Category Wall Street -vs- Main Street

Mar 26 2023

Liz Harrington – As The Awakening Continues, MAGA Continues to Grow


Posted originally on the CTH on March 25, 2023 | Sundance

President Trump Chief Spokesperson Liz Harrington appears on the Steve Bannon War Room to discuss the status of the America First movement. {Direct Rumble Link}

As Harrington accurately notes, the people who build stuff, create stuff, innovate and bring physical stuff into reality, these are the people within the MAGA movement.  The esoteric pontificating thinkers, the politicians, those only contribute opinion to the system of creation, are not connected to MAGA or worthy of consideration.  WATCH:

Liz Harrington: The corrupt elites are selling us out and destroying us in the process.

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Bannon also gave a big picture overview below.

Bam 

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Mar 24 2023

Full Piers Morgan Interview With 2024 Candidate Ron DeSantis – Video


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

If I did not know the background of Ron DeSantis; if I did not have an exhaustive research library on the activity behind Ron DeSantis; if I was not aware of how the professional Republican establishment creates the ‘illusion of choice’; I would watch this interview with a generally good sense about Ron DeSantis.

However, unfortunately for the professionally Republican political class, we do know how they operate, and we are able to see the strings on the marionettes.  So, when the selected and managed product of their three-year strategic plan says about fundraising, “I deal better with regular people,” we are able to call it as nonsense with accurate data to highlight the lie.

94% of all Ron DeSantis’ money comes from Wall Street, hedge fund managers, billionaires and multinational corporations.  Only 6% comes from small donors, or what you might describe as “regular people.” {LINK}  Additionally, you don’t spend 3-days with billionaire donors at Four Seasons donor retreat in Palm Beach, followed shortly by 3-days at a Club for Growth donor retreat in Miami, and then get to claim you “deal better with regular people.”  This is just a lie.

There are parts of this interview that many readers here will agree with.  There are also many parts of this interview that readers might take exception to.  But the entirety of the hour long, mostly softball, Rupert Murdoch organized interview, is based on three years of carefully managed constructs.  WATCH

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vIj4LUPlgKc%3Ffeature%3Doembed

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Mar 12 2023

US Blows up NordStream Pipeline in Act of War


Armstrong Economics Blog/War Re-Posted Mar 12, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

https://youtube.com/watch?v=d4BuMaGlKp0%3Ffeature%3Doembed

The Neocons are in control of US Foreign Policy

Mar 9 2023

The Debt Crisis – What Really Falls to Dust?


Armstrong Economics Blog/Sovereign Debt Crisis Re-Posted Mar 9, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

QUESTION: The sales pitch seems to be that there is this $2 quadrillion in global debt that overhangs everything. Paper assets, therefore, will all implode!  They seem to be saying that everything has risen due to this debt bubble and it was all created with Zero interest rates. Now that they are going up, the debt bubble will burst and everything will decline. The story seems to be that this decades-long Boom Bust cycle was created over and over by the Federal Reserve. 

This seems to be like you have said, they try to reduce everything to a single cause and effect.

What really happens?

PCJ

ANSWER: These people seem to keep preaching the same story but have no historical understanding whatsoever of how the monetary system has ever worked. Their focus on the Federal Reserve shows that they are not looking at the world economy and they do not even comprehend how bad things really are outside the United States.  They do not comprehend what is an interest rate. It is the compensation to a lender for his anticipation of inflation plus a profit. If I think the dollar will decline by 50%, why would I lend you dollars for a year if when you pay me back it buys half of what it did when I lent it to you?

Debt can be a performing asset. I advised many of the Takeover Boys during the 1980s. We would borrow in one currency to buy the asset in another using the computer to distinguish the long-term trends. I would not recommend that to someone just operating on a gut feeling.

We were also advising on real values, which Hollywood distorted and based the movie Wall Street with Michael Douglas and his famous speech on greed. What they did not really understand was that after a Public Wave that peaked in 1981, stocks were suppressed and the full-faith in government created the broadly supported bond market.  Hence – bonds were conservative and stocks were risky. There were two aspects that were behind the entire Takeover Boom.

