Posted originally on the CTH on March 31, 2023 | Sundance
For his opening monologue tonight, Fox News host Tucker Carlson highlights the increased visibility of the dual justice system as it has shown up in just the past 48 hours.
Using the Douglass Mackey conviction and the Donald Trump indictment, both from the state of New York, Carlson puts an exclamation point on the toxic nature of the two-tiered system of justice; accurately noting they are not trying to hide it, because the visibility of it is the point. The leftists in control of power positions want Americans to see their weaponization of that position in order to create fear and anxiety. The provocation is the point… WATCH:
“Necklaces in the streets”…. The leftists in America and the corporate media who support them, would dance gleefully at the visibility of victims in the streets who had gasoline filled tires around forced over their body then lit on fire (South African ANC “Necklaces”).
Donald Trump is now the first former US president to face criminal charges after a grand jury in New York has voted to indict him on charges related to hush money payments to an adult film star. President Warren G. Harding (1865-1923), 29th President of the United States (1921-1923), has gone down as perhaps the worst president in America’s history. Harding’s legacy was overshadowed by corruption. He was surrounded by cronies which took his administration down the rabbit hole of amazing corruption.
Harding preferred to play poker and womanizer rather than tackle the serious questions of his time. Herbert Hoover, who succeeded Harding, said: “He was not a man with either the experience or the intellectual quality that the position needed.”
Nevertheless, despite Harding’s Administration having been one of the most corrupt in modern history, he was still honored on stamps when he died. Yet they still gave him a presidential funeral. It is hard to imagine that either the press or Washington would do the same for Trump. We have crossed the Rubicon with this indictment of Trump. This desperate attempt to try to damage his credibility to prevent him from running for president is now degraded American justice to the lowest possible level of the corrupt Ukrainian government which routinely imprisons political adversaries as well as a South American banana republic.
In all honesty, NEVER in all my career have I ever seen so many crazy fundamentals all culminate at the same time with the turning point in the Economic Confidence Model as we head into the next turning point of April 10th from cycles in Russia, Ukraine, banking crisis, and throw in this indictment of Trump that is just insane. If they really think this would reduce Trump’s chances of running, they are seriously wrong. There is a growing number of people now who see the government as corrupt. This will only be seen as a desperate measure to protect Washington and the real swamp that always acts against the interests of the people. Next week was a Directional Change in many markets and we have panic cycles in May. It looks like this is s Smörgåsbord of political chaos and uncertainty.
Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, said they contacted Trump’s attorney to “coordinate his surrender” on an indictment that “remains under seal.” Trump will self-surrender and Bragg will probably seek pre-trial confinement without bail claiming a flight risk. Zelensky tried that with his former President. This is going to be a major game-changer in politics. Bragg has crossed the Rubicon, and that means Biden and his entire family could be indicted even when sitting as president. The laptop of Hunter and the bank records are grounds for impeachment and even removal from office in the case of Biden. Bragg has crossed the Rubicon and this indeed can be a political civil war.
Article II, Section 4:
The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
A number of people have asked why does Socrates say that the United States will lose this war. One states: “The standalone American firepower without UK/ France, etc, itself is tremendous. How does Socrates say that America will lose the war? It may lose financially. The Chinese have the worst track record in any war.” Perhaps I should just say, cyclically – it’s just TIME.
The Neocons are in charge of this war. They are trying conventionally for their constant goal of REGIME CHANGE. They are doing what Khrushchev had threatened Communism would win and we will bury you. This is their mantra and they think forcing a Republican form of government upon the rest of the world will bring peace. Those were the dreams of Hitler and Napoleon as well. Communism collapsed because it is simply unsustainable. Nevertheless, the Neocons have never backed down. They objected to Reagan even meeting with Gorbehev saying you can never trust Russians.
The Neocons have pushed endless wars for their hatred. They have NEVER won a single war. The US has lost EVERY war post WWII. Korea was a standoff, and Vietnam, along with Afghanistan were all losses and for what? They remove Saddam Husein and unleashed ISIS where Saddam kept the religious fanatics in check. Their theory was to remove all dictators in the Middle East and that would bring peace to Israel. They supplied arms and that led to the overthrow of Quadaffi in Libya and they were trying the same in Syria.
Now Nukes are no longer a deterrent when you are playing with nuclear powers. They have used Ukraine as cannon fodder to weaken Russia and they hope they can then invade under any excuse and conquer Russia, which has been their end goal for decades. They bank on that they can defeat Russia and it will never go nuclear. I am flabbergasted by some of these Neocons and their sheet hatred of the Russian people like Adam Kinzinger who proclaims we can defeat Russia in 3 days. I suppose we could then turn and defeat China perhaps in 5 days. These people play with the lives of innocent civilians and send other people’s sons and daughters to war to be sacrificed for their personal hatred. The claim Putin is evil but never look in the mirror to see the hatred in their own eyes.
Robert McNamara (1916 – 2009) was a leading Neocon that pushed the country into the Vietnam war. He was famous for saying: “I learned early on never answer the question that is asked of you. Answer the question that you wish had been asked of you. And quite frankly, I follow that rule. It’s a very good rule.”
Before he died, he finally admitted that they were wrong particularly in their assessment of Russia as a threat. The perception that Russia is a threat is still dominating the agenda today. The propaganda that Putin is a KGB guy who wants to re-establish the Soviet Empire is absurd. In the 22 years that he has been in power, he has neither tried to re-establish communism nor has he sought to retake the old Soviet states like Poland, the Czech Republic, or even Ukraine. The same claims today about Russia are the very same ones that justified Vietnam.
Apparently, McNamara died with the guilt of sacrificing 58,000 Americans on the Neocon altar of war for at the end of his life, he admitted they were wrong. They are NOT Americans. They DO NOT serve American interests. They only serve their own International interests and are dragging countries into endless wars and carnage.
While these neocons only focus on war, they are destroying the United States economy. They are pouring money into this undeclared war on Russia when in fact the Constitution states that ONLY Congress can declare war – not the President. The United States will lose the war, and we are losing our title of Financial Capital of the World. Just as WWI & WWII took that title away from Britain, WWII will take it from the United States and hand it squarely into the arms of China.
Than the warmongering Neocons for destroying your future all because of their personal hatred.
Posted originally on the CTH on March 28, 2023 | Sundance
If there is one additional person that I would be certain is under full spectrum surveillance, it’s dissident comrade Matt Taibbi. With the background of Twitter and the DHS national security interests still part of the social media construct, you can be sure all elements of the administrative state have a focus on his internal search requests.
One of the reasons why I give Matt Taibbi a lot of credit, is because I am well aware how the shadow dwellers, what DC would call ‘stakeholders’, are watching him; yet he persists on his reviews and investigations.
Secondly, given his general Michael Hastings aligned disposition, Taibbi would be the first person to dismiss his own risk status. Something akin to, ‘nah, they wouldn’t‘, but oh yes, they would.
On the day that Taibbi was giving testimony to the House committee reviewing the ‘Weaponization of Federal Government’, an IRS agent just happened to coincidentally visit his home. Committee Chairman Jim Jordan now wants to know if the two coincidences are connected.
(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan sent a letter Monday to IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen seeking an explanation for why journalist Matt Taibbi received an unannounced home visit from an IRS agent. We’ve seen the letter, and both the circumstances and timing of the IRS focus on this journalist raise serious questions.
