrical skills of each representative. This is not to say the motives of the members are sullied or impure, it is simply to point out the motive of the committee itself is to generate fundraising from the skillsets of the members on the committee.
Once you fully grasp what the intent of the House Oversight Committee is about, and once you drop the expectation that any accountability in oversight is the intent, then you can watch the performances through the entertainment prism of partisan politics and genuinely enjoy them. There are, after all, some exceptional soundbites and moments created by the hearings themselves.
The HOC is called the “Chaff and Countermeasures” Committee, because that’s essentially what the committee does. It gives the appearance of targeting, steering the target to a controlled destination, and then distracting the audience from the outcome of accountability.
If sunlight is achieved, meaning the Mainstream Media cannot ignore the issue as presented and questioned, and if the general public become more familiar with the controversial subject matter or topic at hand, and if the party of the Chair can fundraise from the issue, then the committee has succeeded. However, if you are looking for something to change as an outcome of any HOC hearing, you will be disappointed.
All of the insiders in Washington DC know this to be true; but, when discussing the HOC specifically, the insiders cannot violate the DC code and make this reality a part of the public consciousness. To make this operational mission widely understood is to diminish the financial value of it.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 31, 2023 | Sundance
On the literal eve of a House vote to end the COVID emergency through legislation, the White House announced they would end the COVID-19 Emergency Declaration on May 11th. [pdf here]
The managers of Biden knew they would face a bipartisan vote to end the power of the dictatorial fiat known as the COVID emergency, so they quickly rushed to give Democrats in congress cover for voting against the legislative end.
In the end this is all a matter of pure politics and posturing for narrative control, because the Democrat controlled Senate is not going to take up the House bills.
WASHINGTON DC – […] The two bills – the Pandemic is Over Act and the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act – were planned by Republicans last week; and late Monday, the White House announced that it will terminate the national COVID emergency on May 11. The White House also announced its opposition to the two bills up for a vote today.
But Republicans pressed ahead anyway and easily passed both measures despite the GOP’s narrow majority in the House.
The Pandemic is Over Act, which would end the public health emergency, passed 220-210 in a vote that saw every Republican vote for it and every Democrat vote against it. But the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act, which would end the vaccination requirement for federal health care workers, passed 227-203 with help from seven Democrats.
Those Democrat votes came even though Democrat leaders on the House floor argued against both bills. Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., said he opposes the Pandemic is Over Act because it would “abruptly and irresponsibly end the COVID-19 public health emergency virtually overnight,” and Democrats on the floor similarly argued against the bill to end the vaccine requirement. (read more)
Predictably the White House is claiming that if the COVID-19 emergency is over, then Title-42 immigration restrictions -which are based on the emergency- should end. This means even more illegal aliens crossing the U.S. southern border, an outcome the Biden team embrace.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 25, 2023 | Sundance
If you have followed the management and branding efforts of the team around Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the protestations today by campaign official and registered foreign agent Christina Pushaw are quite bizarre.
The Daily Beast wrote an article [SEE HERE] about how Ms. Pushaw organized an astroturf campaign of support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, which included the recruitment of several conservative influencers. The substance of the article is generally well known.
In late 2021, early 2022, Ms. Pushaw invited a group of “influencers” to spend time with Governor DeSantis. It’s not a debatable event. Factually, the collective group took gleeful pictures of their first visit on January 6, 2022, and continued to post frequent pictures on their social media of events throughout last year. The group went to the reelection celebration and inauguration of DeSantis earlier this month.
However, for some odd reason, likely more concerned about people realizing the ‘organized‘ nature of the creation, in a bizarre turn of events, Ms Christina Pushaw is now denying she ever organized the assembly and stating that without any documentary evidence, saying she organized the group is just a conspiracy theory. [Tweet Link]
If Ms. Pushaw is to be believed, the random group of Florida conservative “influencers” just happened to show up at the Governor’s office on January 6, 2022, without any invitation, organization or coordination on her part.
Even lacking the invitation details, hanging your defense on the absence of a paper trail under these circumstances, seems like a very odd position to take.
Why does the DeSantis team fear sunlight on the origin of how this outreach and subsequent meetings took place? Very odd.
I sincerely doubt this group just randomly showed up at Ron DeSantis office on January 6, 2022, without an invitation or organizing.
The same group then continued meeting throughout the year….