First, I was showing these charts and how in terms of book value, the Dow Jones bottomed in 1977. It was obvious that if you could buy a company, sell its assets, and double or triple your money, then the market was obviously not overpriced. We had forecast that the Dow was undervalued and that it would rise from the 1982 low of 769.98 and test the 2500 level in two years in 1985. Indeed, it reached 2695.47 by September 1987. We also projected that by the next decade, the Dow would test 6,000 on its next rally.

Even the press in Japan was shocked. We were also projected that Crude would fall below $10 in 1998. Indeed, that forecast was covered by Mark Pitman at Bloomberg News. It bottomed at $10.65 in 1998. In gold would forecast that it would drop to test $250 by 1999 completing a 19-year cycle low. Then gold would rally to test 1,000. Gold reached the $1,000 level by 2008. The Japanese press thought those forecasts were wild, to say the least.

The SECOND aspect of our advice to the takeover boys of the ’80s was something the press NEVER understood. We would advise borrowing in one currency for an asset in another. We were able to turn debt into a performing asset. We would make 20-40% profit on the currency alone. Often, the press would just look at the debt and not understand what we were even doing.

Most of this reasoning stems from Sir Tomas Gresham’s observations when he represented England at the Amsterdam exchange during the reign of Henry VI’s reign and debasement. As Henry debased the silver coinage as was taking place in Spain, the more they debased the coinage, the higher the inflation took place. His observation that bad money drives out the good has been grossly misunderstood. When I was growing up, they took the silver out of the coinage in 1965.  People were culling out the silver showing that the debased new coinage of 1965 drove out of circulation the old silver coinage. The same thing has taken place with the copper pennings.

Because people hoard old coinage, the money supply shrinks. That then forces the government to issue far more debased coinage to compensate for the coinage that has been withdrawn from hoarding. Consequently, inflation unfolds for all tangible assets to rise in value as expressed in the newly debased coinage.

What these people always try to sell is the same old scenario that they cannot point to a single instance in history where everything collapses to dust but only gold survives. Such periods will typically result in revolution. When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, that was also all bout a debt crisis.

You must also understand that interest rates will be at their LOWEST internationally in the core economy of the Financial Capital of the World – which is the USA right now. The further you move from the center, the higher the interest rate will be. Hence, I have warned that the United States will be the LAST to fall – never the first. This is not based upon my opinion, this is simply historical fact.

We have interest rates back to 3000 BC and have studied the impact of such convulsions in economic history. As for the Debt Crisis that forced Caesar to cross the Rubicon, I suggest you read Anatomy of a Debt Crisis that appears, only Julius Caesar ever understood. 

The Bottom Line is very simple. There is just no such period as people describe where everything turns to dust and only gold survives. Even if that were true, they what good would the gold do if everything else is worth ZERO? Gold would have also ZERO value since nothing would have value.

The real issue is that as government defaults unfold, tangible assets will rise in value for the amount of money in debt always dwarfs that in even the stock market. We are in a Sovereign Debt Crisis and that is very different from a private debt crisis.

Mar 7 2023

US is Losing Another War – Ukraine


Armstrong Economics Blog/Neocons Re-Posted Mar 7, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

The United States has launched a proxy war, unconstitutionally, circumventing Congress and the American people no less the entire world. What must be understood, is that the Biden Administration, the puppet of the Neocons led now by Victoria Nuland, has brought the entire world to the brink of World War III and they have now begun the countdown to the decline and fall of Western Civilization

Who is Victoria Nuland and why has she the queen of the Neocons? Victoria Nuland has been one of the leading Neocons always advocating war with Russia. She is behind the propaganda that Russia is on the verge of defeat and that the Russian army is really dysfunctional. This is standard propaganda. They put out the same exact line about the troops in Iraq. This is to convince Americans that they can wage war and it will be over in just a few hours or days. This is the typical Neocon sales pitch to justify their endless thirst for war. They are trying to provide justification to rush in for an easy defeat of their target.

Besides the Neocons’ treason against the Constitution always manipulating proxy wars without the consent of Congress in violation of Section I, Article 8, there is also one huge very serious undisclosed conflict of interest and the Biden Administration should immediately fire Victoria Nuland and all her supporters within the Biden Administration to save the world and our nation.