Mr. Taibbi has provoked the ire of Democrats and other journalists for his role in researching Twitter records and then releasing internal communications from the social-media giant that expose its censorship and its contacts with government officials. This effort has already inspired government bullying, with Chair Lina Khan’s Federal Trade Commission targeting new Twitter owner Elon Musk and demanding the company “identify all journalists” granted access to the Twitter files.
Now Mr. Taibbi has told Mr. Jordan’s committee that an IRS agent showed up at his personal residence in New Jersey on March 9. That happens to be the same day Mr. Taibbi testified before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government about what he learned about Twitter. The taxman left a note instructing Mr. Taibbi to call the IRS four days later. Mr. Taibbi was told in a call with the agent that both his 2018 and 2021 tax returns had been rejected owing to concerns over identity theft. (read more)
Posted originally on the CTH on March 28, 2023 | Sundance
According to a leak provided to NBC News, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is not anticipated to poll the grand jury for a potential indictment of President Trump this week.
A delay in the timing would seem likely given the nature of the political winds that generally coordinate to manipulate public opinion. An indictment timed in support of, and in concert with a Ron DeSantis campaign launch, would be more appropriate given the nature of the intentions.
(Via NBC) – The New York grand jury considering possible criminal charges against former President Donald Trump related to hush money payments to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election is not expected to be asked to vote on an indictment this week, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The grand jury is not expected to meet on Wednesday, the sources said, the next day the panel was regularly scheduled to convene. (more)
Everything in the corrupt world of manipulative politics is connected to itself by the interests of those conducting the manipulation. An ideological alignment of individual people, institutions and organizations working in concert toward a common goal is not a conspiracy.
Organized coordination between individuals, groups and institutions is generally labeled as a conspiracy in order to avoid the reality of the connective tissue. However, that dismissive labeling also allows the downstream beneficiaries of the outcome to dispatch, avoid, or more commonly pretend to ignore the collective goal. But organized coordination is not needed in order to pursue a common goal; the only thing needed is an understanding of the objective.
Once the objective of the common interest is identified, all benefactory components operate individually. What becomes visible is the similarity of the actions.
This is where we see patterns and common actions taken toward a common goal. This reality is the context to understand how the political dynamic is constructed in opposition to Donald Trump, and more specifically how the America First policy platform of Presidential candidate Donald Trump is viewed as a common threat.
Individuals, institutions, government ‘stakeholders’, and generally all status-quo interests stand in opposition, as reflected in the historic Niccolò Machiavelli quote:
“It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage than a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institution and merely lukewarm defenders in those who gain by the new ones.”
When the new system is constructed to the benefit of the many yet disrupts the status of the few (the proverbial elite), who benefit from retention of the old, those in the at-risk minority must pretend not to know things. Additionally, through passive aggressive undermining that same elite group frame their opposition to provide themselves plausible deniability.
It is in this political mix of eclectic interests where a person needs an intellectual filtration system, tuned to the granular nuances, in order to make sense of the landscape and see the big picture.
Do not disregard the difficulty of this process, for it takes a keen – almost exhaustive – state of awareness to maintain vigilance against the conniving schemes that flow as an outcome of the process.
However, once you see the patterns, you are essentially tuning in to see the strings on the marionettes.
Once you see the strings on the marionettes, you can never return to that moment in the performance when you did not see them.
In the 1980’s and 90’s, there was a fad of optical illusion images known as autostereograms. For many people when you stare at the autostereogram image, a hidden 3D scene emerges. It often takes a few seconds or even minutes to see the 3D aspect to the image; however, once your eyes adapt to the image it becomes easier to spot. This is a metaphor for modern politics. Often it is difficult to spot the 3D aspect to what we see, but over time the picture gains clarity.
Consider…. Much has been written about Mitch McConnell spending $10 million on the Alaska Republican Senate race when the race was between two Republicans. Yet Mitch McConnell refused to support Republican Senate Candidate Blake Masters in Arizona? However, less has been written critically about the Republican Governors Association, likely because it’s more challenging to accept the corporate Machievellian approaches extend far beyond DC, into our own backyards.
The Republican Governor’s Association (RGA) gave $21 million to the Super PAC “Friends of Ron DeSantis” in 2022 {Source}; however, in every single poll DeSantis was leading by double digits, and even the most die-hard leftists admitted months before the election that Florida was a lost cause; DeSantis was going to win.
So, why did the RGA transmit $21 million to the coffers of DeSantis, while the Arizona Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake, struggled with major donor funding? Arizona’s current Republican Governor Doug Ducey is head of the RGA.
Accepting these passive aggressive political realities only leads the intellectually honest observer in one researched direction. The McConnell Senate Leadership Fund and the Republican Governors Association (RGA) all receive funds from the same Wall Street and multinational corporate mechanisms.
It is easy to see the agenda of McConnell because he’s been using the same ‘Citizens United’ playbook for over a decade, and the media draws attention to it. McConnell is the enmity and preservation group that Machiavelli described. However, it’s much more difficult to see the RGA as the ‘lukewarm defender’ group in our backyard.
The corporate alignment of the RGA is also more difficult to accept; but that is, as my grandpa would say, “the reality of the thing.”
I am going to begin outlining the 2023 and 2024 political club landscape soon. Much of the continued exposing will be on a granular, cited and difficult to accept level. Yet, it becomes necessary because we need to see the strings on these GOPe marionettes if we are going to avoid the “illusion of choice” that each component element, RNC, GOP, RGA, RCCC, is constructing for us.
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Blackstone Inc (BX.N) Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman [pictured left], who has been one of Wall Street’s biggest donors to Donald Trump’s election campaigns, said on Wednesday he will not back the former president in 2024.
Trump announced he would run in the 2024 U.S. presidential election on Tuesday, launching an early bid to become the Republican nominee in an effort to pre-empt potential rivals.
Schwarzman said it was time for new party leadership and that he would back a different Republican in the presidential contest. “It is time for the Republican Party to turn to a new generation of leaders and I intend to support one of them in the presidential primaries,” he said in a statement, which was first reported by Axios.
Schwarzman, 75, is a prominent Republican donor. He spent $35.5 million to support Republicans ahead of last week’s midterm election. Republicans are still one seat short of capturing control of the U.S. House of Representatives and have failed to take over the U.S. Senate. (more)
NEW YORK – Rupert Murdoch has reportedly warned Donald Trump his media empire will not back any attempt to return to the White House, as former supporters turn to the youthful Florida governor Ron DeSantis.
After the Republican party’s disappointing performance in the US midterm elections, in particular the poor showing by candidates backed by Trump, Murdoch’s rightwing media empire appears to be seeking a clean break from the former president’s damaged reputation and perceived waning political power.
[…] “We have been clear with Donald. There have been conversations between them during which Rupert made it clear to Donald that we cannot back another run for the White House.”
[…] Lachlan Murdoch, the heir apparent and eldest son, who co-chairs News Corp and runs the parent company of Fox News, has reportedly told DeSantis that the group would back him if he ran in the next election. “Lachlan has been keen on Ron for some time,” said the i’s source. “He’s viewed within the organization as a sanitized version of Donald.” (read more)
Once you see the strings on the corporate marionettes, it’s impossible to return to that moment in the political performance when you did not see them.