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Nothing about their recruitment, continued meet-ups and aggressive promotion of Ron DeSantis for the GOP nomination in 2024 would be that interesting or even noteworthy if Ms. Christina Pushaw didn’t paint them all into a box by denying she ever organized their first assembly.
And there’s the rub… Why is Christina Pushaw denying that she first organized them on behalf of the political aspirations of her boss, Ron DeSantis?
The only logical reason to make such an outlandish and transparently false claim, is if that original assembly was intended as seed material to use the “influencers” for another purpose, like a 2024 presidential bid. Yet, Ron DeSantis hasn’t announced a 2024 presidential bid…. so that issue is a nonstarter, unless that announcement is eventually going to come forth.
If Ron DeSantis is going to announce his candidacy for the GOP nomination, then suddenly all these background moves look like proactive steps on behalf of the management team. The January 6, 2022, meeting would then infer the presidential aspirations as far back as December 2021.
In combination with the $200+ million in Wall Street money assembled by DeSantis, perhaps that 2024 plan is the risk necessitating the absurd denial.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 25, 2023 | Sundance
While these remarks are cast against the backdrop of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy refusing to seat Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Eric Swalwell (D-CA) on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), the larger point within his remarks about the intelligence community need to be emphasized. {Direct Rumble Link}
While claiming McCarthy has no right to stop himself or Swalwell from participating in the 118th Congress HPSCI, Schiff claims the larger intelligence community will no longer share information about national security matters with the committee if he is not present. Essentially, without Schiff in attendance to politicize the intelligence information, the larger intelligence community will not cooperate.
Additionally, and somewhat in direct alignment with CTH predictions about the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of Government, Schiff declares the intelligence agencies of the United States government will not cooperate with the subcommittee. Again, as the argument is made, if democrats are not positioned to defend the Deep State, the Deep State will not cooperate. WATCH:
Nothing within these remarks should come as a surprise to CTH readers; however, the open hostility within the prediction by Adam Schiff should serve as a stark underline for the challenge the House subcommittee will face.
There are some who are claiming that the revision of the CPI is to help the Federal Reserve stop fighting inflation. This is typical for Americans who only watch the Fed and nothing else. The formula for the CPI has been routinely altered. Real Estate used to be included but when that was rising too much, they replaced that with rents. When rents started rising, they replaced them with controlled rents.
This is NOT about helping the Fed to lower rates or stop raising rates as the majority seem to be touting. Powell is not that stupid and this will have ZERO impact on Fed decisions going forward. This is all about government spending which is a far greater problem than worrying about the pressure on the Fed. Virtually EVERY government program is automatically INDEXED to CPI. Thus, agencies’ budgets are automatically increased each year based on the CPI. Your taxes are indexed to the CPI. By reducing the CPI, they collect more taxes! There is NOBODY in Congress or at the Bureau of Labor Statistics that gives the Fed a second thought.
Even if we look at inflation using the pre-1980 formulas, the CPI is approaching 10%! When we calculate inflation by eliminating everything that is really irrelevant and focusing on food, energy, transportation, and taxation, which they do not consider at all, the reality of our number came in at 32% for 2022. That is a far cry from the official number. This is simply calculated by Socrates from an unbiased perspective.
What a new wonderful world the Biden Administration has created. Thank you, COVID & the Russian Sanctions. The largest increase we found was obvious fuel between gasoline and diesel used in trucking and homes averaging 65%+ Turning to basic food, eggs were up nearly 50%, flour rose by 25%, cooking oil 23%, butter was up 35%, Chicken by 14%, and Rice by 18%. If we throw in toothpicks, paperclips, etc, then the more we can include the lower the inflation rate. We do not include rent or real estate. Our number is far more accurate to the daily living expenses than the near 10% level of the government. They also do not include sales taxes. The national average rise in rental rates was 7.8%, in Florida it was 8.5%, and in NYC 1.5% when controlled.
When I would buy a desktop IBM XT during the 1980s, it was always about $7,000 for a top-of-the-line. Today, that cost has come down significantly. Obviously, we do not buy computers every week. Should that really be part of a formula? The BLS has made so many revisions to the CPI over the decades it is really a political tool these days.
Back in the ’90s, our staff was dissecting every statistic. We discovered that they were overstating economic growth because they counted government employees twice. The total all personal income, and then government spending. I called the head of the BLS and asked surely this had to be backed out somewhere for hiring government employees to increase GDP rather than the private sector. They reviewed it and finally just said – no comment.