Victoria Nuland is really of Ukrainian Jewish descent. Her family changed their name to try to hide their Jewish ethnic background. She really would be Nudelman, not Nuland. She is actually the daughter of Yale bioethics and medicine professor Sherwin B. Nuland, who changed his surname from Nudelman to Nuland. She has retained her family name Nuland to perhaps further hide her Jewish connection by being married to Robert Kagan. Victoria speaks Russian, French, and some Chinese. Hiding her Jewish background is critical. Her father was raised by parents who were Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Ukraine. Hence, her grandparents were Jewish Meyer Nudelman (1889-1958) and Vitsche Lutsky (1893-1941). This explains why Nuland has been a public proponent for Ukraine to wage war against Russia.

Her husband, Robert Kagan, authored the “real Iraq Study Group” report of the American Enterprise Institute. This was the Neocon view of regime change. Kagan was said to have convinced President George W. Bush, to order the “surge” plan for changing the course of the Iraq War. It was Kagan who co-founded the neoconservative think tank in 1997 which was known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) with fellow Neocon William Kristol, who has a track record of usually being wrong. This has been the legacy of the Neocons in general.

Ron Paul plainly wrote: “Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. “ It is indeed time that we examine their Neocons who constantly usurp American foreign policy and will drive us straight into World War III. This may indeed be a family feud with Russia given both the Jewish and Ukrainian backgrounds.

Her Husband and Kristol used PNAC, from 1998 onward, to further the Neocon wars and their quest for Regime Change. Kagan was an early and strong advocate of military action in Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan as well as to “remove Mr. Hussein and his regime from power”. Kristol and Kagan teamed up and wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times where they put forth what is now known as fake news: They actually wrote:

“It is clear that Mr. Hussein wants his weapons of mass destruction more than he wants oil revenue or relief for hungry Iraqi children.”

They put forth their idea that the United States had the right to engage in regime change in other countries. They also wrote in the New York Times:

“And Iraq’s Arab neighbors are more likely to support a military effort to remove him than an ineffectual bombing raid that leaves a dangerous man in power.”

What I know from sources was that there was an intelligence report dated September 21st, 2001, that stated bluntly that there was NO evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks. Later, in the 2004 9/11 Commission report, they too concluded that there was NO “collaborative relationship” between Iraq and al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, Kristol and Kagan with the rest of the Neocons, including Nuland, supported the Iraq Invasion which began on the 20th of March in 2003. They used the national security excuse to keep Bush sequestered after 9/11 so Cheney could run the government unobstructed.

I have warned that the Neocons are NOT Republicans but actually began inside the Democratic Party. They are the political version of transgender keeping a foot in both camps. In 1976, Bill Kristol worked for Democrat Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s United States Senate campaign. Later, in 1988, Kristol was the campaign manager for black Republican Alan Keyes’s unsuccessful Maryland Senatorial campaign against Paul Sarbanes. So Kristol was on both sides of the aisle. He then taught political philosophy and the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. It was 1985 when Kristol first went to work in the White House serving as Chief of Staff to Secretary of Education William Bennett during the Reagan administration. Then Kristol became the Chief of Staff to Vice President Dan Quayle (1989-1993) in the George H. W. Bush administration.  This is when Kristol and Cheney were working together.

Kristol wrote The War Over Iraq: Saddam’s Tyranny And America’s Mission with his co-author Lawrence F. Kaplan, which was published on February 1st, 2003, one month BEFORE the invasion. Note the timing. This was written to support Cheney. It takes time to publish this book.

Kristol’s book states that the rationale behind the preemptive strategy against Saddam Hussein is simply that he is a dictator who threatens both his own people and the world. That is sufficient to justify the United States invading another country before he does further harm. Kristol offered no evidence to support his case and he simply stated that “we do know that Saddam is a terrorist.” Kristol went as far as to criticize both the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration for allowing the Iraq threat to grow.