You’ve taught through many historic examples that politicians drag us to war because they need an external enemy to hide their failures. Wag the dog. Have you considered this time around the U.S. will enter ww3 to cover up the reveal of the covid vaccine blunder? Yes, war will still hide the debt crisis of western nations, but maybe the vaccine reveal kicks this thing off. The barrage of sudden deaths is starting to overwhelm the bullshit. Our leaders, especially Biden, are incredibly compromised by pushing the shit vaccine.
JT
ANSWER: The COVID lockdowns were created as an exercise in controlling the sheep. This war was set in motion for some time. John McCain ran to Ukraine and he was all exited in December 2016 as soon as Trump was elected. He assumed he could manipulate Trump and promised unlimited funding to wage war against Russia.
I know for a fact, that this war was set in motion in 2014 but it was in the planning stages well before even that. In 2015, McCain was meeting opening with the Nazi movement. COVID was clearly just a rehearsal in their exercise of the abuse of power.
For the life of me, there is absolutely no logic to any of this attack on Russia except the desire to conquer and destroy it as any sort of a superpower or independent nation-state. Every President always sought peace until Biden who seems to be reading the cur cards for Armageddon. Even Henry Kissinger said every president has invited him to the White House EXCEPT Biden.
Even if we assume that the sanctions worked and forced Putin to withdraw from protecting the Russians in the Donbas whom the West had all agreed were entitled to their human rights and self-determination with the fake Minsk Agreement, what would happen in the political crisis in Russia? We confiscated all Japanese assets, put energy embargoes on them, and threaten to prevent them from dealing with any other country for energy. Roosevelt did everything he could to get Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. Biden has done the same to Russia.
The risk of overthrowing Putin would lead to a potential civil war and the further breakup of Russia with more nukes than the West. Of the 14,500 nuclear weapons on the planet, Russia and the United States own the lion’s share, with a combined total of approximately 13,350 nukes. The remaining 1,150 weapons are held by seven countries. The USA has 6,500 nukes and Russia has 6,800. Destabilizing Russia is just insane. Russia will wipe out Europe in the blink of an eye if pushed and they now know that this Ukraine bullshit is really a war of the USA and NATO against Russia and we are the aggressors.
I can say that US troops have been told that we will be at war with China by next year.
All my sources are saying that the Biden Administration is DOMINATED by inexperienced climate zealots who are demanding we have no time to wait and we MUST end fossil fuels NOW before there are any alternatives in place. They are the ones pushing to destroy Russia which is embraced by the Neocons, all because the majority of their GDP is all fossil fuels.
The sanctions now are imposed by the European Union and will ban imports of refined Russian fuels on February 5th, 2023, adding to its embargo on seaborne Russian crude oil that began in December. The EU is putting its entire future and the lives of ALL its population at risk for the Donbas which has been occupied by Russians for centuries and two former Russian leaders came from that region. It was Khrushchev who drew the border within the USSR purely for administrative purposes. That region was never occupied by Ukrainians.
There is no difference if Mexico had demanded Texas and everyone who lives there must surrender their language and their religion to fit the norm of being Mexican. Then Texans have no right to vote on their future. The entire Minsk Agreement has been a joke. It was a deliberate ploy to buy time for war. This has now confirmed to both China and Russia that the United States and Europe cannot be trusted. Treaties mean absolutely nothing! this stupid ploy has opened the door for World War III because there is no point negotiating with the EU, Germany, France, or the United States when they will not HONOR their agreements. That means there can be no resolution!
That leaves only All Out War to the Death
But hey! There will be new business opportunities as well. Just think of the guided tours to show how foolish these mortals have been. There will be plenty of nuked cities to explore. The good news, we will exterminate all the climate change zealots who insisted on destroying Russia. Yet it may be up to us to prevent the politicians from crawling out of their safe underground bunkers to the new light of CO2 free world after they killed off all those nasty trees and plants that need CO2 to survive. They say the one bug that will survive a nuclear attack is cockroaches. I guess that’s why we are supposed to eat bugs now.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 26, 2023 | Sundance
President Trump transmitted a message to congress, warning them not to cut Social Security and Medicare {Direct Rumble Link}. Many politicians and pundits will look at Trump’s position from the perspective of it being good to campaign for older voters, but that’s not the core of his reasoning.
In 2016 CTH was the first place to evaluate the totality of President Trump’s economic policies; specifically, as those policies related to the entitlement programs around Social Security and Medicare. We outlined the approach Trump was putting forth and the way he was approaching the issue. In the years that followed, he was right. He was creating a U.S. economy that could sustain all of the elements the traditional political class were calling “unsustainable.”
Before getting to the details, here’s his video message and policy as delivered yesterday. WATCH:
Fortunately, we do not have to guess if President Trump is correct. We have his actual economic policy results to look at and see how the expansion of the economy was creating the type of growth that would sustain Social Security and Medicare. This was/is MAGAnomics at work.
♦ On Social Security – Unlike many other 2016 Republican candidates, Donald Trump did NOT call for rapid or wholesale changes to the current Social Security program; and there’s a very good reason why he was the only candidate who did not propose wholesale changes.
With the single caveat of “high income retirees” (over $250k annually), which previously Trump said he was open to negotiating on, President Trump does not consider these programs as “entitlements”. The American people pay into them, and the federal government has an obligation to fulfill the promises made upon collection.
To fully understand how Donald Trump views the solvency of Social Security, you must again understand his economic model and how it outlines growth.
The issue with Social Security, as viewed by Trump, is more of an issue with receipts and expenditures. If the aggregate U.S. economy is growing by a factor larger than the distribution needed to fulfill its entitlement obligations, then no wholesale change on expenditure is needed. The focus needs to be on continued and successful economic growth.
What you will find in all of Donald Trump’s positions, is a paradigm shift he necessarily understood must take place in order to accomplish the long-term goals for the U.S. citizen as it relates to “entitlements” or “structural benefits”.
All other candidates and politicians begin their policy proposals with a fundamentally divergent perception of the U.S. economy.
The customary political economy theory, carried by most politicians, positions them with an outlook of the U.S. economy based on “services”; a service-based economic model.
While this economic path has been created by decades old U.S. policy and is ultimately the only historical economic path now taught in school, President Trump initiated his economy policy with the intention to change the dynamic entirely, and that’s exactly what he did.
Because so many shifts -policy nudges- have taken place in the past several decades, few academics and even fewer MSM observers, were able to understand how to get off this path and chart a better course.
Donald Trump proposed less dependence on foreign companies for cheap goods, (the cornerstone of a service economy) and a return to a more balanced U.S. larger economic model where the manufacturing and production base can be re-established and competitive based on American entrepreneurship and innovation. This is the essence of MAGAnomics.
The key words in the prior statement are “dependence” and “balanced”. When a nation has an industrial manufacturing balance within the GDP there is far less dependence on the economic activity in global markets. In essence the U.S. can sustain itself, absorb global economic fluctuations and expand itself or contract itself depending on the free market.
When there is no balance, there is no longer a free market. The free market is sacrificed in favor of dependency, whether it’s foreign oil or foreign manufacturing, the dependency outcome is essentially the same. Without balance there is an inherent loss of economic independence, and a consequential increase in economic risk.