The idea that this latest revision of using one year as a weight instead of two will allow the Fed to stop tightening is really the rantings of people who only look at the Fed for everything as their guidance. There is a lot more incentive behind this revision and the Fed was not a consideration.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 24, 2023 | Sundance
Intellectually honest observers have long realized that Antifa, as an organized domestic violence movement in the United States, could not exist if it was not supported directly or with willful blindness by the FBI. Sometimes you just have to accept things as they are, and not as you would wish them to be.
If the FBI did not support Antifa, it would be simple to target their financial mechanisms, fundraising platforms and social media networks that showcase their communications. If the FBI didn’t support Antifa, they would simply target the networks and arrest the participants for domestic terror related activity. It is not that difficult to see the FBI doesn’t do this because the FBI/DOJ support the violence.
During his opening monologue Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson outlines exactly this issue. WATCH:
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RevCom (Revolutionary Communists), Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, Antifa etc. it’s all one long continuum of the same participants. However, in order to accept the ideology that surrounds it, the complicit media and U.S. justice system must pretend not to know things.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on January 19, 2023 | Sundance
Lots of people are talking about U.S. FBI Director Christopher Wray discussing the agencies “partnership with the private sector” as it relates to modern FBI activity. However, I’m just that random oddball in the crowd who just wants to point out something, well, kind of a big picture issue.
I notice in all of the discussions surrounding the FBI activity, and there are a lot of discussions – including admissions and outlines from the FBI itself, there appears to be an element of the subject matter being overlooked. Here’s a segment from Wray at the World Economic Forum {Direct Rumble Link} as a precursor to what few are noticing. WATCH:
The FBI is a criminal investigative agency. Meaning, a crime is committed, and the FBI mission is to investigate it, solve it, and bring the information to the justice department for pursuit. At least that was the customary role of the FBI as it was/is commonly discussed.
However, please note that in Director Wray’s remarks, every element of the FBI mission is framed around “prevention” of criminal activity, or what we would call pre-crimes.
Stop for a moment and rewatch it if needed, you’ll see what I am talking about.
Um, please excuse my interruption.
While it might seem like an unusual thing to notice, this is not a small issue.
In the era following the 9-11 attacks, there was public outcry around the issue of “how” and “why” did law enforcement, specifically the FBI, not PREVENT the attack. In just about every conversation following the attack every framework was about how to prevent an attack.
The 9-11 commission itself was focused on learning lessons from the attack; thereby the direct and implicit message was to construct systems to prevent another attack from happening. Essentially to move the FBI from a reactive footing in the aftermath of a crime, to a proactive footing to prevent crime.
Now, what I am asking readers to do is to realize when the fundamental mission of an investigative agency changes from investigating the aftermath of criminal activity, to the prevention of criminal activity, we as a society open ourselves up to having severe restrictions on our liberty. After all, just about everything that we now see as an infringement on freedom, is some form of a proactive action by government.
Change the mission from the investigation of crime to the prevention of crime, and the entire apparatus of the mission fundamentally changes.
Criminals are no longer the target when you are preventing crimes. Criminals are only targets in the aftermath of crime. When you are preventing crime, everyone that could commit a crime is the new mission target. Everyone, regardless of their connection to – or association with – criminal activity, is now a potential criminal. Potential criminals must be monitored.
Potential criminals are now the target. You are a potential criminal. As a result of your potential ability, you are a target for pre-crime investigation. Within the process of pre-crime investigation, your archaic views of freedom and liberty are dispatched.
The office of the Director of National Intelligence was created to turn the terrorist radar internally. Every American is now a potential “domestic terrorist.” Thus, you see FBI Director Christopher Wray sitting on a stage and openly admitting the FBI partnerships with the private sector are key to the mission; a mission of pre-crime targeting.
Can you see how this rolls along?…
As soon as the FBI changes from investigating the aftermath of a crime committed to intercepting the potential criminal conduct, things get very opaque, sketchy and weird. When the FBI is investigating crimes, you have rights. When the FBI is preventing crimes, those rights are impediments.
Our entire legal system is structured around criminal accountability. An event takes place, and we hold the criminal accountable. Judges, lawyers, courts, systems, processes, protections, rights of the accused, fourth amendment, fifth amendment, etc. etc. Hundreds of years of rules and regulations within a criminal justice system.
We do not have a “pre-crime” justice system.
The current FBI mission is pre-crime enforcement.
Think about the ramifications; it shouldn’t be hard, because we are living them.
I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
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
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