The Neocons seem to have been supported by the so-called Republican Lincoln Project, which was so anti-Trump, it endorsed Joe Biden who has had no problem letting the Neocons rule American Foreign Policy which has been anti-Constritution. While the Lincoln Project asks for donations from Republicans, they seem to be worthy of donating your alimony requirements and any other legal expenses you might have. Their agenda was strangely aligned with that of Bill Kristol.

All of these groups were anti-Trump because he was against their regime change agenda and endless wars. That anti-Trump position killed Kristol’s Weekly Standard in 2018 after two years of anti-Trump articles simply to wage war. The PNAC think tank he formed with Nuland’s husband Robert Kagan collapsed even sooner in 2006.

Nuland’s broth-in-law, Frederick W. Kagan, and her father-in-in-law, Donald Kagan, are part of this family of Neocons’ intent of changing the world to their agenda using war and regime change. Father and son wrote “While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today” in 2000. The book argued in favor of a large increase in military spending and warned of future threats, including from a potential revival of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, which never existed.

It gets better. Kimberly Kagan, Frederick’s wife, is the founder of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which is the source of much of the fake news. Most curious, even the New York Times wrote about this Kagan family that they were really leftists and very outspoken to the point of manipulating whatever to gain their view of the world. The question is, just why is this family, such warmongers?

This Nuland/Kagan family of Neocons with Kristol and others has one major gold – Regime Change. They seem to be under the delusion that the United States has the right to interfere in other countries and overthrow leaders they simply do not like. Can you imagine if Russia decided it too would adopt the policy of Regime Change and move to overthrow the United State Constitution and end public elections of the leadership? Would the American people support that agenda? Hillary made such a big deal claiming that Putin interfered in her election to ensure Trump would win – Regime Change? Did Hillary accuse Putin of doing precisely what the Neocons are trying to do in Russia?

Perhaps you will recall Biden’s March 26th, 2022 remark calling for Regime Change in Russia. He said: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” at the very end of a speech in Poland’s capital. The HuffPost, which is always a Left-Biased publication, loved it. They reported that Biden wasn’t really calling for Regime Change, but instead only meant that Biden’s point was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or the region rather than no longer head Russia.

Yet these Neocons’ view that it is their right to impose Regime Change over nations they disagree with constantly supports that if we overthrow these unacceptable leaders, their population will cheer and give us a ticker-tape parade. That has not taken place in Iraq or any other country these people have ever targeted. Victoria Nuland’s leaked phone call where she pushed her agenda saying “Fuck the EU” if they did not agree with her.

When testifying on March 8th, 2022 about bioweapons labs in Ukraine, Senator Rubio asked if Ukraine had biological or chemical weapons. Nuland hesitated and carefully responded that Ukraine has “biological research facilities” avoiding any description of what the “research” was about and if the US military was involved, it certainly had nothing to do with general public health. Nuland also carefully added that they were concerned that Russia could get its hands on their labs. If they were really nothing, then why be concerned if Russia walked into the lab? We they creating viruses to target just Russian DNA?

The entire mainstream press simply refuses to offer the slightest bit of investigative journalism. Based entirely on Nuland’s avoidance of the question, they declare that Russia’s claim of US involvement in 30 biological labs in Ukraine has nothing to do with weapons. They offered not a single shred of evidence and even if the Russians revealed what they found in a lab, they would call it Russian propaganda as they did with the Hunter Biden Laptop.

Ukraine at the beginning of 2022 and this Proxy War, had one of the largest forces trained by NATO in Europe as reported by the Wall Street Journal. The Ukrainian force was 200,000 active personnel and 500,000 when reservists and paramilitary forces were included. It draft included the ages of all males 18 to 60 years old to take up arms. As well, they have handed out weapons to all citizens that wish to pitch in along with instructing the population on how to make Molotov cocktails.

The deliberate fraud on Russia with the intentional Minsk Agreement that the former Chancellor of Germany admitted was only a stall tactic to allow Ukraine to build an army demonstrating that they never intended for any peace agreement and that the West has cleverly used the Minsk Agreement to allow Ukraine to raise an army for this intended Proxy War.

Victoria Nuland, who was in Kiev during the Maidan Revolution with then head of the Neocons – John McCain. That is when McCain lied to the people and said this is “about you and no one else.” Why would he use those words except to falsely project the pretense that he was there for the Ukrainian people rather than his hatred for Russia?