No other economy in the world innovates like the U.S.A. President Donald Trump saw/sees this as a key advantage across all industry – including manufacturing and technology.
The benefit of cheap overseas labor, which is considered a global market disadvantage for the U.S., is offset by utilizing innovation and energy independence. This was the core of the economic program that created so much immediate GDP growth in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
2017: […] “This policy will be successful in moving the U.S. economy away from low-growth secular stagnation towards significantly more buoyant performance. We would not be taken by surprise by a doubling of the growth rate of real GDP in the U.S. over the next two years, nor by a further significant move up of equity valuations and a material further appreciation of the dollar.” ~ David Folkerts-Landau, Chief Economist, Deutsche Bank
The third highest variable cost of goods beyond raw materials first, labor second, is energy. If the U.S. energy sector was unleashed -and fully developed- the manufacturing price of any given product would allow for global trade competition even with higher U.S. wage prices. This is why President Trump traveled to Saudi Arabia as his first foreign trip, followed closely by a trip to Asia. He was putting the basics of his U.S. economic policy into place.
Additionally, the U.S. has a key strategic advantage with raw manufacturing materials such as: iron ore, coal, steel, precious metals and vast mineral assets which are needed in most new modern era manufacturing. President Trump proposed we stopped selling these valuable national assets to countries we compete against – they belong to the American people; they should be used for the benefit of American citizens. Period. This was the central point of the Steel and Aluminum tariffs.
EXAMPLE: Prior to President Trump, China was buying and recycling our heavy (steel) and light (aluminum) metal products (for pennies on the original manufacturing dollar) and then using those metals to reproduce manufactured goods for sale back to the U.S.
As President, Donald Trump stopped that practice immediately, triggering a policy expectation that we do the manufacturing ourselves with the utilization of our own resources. Then he leveraged any sales of these raw materials in our international trade agreements.
When you combine FULL resource development (in a modern era) with the removal of over-burdensome regulatory and compliance systems, necessarily filled with enormous bureaucratic costs, Donald Trump began lowering the cost of production and the U.S. became globally competitive. In essence, Trump changed the economic paradigm, and we no longer were a dependent nation relying on a service driven economic model.
The cornerstone to the success of this economic turnaround was the keen capability of the U.S. worker to innovate on their own platforms. Americans, more than any country in the world, just know how to get things accomplished. Independence and self-sufficiency are part of the DNA of the larger American workforce.
In addition, as we saw in 2018 and 2019, an unquantifiable benefit came from investment, where the smart money play -to get increased return on investment- became putting capital INTO the U.S. economy, instead of purchasing foreign stocks.
With all of the above opportunities in mind, this is how President Trump put us on a pathway to rebuilding our national infrastructure.
The demand for labor increased, and as a consequence so too did the U.S. wage rate which was stagnant (or non-existent) for the past three decades.
As the wage rate increased, and as the economy expanded, the governmental dependency model was reshaped and simultaneously receipts to the U.S. treasury improved.
More money into the U.S Treasury and less dependence on welfare/social service programs have a combined exponential impact. You gain a dollar and have no need to spend a dollar – the saved sum is doubled. That was how the SSI and safety net programs were positioned under President Trump. Again, this is MAGAnomics.
When you elevate your America First economic thinking you begin to see that all of the “entitlements” or expenditures become more affordable with an economy that is fully functional.
As the GDP of the U.S. expands, so does our ability to meet the growing need of the retiring U.S. worker. We stop thinking about how to best divide a limited economic pie and begin thinking about how many more economic pies we can create. Simply put, we begin to….
…. Make America Great Again!
We know it works, because we have the results to cite.
It was the Fourth Quarter of 2019…..
Right before the pandemic would hit a few months later…. Despite two years of doomsayer predictions from Wall Street’s professional punditry, all of them saying Trump’s 2017 steel and aluminum tariffs on China, Canada and the EU would create massive inflation, it just wasn’t happening!
Overall year-over-year inflation was hovering around 1.7 percent [Table-A BLS]; yup, that was our inflation rate. The rate in the latter half of 2019 was firmed up with less month-over-month fluctuation, and the rate basically remained consistent. [See Below] The U.S. economy was on a smooth glide path, strong, stable and Main Street was growing with MAGAnomics at work.
A couple of important points. First, unleashing the energy sector to drive down overall costs to consumers and industry outputs was a key part of President Trump’s America-First MAGAnomic initiative. Lower energy prices help the worker economy, middle class and average American more than any other sector.
Which brings us to the second important point. Notice how food prices had very low year-over-year inflation, 0.5 percent. That is a combination of two key issues: low energy costs, and the fracturing of Big Ag hold on the farm production and the export dynamic:
(BLS) […] The index for food at home declined for the third month in a row, falling 0.2 percent. The index for meats, poultry, fish, and eggs decreased 0.7 percent in August as the index for eggs fell 2.6 percent. The index for fruits and vegetables, which rose in July, fell 0.5 percent in August; the index for fresh fruits declined 1.4 percent, but the index for fresh vegetables rose 0.4 percent. The index for cereals and bakery products fell 0.3 percent in August after rising 0.3 percent in July. (link)
For the previous twenty years food prices had been increasingly controlled by Big Ag, and not by normal supply and demand. The commodity market became a ‘controlled market’. U.S. food outputs (farm production) was controlled and exported to keep the U.S. consumer paying optimal prices.
President Trump’s trade reset was disrupting this process. As farm products were less exported the cost of the food in our supermarket became reconnected to a ‘more normal’ supply and demand cycle. Food prices dropped and our pantry costs were lowered.
The Commerce Dept. then announced that retail sales climbed by 0.4 percent in August 2019, twice as high as the 0.2 percent analysts had predicted. The result highlighted retail sales strength of more than 4 percent year-over-year. These excellent results came on the heels of blowout data in July, when households boosted purchases of cars and clothing.
The better-than-expected number stemmed largely from a 1.8 percent jump in spending vehicles. Online sales, meanwhile, also continued to climb, rising 1.6 percent. That’s similar to July 2019, when Amazon held its two-day, blowout Prime Day sale. (link)
Despite the efforts to remove and impeach President Trump, it did not look like middle-class America was overly concerned about the noise coming from the pundits. Likely that’s because blue-collar wages were higher, Main Street inflation was lower, and overall consumer confidence was strong. Yes, MAGAnomics was working.
Additionally, remember all those MSM hours and newspaper column inches where the professional financial pundits were claiming Trump’s tariffs were going to cause massive increases in prices of consumer goods?
Well, exactly the opposite happened [BLS report] Import prices were continuing to drop:
This was a really interesting dynamic that no-one in the professional punditry would dare explain.
Donald Trump’s tariffs were targeted to specific sectors of imported products. [Steel, Aluminum, and a host of smaller sectors etc.] However, when the EU and China respond by devaluing their currency, that approach hit all products imported, not just the tariff goods.
Because the EU and China were driving up the value of the dollar, everything we were importing became cheaper. Not just imports from Europe and China, but actually imports from everywhere. All imports were entering the U.S. at substantially lower prices.
This meant when we imported products, we were also importing deflation.
This price result is exactly the opposite of what the economic experts and Wall Street pundits predicted back in 2017 and 2018 when they were pushing the rapid price increase narrative.
Because all the export dependent economies were reacting with such urgency to retain their access to the U.S. market, aggregate import prices were actually lower than they were when the Trump tariffs began:
[…] Prices for imports from China edged down 0.1 percent in August following decreases of 0.2 percent in both July and June. Import prices from China have not advanced on a monthly basis since ticking up 0.1 percent in May 2018. The price index for imports from China fell 1.6 percent for the year ended in August.
[…] Import prices from the European Union fell 0.2 percent in August and 0.3 percent over the past 12 months.
So yes, we know President Trump can save Social Security and Medicare by expanding the economy with his America First economic policy. We do not need to guess if it is possible or listen to pundits theorize about his approach being some random ‘catch phrase’ disconnected from reality. Yes folks, we have the receipts.
This was MAGAnomics at work, and this is entirely what created the middle-class MAGA coalition. No other Republican candidate has this economic policy in their outlook because all other candidates are purchased by the Wall Street multinationals.
America First MAGAnomics is unique to President Trump because he is the only one independent enough to implement them.
That’s just the reality of the situation. They hate him for it…
Author’s note as said in 2016: “If I absolutely did not believe this economic model was doable, I would never expand the concept and place advocacy upon it. I am an absolute believer that we can, as a nation, reignite a solid manufacturing base and generate an expanding middle class.” Yes, I bet on Trump, and he was right.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 24, 2023 | Sundance
This is not yet in the House Judiciary Committee website [SEE HERE]; however, according to a press release [SEE HERE], House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has made appointments to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government [pdf here].
Including the subcommittee Chairman, Jim Jordan (which is a surprise), it looks like the committee will contain a total of 12 republican representatives.
Darrell ISSA (CA), Thomas Massie (KY), Chris Stewart (UT), Elise Stefanik (NY), Mike Johnson (LA), Chip Roy (TX), Kelly Armstrong (ND), Greg Steube (FL), Dan Bishop (NC), Kat Cammack (FL) and Harriet Hageman (WY). Overall, a pretty solid group with good legal outlooks.
I am surprised that McCarthy is making Judiciary Chairman, Jim Jordan, also the subcommittee chairman. However, against the backdrop of McCarthy worrying the subcommittee is going to face massive scrutiny, having Jordan at the helm of it does make sense. Also, with the Chair of the Judiciary able to trigger subpoenas, having Jordan as Chair of the subcommittee makes the subpoena aspect more expeditious. Oh, and hi guys.
Dan Bishop and Mike Johnson are both strong judicial and courtroom litigators. Chris Stewart a little less so, more formal, but on contracts etc, still good. Darryl Issa knows the narrow curves of the swamp from his former role as House Oversight Committee Chair, so that could be helpful. Thomas Massie, a contrarian constitutionalist, and Elise Stefanik a solid strategist. Chip Roy, Kelly Armstrong and Greg Steube are good street fighters. Harriet Hageman and Kat Cammack, newer but strong in their own right. This is a pretty solid team.
There is also going to be a Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic response.
Washington, D.C. – Today, Speaker McCarthy announced the members who will serve on the Select Subcommittees on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and the Coronavirus Pandemic.
“The government has a responsibility to serve the American people, not go after them. Unfortunately, throughout Democrats’ one-party rule in Washington we saw a dangerous pattern of the government being used to target political opponents while they neglected their most basic responsibilities. The 118th Congress marks a new beginning for this institution. Republicans’ governing agenda will be based on transparency, accountability, and solutions. The Members selected to serve on these subcommittees will work to stop the weaponization of the federal government and will also finally get answers to the Covid origins and the federal government’s gain of function research that contributed to the pandemic,” said Speaker McCarthy. (Link)
I think we have outlined the challenges and best hopes we have for the assembly on federal weaponization.
It’s good to see the principals have made the decisions on seat organization, now they need to prepare to fight like hell.
The defensive apparatus of the DC political system will likely do everything in their power, individually and with collective assistance, to ensure this committee fails. The stakes are quite high. As readers here can well attest, DC politics is an institutional system of purposefully created compartmentalized silos.
The compartmented information silos permit plausible deniability, and this collection of weaponized institutions contains career bureaucrats who view their opposition as the American people.
Example – The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and every Republican member therein, including SSCI Vice-Chairman Marco Rubio, will make it their willfully blind priority to obstruct any investigation that touches on how the intelligence apparatus of the United States Government is weaponized against the people.
The SSCI is the institution that facilitated the creation of the National Security State. Any effort to investigate the outcome of that system will make the House investigators adversarial to their colleagues in the Senate.
Additionally, every executive branch intelligence institution, including the DOJ-NSD, FBI, DHS, ODNI, CIA, DoD, DIA, NSC and every sub-agency within their authorities, will do anything and everything to block a subcommittee looking into their domestic activity.
A lot of bad decisions have led to really bad things. DC does not want those bad things discussed.
Every national security justification that exists, and some that have yet to be created by the DOJ National Security Division solely for the expressed interest of blocking this subcommittee, will be deployed.
Every member of the subcommittee and their staff will be under constant surveillance. Phones will be tapped and tracked, electronic devices monitored, cars and offices bugged, physical surveillance deployed, and top tier officials at every subsidiary agency of the U.S. government will assign investigative groups and contract agents to monitor the activity of the subcommittee and provide weekly updates on their findings.
The White House, together with the National Security Council, will also backchannel to and from these agencies doing the surveillance.
The intelligence apparatus media will be deployed, and daily leaks from the various agencies to their contact lists in the New York Times, Politico, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC will be in constant two-way communication for narrative assembly and counterpropaganda efforts.
This is the context of opposition to begin thinking about before anything moves forward.
Additionally, the national security state will demand the House investigation take place on their terms. They will demand secrecy, national security classification and require House Subcommittee members to adhere to the Intelligence Community terms for review and discussion of anything.
Each agency will not voluntarily assist or participate in the investigation of any of their conduct. Every official within every agency will do the same; and they will require legal representation that will be provided to them by Lawfare, political operatives skilled in the use of “National Security” and “classified information”, as a justification for non-compliance and non-assistance. A protracted legal battle should be predicted.
Lastly, anticipate Special Counsel Jack Smith using his position to block the House Subcommittee from receiving evidence. The House should anticipate that congressional representatives are already under investigation as a result of the authorities granted to Jack Smith by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco {Go Deep}. The White House and all of the executive branch agencies will use the existing Special Counsel to block House investigation. Heck, that looks to be the primary purpose of the appointment.
As a result, expect the House Subcommittee members to be under constant threat from the DOJ, via the Special Counsel, specifically from DAG Lisa Monaco, with statements that House Subcommittee investigative efforts are “obstructing” a special counsel investigation. The aforementioned agencies and the Senate Intel Committee will work with the DOJ to use the Jack Smith special counsel as a shield to block participation with the House Subcommittee.
With all of that in mind, what is the successful path forward?
♦ First, everything has to be done in sunlight and maximum transparency, even the planning and organization of the committee construct, purpose and goals.
The committee can have no shadow operations, unknown guiding hands or secrets that can be discovered and then weaponized against the intent. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
I know DC has little concept of working like this, but you can train yourself to do it. You have nothing to hide; however, those who are being investigated have everything to hide. Do not provide them ammunition by retaining secrets that can be weaponized against you.