Indeed, from 2014 and the US installation of an interim government that was instructed to immediately launch a civil war and attack the Donbas,  the new interim Ukrainian government reinstituted the Draft as reported by NBC News on May 1st, 2014. The Ukrainian people never voted for this war. The Neocons circumvented the Ukrainian people as well. The first election took place on May 25th,2014 after they started the draft and launched their invasion of the Donbas.

By comparison, France had 205,000 active personnel, the UK 194,000, Italy 170,000, and Germany 184,000. Russia’s active force stood at 900,000 and it had 2 million in reserves. Ukraine had effectively the largest military trained by NATO. This presents a very serious question. Zelensky began drafting reservists 18 to 60 one day before the move by Russia to occupy the Donbas on February 24th, 2022.

If Russia has destroyed over 250,000 Ukrainian troops that have been trained by NATO, does this really support the Kagan family narrative that Russia is weak and we can take them in a few days? war review of keen interest for the whole world. Does the United States just sulk in the corner, or does it take the defeat of Ukraine as a battle cry to win one for Gipper? What happens in the future as Ukraine loses after pouring money that is twice that of the entire German military budget? Has the Kagan family fulfilled our model that this is the start of the Decline & Fall of the West? We are facing a very serious crossroads here as Ukraine falls under a massive Russian onslaught.  We are looking at the entire credibility of the Biden Administration and all the fake news that has been told us Russia will collapse any moment.

Nobody has ever been able to beat Socrates – including me. We must consider that the mess of Ukraine and the failure of all this money to bring down Russia to achieve this family’s quest for Regime Change or personal vengeance will be our undoing. As Ron Paul said: “Victoria Nuland exemplifies the neocons who have led US foreign policy from one disaster to another for the past 30 years while evading accountability. “

C

Feb 27 2023

Sunday Talks, CIA Director William Burns Discusses Russia, Ukraine and the Need for Enhanced Intelligence Propaganda to Support NATO Initiatives


Posted originally on the CTH on February 27, 2023 | Sundance

CBS Margaret Brennan interviews CIA Director William Burns about the current status of the conflict in Ukraine.  Director Burns outlines his discussions with Ukraine government officials as well as his talks with intelligence counterparts in Russia.

Within the conversation Director Burns outlines the importance of the CIA to continue providing enhanced intelligence operations to support both the conflict and the propaganda that surrounds the World War Reddit effort.  Additionally, Burns confirms for the first time that his intelligence analysts now believe China has moved their status from improbable to possible in sending additional weapons to support Russia.  WATCH:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HN4bgqKq2MU%3Ffeature%3Doembed

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[Transcript] – MARGARET BRENNAN: On the cusp of Russia’s invasion, you flew to Kyiv, and you told President Zelenskyy — tell me if this is right — the Russians are coming to kill you.

Was that the very first thing you said?

WILLIAM BURNS (CIA Director): It wasn’t the very first thing I said to President Zelenskyy.

But President Biden had asked me to go to Kyiv to lay out for President Zelenskyy the most recent intelligence we had, which suggested that what Vladimir Putin was planning was what he thought would be a lightning strike from the Belarus border to seize Kyiv in a matter of a few days, and also to seize an airport just northwest of Kyiv called Hostomel, which he wanted to use as a platform to bring in air — airborne troops, as a way, again, of accelerating that lightning conquest of Kyiv.

And I think President Zelenskyy understood what was at stake and what he was up against.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You also have said — and tell me if this is correct — that it was only a group of about three or four people around Vladimir Putin who knew that he was actually planning this invasion.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Mm-hmm. No, I think that’s true. Putin had narrowed his circle of advisers, and it was a circle in which he prized loyalty over competence.

It was a group of people who tended to tell him what he wanted to hear. That was one of the deepest flaws I think, in Russian decision-making just before the war is, it was such a close circle of people reinforcing one another’s profoundly mistaken assumptions.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Does he take counsel from anyone these days?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think he’s become increasingly convinced that he knows better than anyone else what’s at stake for Russia.