As Andrew Breitbart said, be open with your secrets.
Your second cousin Alice will be a source for the New York Times to write about the Thanksgiving dinner three years ago when she heard the “N” word or a tasteless joke about something outrageous. Every member of the committee and staff need to prepare for a dossier completed by the FBI about them and distributed to the government allies in mainstream media.
Security clearances will be leveraged and threatened as a tool of the national security state to stop the secrecy envelope from being opened publicly. This will happen; so just anticipate it. When the security clearance of [insert_name_here] is threatened, go to the microphones and tell the public who is doing the threatening, and why.
♦GOALS – The goal needs to be crystal clear to anyone and everyone who would contemplate assisting. Yes, there needs to be a legislative intent in order to legally formulate the committee; that’s a no-brainer. However, the ultimate goal should NOT BE accountability on those who may have perpetrated or supported weaponized activity against American Citizens. The ultimate goal SHOULD BE for maximum public information, transparency and sunlight about the weaponization as it is discovered.
Let us assume the goal is accepted. Before moving forward, the subcommittee needs a professional communication strategy in place before the rules, terms and member outlines are structured or made public.
A thoughtful communication strategy so that information can come from the committee to the public without the filtration of a corrupt system that will bend and skew the findings as a weapon against the committee itself.
♦COMMUNICATION PORTAL – Hire a communication staff, and set up a website for the sharing of information directly from the committee to the public. The daily activity of the committee should be shared publicly in granular detail. The witness names as scheduled, documents requested, everything that involves the committee activity should be known to the general public. This system should be updated at least DAILY, or as information is compiled.
This communication network should also contain a separate staff assigned to solicit, accept and distribute information provided by the public to the subcommittee. Yes, you read that correctly, the subcommittee website should be able to accept information provided by the public as it relates to the ongoing committee work.
Crowdsource We The People as research leverage against the much more effective Lawfare operations you will face in opposition. This means a portal where the ‘open source’ information can be delivered by researchers, many of those on the spectrum, who hold deep knowledge of the information and system processes in the silos.
In the past several years, thousands of documents have been retrieved by FOIA and public records investigations. Hundreds of experts in the granular details of the DHS, FBI, DoD and DOJ-NSD systems have knowledge that can benefit the committee; you just need a way for them to transmit the evidence/information to you.
That ‘open source’ evidence should flow into the committee portal with address sourcing that allows the committee staff to review and locate it independently. This avoids the predictable counterargument, from the national security state, that Russia (or foreign actors) is feeding disinformation into the committee.
The documentary evidence will mostly be “open source,” extracted and then cross-referenced from within the multiple silo system the national security state uses as a shield. And the origination of the documents will be traceable and easy to duplicate, thereby providing secure provenance. The internal staff manager for this inbound portal is critical (think former HPSCI Nunes staff).
Documents found by the committee should then be uploaded to the same communication system (website), permitting the public -especially the autists- to review and then cross reference the committee material; ultimately channeling information back into the committee if important dots connect or puzzle pieces clarify. Think of this as a massive counter Lawfare operation with hundreds of Deep State subject matter experts assisting the committee.
Witness transcripts should be uploaded within 36 hours of testimony. Then let the public do the research, background review and dot connecting from the testimony. If you build it, they will come.
♦ Next, GO PUBLIC with everything. Do not use the terms and conditions of the secretive administrative state. Tell the public what you are finding as you are finding it. You can share information without violating “sources and methods.” Schedule a media appearance at the 8pm hour twice weekly with a high visibility broadcast media network to provide updates and answer questions.
These scheduled appearances should be in addition to random media press releases and press comments as pertinent information to the subcommittee arrives. What this means is that you do not wait to produce a 2,000-page final report before releasing the information. The final report should be an update and summary of all previous findings that have been released to the public along the way.
♦ At the outset, put no rules on media contacts with any subcommittee staff or member. Counter the darkness that fuels the intelligence community agenda with maximum sunlight and transparency. Use truth as a weapon against disinformation. That means no nondisclosure agreements at any part of the process.
Yes, this is radical change in approach, but this is also a radical enemy you are facing. Playing the secrecy game works in their favor, not yours. Transparency is your tool, not theirs – use it.
Use truth as a weapon.
Every member of the committee can say anything they want about any of the material or witness testimony they hear during the course of the investigation. Public hearing or closed-door sessions, it matters not. The same rule applies. Committee members are completely free to discuss any findings as the information is reviewed.
The goal should NOT BE accountability on those who may have perpetrated or supported weaponized activity against American Citizens. The goal SHOULD BE for maximum public information, transparency and sunlight about the weaponization as it is discovered. This approach makes We The People the accountability portion of the process. As a result, the next section is again rather groundbreaking….
♦ Every witness to the committee should be granted full legal immunity provided by the House and House Speaker for anything said during the testimony or admitted as being done as part of the evidence fact-finding. Again, the goal is transparency and openness, not prosecution and accountability. Use sunlight as a weapon to draw out the truth, then let the American people be the judges of what that truth means when contrasted against the constitution of our nation.
Let me repeat this… There should be ZERO legal liability for any conduct that happened as a part of any witness effort to weaponize the United States government against the American people. The immunity should cover everything *except* perjury from the witness to the committee itself (ex. Oliver North). If the witness lies, the immunity evaporates.
Why this approach? Because (a) it circumvents any issues that might impede testimony, removes hurdles; (b) immunity compels confession, honest sunlight and the urgency of the situation; (c) immunity makes the truth more likely; and finally, (d) you are not going to get legal convictions anyway. The truth has no agenda.
Another reason for the immunity is because the operation of the subcommittee should be heavily focused on witness testimony, not documents. The documents can come as part of the follow-up to the witness testimony, but it is the witness testimony needed; the publication of the transcripts then provides the public sunlight. This is key.
90% of the committee work should be focused on witnesses and questions therein. Only 10% of the committee work should be seeking documents. Avoiding the documents shortens the time needed for investigative disclosures and avoids protracted legal battles therein. If the people on the committee, those who are asking the questions, do not already know the details behind the questions and the locations of the supportive documents, then you have the wrong people on the committee.
Every response to a questioned witness should come with the following question: “How do you know this?” That is how you will discover the nature of the documents, communications, emails etc that support the fact-finding mission. “How do you know this” also leads to more witnesses. Work the issue from the bottom up. How do you know this; who told you this; why did you do this; what authority guided you; who authorized this approach? etc. etc. etc.
Use fully immunized witnesses to tell the story, then go look for the documents to corroborate the witness statements using the ‘under oath’ transcript as part of the impenetrable subpoena itself; but don’t wait, keep questioning witnesses.
♦DOCUMENTS – Once you identify the location of documents that would assist the sunlight objective, don’t only rely on the government side of the conversation as the targeted source for retrieval. If the document contains communication to external parties, ie public-private partnership, then move to gain the documents from the private side, thereby avoiding the roadblocks inside government.
Regardless of the status of the document search, and regardless of whether legal battles will be needed to retrieve those documents, keep moving forward with the witness testimony. Do not stop committee work just because internal silo opposition is being fought. Keep working the plan and bringing immunized witnesses, both inside government and outside government, forward for questioning. Leaders within organizations and agencies are important, but clerks, staff, and administrative aides in/around those same leaders could also provide important information.