I think his sense of destiny, and his appetite for risk has increased in recent years as well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You recently went back to Kyiv, and you met with President Zelenskyy. And three months ago, I understand you met with Russia’s top spy chief.

Is there any kind of opening that you are finding here, any kind of opportunity?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: No, I mean, the conversation that I had with Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s external intelligence service, was pretty dispiriting.

My goal was not to talk about negotiations. That’s something that Ukrainians are going to need to take up with the Russians when they see fit. It was to make clear to Naryshkin and, through him, to President Putin the serious consequences should Russia ever choose to use a nuclear weapon of any kind as well.

And I think Naryshkin understood the seriousness of that issue, and I think President Putin has understood it as well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s not a lot of contact with Russia right now.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: There’s not a great deal; you’re right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you still have that line of communication with your counterpart?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Yes.

And I — and I think, even in the most deeply adversarial relationships — and that’s certainly what our relationship with Russia is today — it’s important to have those lines open. And the president believes that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What do you walk away from those conversations with? You said it was dispiriting.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Mm-hmm.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: There was a very defiant attitude on the part of Mr. Naryshkin as well, a sense of cockiness and hubris, reflecting Putin’s own view, his own belief today that he can make time work for him, that he believes he can grind down the Ukrainians, that he can wear down our European allies, that political fatigue will eventually set in.

And, in my experience, Putin’s view of Americans, of us, has been that we have attention deficit disorder, and we’ll move on to some other issue eventually. And so Putin, in many ways, I think, believes today that he cannot win for awhile, but he can’t afford to lose.

MARGARET BRENNAN: He doesn’t seem to have that assessment, though,

I mean, 97 percent of his ground force is in Ukraine.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s a meat grinder. Does he just look at his population and say, I have enough young men I can continue to send off to die?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: He’s…

MARGARET BRENNAN: I mean, what is the price that makes him change his mind?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: He’s — Putin is certainly not a sentimentalist about the loss of Russian life or the huge losses that he’s taken in terms of Russian armaments as well during the course of the war.

But there’s a lot of hubris that continues to be attached to Putin and his view of the war right now. And I think what’s going to be critical is to puncture that hubris on Putin’s part and regain momentum on the battlefield.

I don’t think the Russians are serious today. And I think it’s only progress on the battlefield that’s going to shape any improved prospects for negotiations down the road.

MARGARET BRENNAN: At what point does Putin say, I can’t win?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think Putin is right now entirely too confident of his ability to wear down Ukraine, to grind away.

And that’s what he’s giving every evidence that he’s determined to do right now. At some point, he’s going to have to face up to increasing costs as well, in coffins coming home to some of the poorest parts of Russia. There’s a cumulative economic damage to Russia as well, huge reputational damage. It has not exactly been a great advertisement for Russian arms sales.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: So this is going to build over time, but, right now, the honest answer, I think Putin is quite determined.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about what appears to be potentially a new line of ammunition and weapons for Russia.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Secretary Blinken has said publicly we have begun to see — we have begun to collect intelligence suggesting that China is considering the provision of lethal equipment.

That’s not to suggest that they’ve made a definitive conclusion about this.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Secretary Blinken said that the U.S. had picked up information over the last couple of months. But picking up information over the last couple of months to thinking they’re actively considering it, I mean, how confident are you in the intelligence that this is something Xi Jinping himself may change his mind about?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Well, we’re confident that the Chinese leadership is considering the provision of lethal equipment.

We also don’t see that a final decision has been made yet, and we don’t see evidence of actual shipments of lethal equipment. And that’s why, I think, Secretary Blinken and the president have thought it important to make very clear what the consequences of that would be as well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: To deter it?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Yes, to deter it, because it would be a very risky and unwise bet.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So, why would Beijing risk a tailspin in its relationship with the United States and with Europe by crossing this line?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It’s a good question, and that’s why I hope very much that they don’t.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think that Beijing benefits from having the West distracted and involved in a prolonged conflict in Europe…

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I mean…

MARGARET BRENNAN: … that that’s the aim?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It’s conceivable.

But I think there’s no foreign leader who’s watched more carefully Vladimir Putin’s experience in Ukraine, the evolution of the war, than Xi Jinping has.

MARGARET BRENNAN: What are the consequences for the conflict in Ukraine if this does happen? What does more ammunition and more weapons mean? Does this — is it a game-changer?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: We also have evidence that the Iranians are providing lethal equipment and munitions, that the North Koreans are doing the same thing as well.

So, wherever that lethal assistance comes from, it prolongs a vicious war of aggression.

MARGARET BRENNAN: How good is our visibility into Xi Jinping’s thinking and his decision-making process?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Oh, it’s always the hardest question for any intelligence service as well, you know, in — in an authoritarian system where power is consolidated so much in the hands of one man.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But you had such exquisite intelligence when it came to Russia and Vladimir Putin and his inner circle. Do we have that for Xi Jinping?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Oh, we work very hard to develop that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Working on it?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think we work very hard to develop the very best intelligence we can.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But I wonder if, when you’re talking about his thinking and his decision-making if he suffers from the same kind of yes-man culture that you said Vladimir Putin does, because Xi Jinping got rid of a lot of people in his government.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It’s a — Margaret, it’s a concern in any authoritarian system.

And I think what we’ve seen in Beijing is President Xi consolidating power at a very rapid pace over the course of the more than a decade that he’s been in power as well.

And as we’ve seen, where Putin’s hubris has now gotten Russia, and the horrors that he’s brought to the people of Ukraine in that kind of a system, a very closed decision-making system, where nobody challenges the authority of their insights of an authoritarian leader, you can make some huge blunders as well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said Xi Jinping told his military to be prepared to invade Taiwan by 2027. The intel community seems a little bit more ambiguous in its conclusions here.

Do you think it’s an outright invasion, or do you think China’s more likely to slowly strangle democracy in Taiwan?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: We need to take very seriously Xi’s ambitions with regard to ultimately controlling Taiwan.

That doesn’t, however, in our view, mean that a military conflict is inevitable. We do know, as has been made public, that President Xi has instructed the PLA, the Chinese military leadership, to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean that he’s decided to invade in 2027 or any other year as well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Right.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I think our judgment, at least, is that President Xi and his military leadership have doubts today about whether they could accomplish that invasion.

I think, as they’ve looked at Putin’s experience in Ukraine, that’s probably reinforced some of those doubts as well.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you when the intelligence community will have some insight into what Beijing was collecting with that spy balloon over the U.S.?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It was clearly an intelligence platform.

And I think we’ll be able to develop a pretty clear picture of exactly what its capabilities were.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But it will be a while, won’t it?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: It takes some time, but I think my understanding is that we’re managing to pull up quite a bit of evidence and material from that platform.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Do you think Xi Jinping knew that balloon was sent here?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: I don’t know.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You have an idea.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Well, I think the Chinese leadership obviously understood that they had launched this capability, that it was an intelligence platform.

Whether — when and what the Chinese leadership knew about the trajectory of this balloon, I honestly can’t say.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’ve said in the past, there’s the beginnings of a full-fledged defense partnership between Russia and Iran. Exactly how far does the alliance go?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: Well, it’s moving at a pretty fast clip in a very dangerous direction right now, in the sense that we know that the Iranians have already provided hundreds of armed drones to the Russians, which they’re using to inflict pain on Ukrainian civilians and Ukrainian civilian infrastructure.

We know that they’ve provided ammunition for artillery and for tanks as well. And what we also see are signs that Russia is proposing to help the Iranians on their missile program and also at least considering the possibility of providing fighter aircraft to Iran as well.

So it’s a quite disturbing set of developments.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Have Iran’s leaders made the decision to pursue a nuclear weapon?

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: To the best of our knowledge, we don’t believe that the supreme leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge that they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003.

But the other two legs of the stool, meaning enrichment programs, they’ve obviously advanced very far, you know, over the course of the last couple years.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Eighty-four percent purity, reportedly.

DIRECTOR WILLIAM BURNS: They’ve advanced very far, to the point where it would only be a matter of weeks before they could enrich to 90 percent, if they chose to cross that line.