This subcommittee approach, along with the people needed, will obviously take more time to assemble. However, once put together everything thereafter moves at a very rapid pace, which is also part of the strategy. Flood the information zone with maximum sunlight and keep the opposition off balance.
The goal is sunlight. Rip the Band-Aid off, call the baby ugly and start the process to fix this crap by exposing it. Restore the First and Fourth Amendments, and heal the injury.
From the Church Commission we got the secret FISA court and more tools for violations of our Fourth Amendment rights. From the 911 Commission we got The Patriot Act, DHS, TSA, DNI and many more violations of our rights and Fourth Amendment protections. We do not need any legislation as an outcome of the House “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”
We do not need your legislative help. All prior legislative help only ended up making things worse.
What we need is a full, uncensored, brutally honest expose’ of how bad things have become and how that system can be dismantled. The existing constitution is the protection, just remove the stuff that is violating it.
I know this approach is rather different from the norm. However, if this roadmap seems reasonable, I am certain you will find support from within the silo system that is currently operating, and from people outside the government who will volunteer time and effort to assist.
Summarized: (1) Know the scale of opposition. (2) Formulate a communication strategy around it and build a website. (3) Communicate findings by telling the story to the American people as it is discovered. (4) Grant immunity to all witnesses. (5) Don’t wait until the end to generate another useless report that few will read. (6) Make sunlight the motive of the committee. (7) Consider success when the American people can see the problem. (8) Dissolve any weaponized systems. (9) Don’t create new ones.
If you tell us the truth, We The People will fix it ourselves.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 22, 2023 | Sundance
West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin appears with his good friend Chuck Todd for an interview about ongoing political events to include the debt ceiling.
As Manchin and Todd finish each other’s sentences, the discussion hits on the upcoming debt ceiling battle. Manchin surprisingly pulls out the purple card and states the super-secret thing that no one in DC will admit. The last federal budget was signed into law September 2008, for fiscal year 2009. From that moment forward, there has been nothing except continuing resolutions and omnibus spending bills [SIDENOTE: this approach was by design by Obama/Pelosi].
This 12-year timeline includes the entire tenure of House Speaker Paul Ryan, former Budget Committee Chair, who now uses the absence of the budget as a tool to advance his outside impression that DC is fiscally reckless, insert pearl clutching here. I digress. Manchin is positioning himself as the ‘purple’ option for 2024. WATCH (or read):
[Transcript] – CHUCK TODD: And joining me now is Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Senator Manchin, welcome back to Meet the Press.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Chuck, it’s always good to be with you.
CHUCK TODD: Look, I want to get into the debt ceiling. I want to get into all this stuff. But I — we got some developments overnight with those classified documents, an FBI search — the White House said it was coordinated with the FBI. But we’ve now had an FBI search of former President Trump. Now we have an FBI search into President Biden’s residence. What’s your assessment of how the president has handled the situation?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, I mean, it’s just hard to believe that in the United States of America, we have a former president and a current president that are basically in the same situation. How does this happen? You know, only thing I can tell you, Chuck, is when I go into the SCIF with the secure documents, they always ask, “Are you clean?” when you walk out. They want to make sure you’re not carrying anything out. You know, and it might be a mistake. You might just put it in your other papers, but you double-check right there. To be held accountable and responsible is what we all are. And to put those in unsecured spaces is irresponsible.
CHUCK TODD: Do you see similarities, or do you see more differences in how President Trump versus how President Biden —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: I’m not going to make —
CHUCK TODD: — has handled this?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: — that decision, but I think that Merrick Garland did the right thing by putting the special counsel.
CHUCK TODD: You do?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: And I think that we should wait until the special counsel, rather than making this a political circus. Let them find out the facts. What — was one more damaging? Are they both about the same, did not cause any problem, or is one more reckless and irresponsible than the other? I can’t answer that question, but I think the special counsel will do a better job than the politicians and the political circus that is going to follow.
CHUCK TODD: President Biden said he had no regrets in how he handled this. Do you have any advice for him on how he should handle this going forward?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Oh, I think he should have a lot of regrets. Yeah. I would —
CHUCK TODD: What are those —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: I would think that. I said, “Whoever’s responsible.” I mean, if I hold people accountable, and I use — whether my chief of staff or, you know, my staff, who, that were doing this, that I’m looking at, then I’m going to hold someone accountable. But basically, the buck stops with me.
CHUCK TODD: So you think he should be out there, “Look, I mess — I messed up –”
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: That’s all. Just say —
CHUCK TODD: “Maybe I didn’t do it.” Just say it —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: — “I made a mistake.”
CHUCK TODD: Just fall on your sword here?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: We’re all human.
CHUCK TODD: Yeah.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: We make mistakes. I can tell you I don’t think anyone intended, he sure didn’t intend for it to fall in wrong hands and use it against our country. I know they didn’t intend that to happen. Could it have happened? I don’t know. And yeah, you just might as well say, “Listen, it’s irresponsible. It was something we should’ve had a better check and balance on.”
CHUCK TODD: Now, former President Trump defied a subpoena. So in that sense, the, the way each has handled it is different.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yes.
CHUCK TODD: Do you acknowledge that?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Absolutely. Much different than the other. One’s saying, “Okay, I hope I didn’t make any mistakes.
CHUCK TODD: Right.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: — I hope no one’s compromised. I hope we didn’t hurt our country.” And the other one says, “Ugh, no. I know it didn’t. Believe me.” Well, you know what? What they said, verify? You have to verify.
CHUCK TODD: Trust but verify?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Trust but verify. Let’s find out. And that’s what the special counsel’s —
CHUCK TODD: And that’s what you want here? Both special counsels to sort of resolve this?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: First of all, every one of us, in our life, have to be held accountable and responsible for our actions because people want accountability. And they want basically when you’re held accountable, are you responsible or not? If you are, would you — can you fix that? Did you make a mistake? Fine. You’re, you know —
CHUCK TODD: And that’s what you think – the president needs to get out there and just get in front of this?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Cicero, Cicero said, “To err is human.” You’re a human being. You’re going to make mistakes. Did you intend to make it? Did you intend to harm somebody? Did you intend to basically do an irresponsible thing? I don’t think — hopefully, neither one of them did.
CHUCK TODD: Right.
SEN. JOE MANCHIIN: But it sure turned out to be irresponsible.
CHUCK TODD: Let’s talk about the debt ceiling. You’re — as always, you’re trying to find a compromise, middle ground.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah.
CHUCK TODD: I know your instinct here. But why should Republicans get the benefit of the doubt on the debt ceiling here, considering that it’s a — that they’re sort of manufacturing a crisis that’s a bit unnecessary right now?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, first of all, if one side thinks that the other one’s more responsible for the debt at $31.4 trillion, that’s, that is totally not accurate and it’s deceptive. We’re all responsible. We’ve got a $31.4 trillion debt. It’s a runaway debt, and no one’s holding themselves accountable. And basically, I think you said it, use the budget process. I’ve been here 12 years. We haven’t had a budget yet.
CHUCK TODD: Yeah. I — that’s what I don’t get here.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: We haven’t had a budget yet.
CHUCK TODD: And that’s what I question —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah, you should.