And also, in terms of their missile systems, their ability to deliver a nuclear weapon once they developed it, has also been advancing as well. So, the answer to your question is, no, we don’t see evidence that they have made a decision to resume that weaponization program, but the other dimensions of this challenge, I think, are growing at a worrisome pace too.

[End Transcript]

Feb 17 2023

Ron DeSantis Wins the Coveted George Soros Endorsement – Describing DeSantis as “Shrewd, Ruthless and Ambitious”…


Posted originally on the CTH on February 16, 2023 | Sundance

Saying that DeSantis “is shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious”, George Soros delivers an endorsement of the Florida governor adding, “He is likely to be the Republican candidate.”

When billionaire leftist and creepy globalist George Soros is complimenting your personality attributes, you just might be doing the whole Republican presidential candidate thing wrong. Just sayin’.

WASHINGTON DC – In a wide-ranging speech, Soros ripped Trump’s presidency and complemented elements of DeSantis’s style.  “DeSantis is shrewd, ruthless, and ambitious,” said Soros, adding, “He is likely to be the Republican candidate.”

Trump, on the other hand, “has turned into a pitiful figure continually bemoaning his loss in 2020. Big Republican donors are abandoning him in droves,” he said.

Soros, an international financier and philanthropist, typically dumps millions of dollars into political races and committees. He heads a global liberal network of groups pushing climate change, financial reform, and changes to the criminal system.  He recently teamed with Charles Koch and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund to revive the Iran nuclear deal, according to reports. (read more)

This might be problematic.  In addition to DeSantis supporters needing to defend the unlimited Ukraine grift, and the value of eating bugs as a conservative lifestyle, now they have to spin an endorsement of ruthless ambition by Darth Soros.  Eh, sucks to be them.

George Soros never complimented Donald Trump.

Feb 16 2023

JFK, Nixon & Trump


Armstrong Economics Blog/Conspiracy Re-Posted Feb 16, 2023 by Martin Armstrong

Despite the hatred that many pour all over Trump, they really should stop and think for a moment, that they have been subjected to brainwashing. I have stated before that I was invited to a dinner in March of 2020 at Mara largo where I was actually impressed by then-President Trump. He said he wanted to bring the troops home from Afghanistan because he was sick and tired of having to write letters to the parents of solider’s killed over there. He bluntly stated that he had no idea why were there. They were fighting over borders for 1,000 years. “What difference will we make?”

There is a common thread between JFK, Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump – all three stood against the Deep State. The first was assassinated, the second was set up with CIA operatives getting “caught” breaking ton the Watergate building, and the third was probably removed from office by rigged elections and now desperately trying to accuse him of anything to prevent him from running against in 2024.

John Bolton was against withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. Bolton has been a hardnosed Neocon and then lied to the people not disclosing that Trump had a whole team to figure out how to exit Afghanistan that Biden dismissed and then claimed the same end result would have happened under Donald Trump. I really do not know how these people can look at themselves in the mirror.

JFK and Trump were both against war. Both were conveniently removed from office. In the case of Kennedy, they put forth Oswald and linked him to Russia, but then conveniently had him assassinated to prevent any trial when today everyone knows that the CIA was behind it. The recent tapes have revealed that Richard Nixon bluntly said to the head of the CIA, I know who killed John. The CIA used Watergate to discredit Nixon and drive him from office also because he wanted to end the Vietnam War and understood the CIA’s role.

Then Trump wanted to exist in Afghanistan. But Iran shot down an unmanned drone and Bolton wanted Trump to launch an attack on Iran. Trump refused to retaliate for an unmanned drone. The CIA asked Trump to extend the deadline for their release of the Kenndy assassination files until after the election. He agreed, and they knew Trump would lose the election. Biden then granted them the right to withhold the most critical files that expose the real source – the CIA.

The Deep Stated wanted to kill Americans and blame Cuba to justify an invasion. Kennedy rejected that proposal. This, he had to go. How dare he think he can tell the Deep State what to do!

All three presidents posed a serious threat to the Deep State. Forget the hatred of Trump that they have drummed into the heads of so many. Open your eyes. This is biggest that Trump and your hatred blinds you to what is really going on.