CHUCK TODD: — you want to do this special committee here.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: I’m —
CHUCK TODD: And I’m sitting here going, “Why add more “bureaucracy?” We have a budget committee. We have two budget committees. We have a Joint Committee on Taxation. We have all these different committees that have already been created to deal with this process. Why can’t we use the congressional bureaucracy that exists?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: We have 12 appropriations committees —
CHUCK TODD: They’re —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: They’re supposed to do their job. Why don’t you basically put a time certain on —
CHUCK TODD: Right.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: — what you can do and what you can’t and when you do it? I can’t speak for that. I was a former governor of the state of West Virginia.
CHUCK TODD: Right.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: I was responsible for a balanced budget amendment and basically staying within the realms of my Constitution. So, you know, I met every week. Every week like clockwork they walked in my office on a Tuesday or Wednesday and sit down and go over it. You’re either going to be — have to make some cuts now, make some adjustments now, so we end the year with a balanced budget or a surplus. There’s nothing that holds us accountable. Nothing at all. We can say, “Oh, we’re going to do it.” As I’ve said before, 12 years, haven’t had a budget. That’s ridiculous.
CHUCK TODD: So, let me — you want to do this sort of, that you and Senator Romney, to have committee that deals with the trust fund issues. But right now, neither party wants to touch – I mean, in that sense, Donald Trump came out, and certainly Democrats, nobody wants to touch Social Security or Medicare.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, first of all —
CHUCK TODD: So how do you separate those two out and deal with our fiscal problems?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Why would you scare the bejesus out of people that are basically going to say — in West Virginia, I’ve got 60% of my population that that’s all they have is Medicare and Social Security. You think I’m going to go down that path and put them in jeopardy? No. But there are so much other things, the basically wasteful spending, that can be corralled in without scaring the bejesus, depending on what political side you’re on.
CHUCK TODD: Let me ask you about wasteful spending, because one of the three most hypocritical words I hear are “waste, fraud and abuse.” Right. Everybody says, “Oh, waste, fraud, and abuse.”
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: And it’s all there. It’s all there.
CHUCK TODD: Okay, but waste, fraud, and abuse aren’t going to balance the budget, ok? At the end of the day, there are going to have to be choices that have to be made. What is something that ought to be on, on, in the decision of, “You know, maybe we’re spending too much”?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, we know we’re spending too much because we’re not balancing our budget and —
CHUCK TODD: But on what?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: — we have more debt. The bottom line is, it’s in the eyes of the beholder. That’s the problem that we have. Five-hundred-and-thirty-five people said, “Well, yeah. What you’re doing is wasteful, Chuck. I think you ought to cut that.” And you’re going to say, “Okay, Joe. How about yours?”
CHUCK TODD: But your, your spending that you think is mandatory, another person thinks is wasteful or abuse.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah. Just think, for every dollar, just get it down, break it down to the dollar. Is there any savings within that dollar you think that is wasteful or abuse that we could at least have a target to set? Is it a penny? Is it five pennies? Is it a nickel? Where is it?
CHUCK TODD: But here’s what gets lost here, is nobody will put anything on the table. Everybody says, “We’ve got to cut spending.” Well, what? And nobody wants to articulate —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, the process —
CHUCK TODD:– the what.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Chuck, you hit it dead on the head. The process isn’t working. How come we’re not held accountable to have – to have the appropriation bills done at a certain time before the end of the fiscal year?
CHUCK TODD: You tell me.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, that’s what I —
CHUCK TODD: I mean –
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: You know –
CHUCK TODD: – what does Chuck Schumer say? What does Mitch McConnell
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: You know what happens? It rolls over into an omnibus bill at the end and everything’s thrown into it. “Okay. Here we got it, guys. That’s it.” It makes no sense.
CHUCK TODD: So what should – it sounds like you actually think the debt ceiling is a moment we should use to focus on —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, if you’re going to use the debt ceiling for anything except for theatrics, okay, which is what probably might happen for a while, we’re going to pass the debt ceiling. You are exactly correct.
CHUCK TODD: Right.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: It has to pass. You know, we have the currency of it, you know – the good faith of the United States dollar and the currency of the world. You just can’t let it default and basically hold us in jeopardy from where we stand in the world, world order. With that being said, is how do you get to it? Do you use this moment? Do you come to a reason – responsibility? What are we paying for interest now? For ten years, it was zero. It was funny money. Were not – you know, it doesn’t put any burden. We’re just raising debt, but we’re not basically harming how we have to meet that debt through our interest payments. Now we’re talking real money on an interest basis. We’re almost, up to what our defense budget is, paying in interest.
CHUCK TODD: I guess I come back to, and I don’t think you have the answer either, which is what is the moment to force this conversation?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: This is a moment if, if Kevin McCarthy coming in – coming in new says, “Okay, this is – it’s serious,” and he takes it from the standpoint. And he knows —
CHUCK TODD: What does he need to do that you would take him seriously in this?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, you know, Chuck —
CHUCK TODD: Do you know what I mean by that? Like, how do you know when he’s being serious, and how do you when he’s paying politics?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Well, the bottom line is he has a hell of a – heck of a political hand that’s not, not very good right now. He’s not holding a lot, if you will. And he has ten or 12 that’s pretty much out there. He has to make a decision how he wants to govern and how he ought to these next two years in this 118th Congress. You know – I just – it was amazing. I just saw that the Ohio legislature, I don’t know if you paid any attention to that —
CHUCK TODD: I did. Yeah.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: The Ohio legislature, which is Republican-controlled –
CHUCK TODD: Yeah.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: – basically chose their new speaker, a Republican, with as many, if not more votes, from the Democrats because they wanted someone they can work with. That’s a coalition. Why can’t we put coalitions together here?
CHUCK TODD: Well, that’s —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: The moderate, centrist Democrats coming over and working, whoever’s the majority, and saying, “You don’t have to bow and cow-tail to the extremes.”
CHUCK TODD: Yeah. You don’t have to worry about primaries. A lot of your colleagues have to worry about primaries. Isn’t that why this —
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Let me tell you —
CHUCK TODD – doesn’t happen?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: – one more thing. I’ve got to be honest with you, Chuck. If it’s all about the election, the next election, you know, that’s the worst thing that could happen to us.
CHUCK TODD: You just came from Davos.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah.
CHUCK TODD: There’s a moment, I don’t know if you realized, that went viral between you and Senator Sinema. I want to show the moment here. I want to ask you about it. You guys are high-fiving. I think we’ll show it again here. It was right after she was talking about the filibuster.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah.
CHUCK TODD: Is that what you were high-fiving about?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Yeah, that was – I think, you know, after that. I saw her hand go up and I said, “Sure” because here, the two of us are committed to protecting the filibuster, which I think protects checks and balances on the executive branch. So if you have a Democrat, Democrat, Democrat – president, House and Senate – and you have a strong president, basically leader of the party, then you don’t have a check and balance because I can guarantee you the House and Senate will roll wherever the president wants. I – and I’ve said this before. I appreciate the Republican senators and the leadership of the minority leader at that time, McConnell, majority leader at that time – with Donald Trump every day beating on him, “Get rid of the filibuster.” You’ve got 53, 54 Republicans, and he would not. And I appreciate that. And I told Harry Reid we should not have done it when we did it in 2013. But to come back now, the checks and balances aren’t there. It makes and forces them to work together. Think what we’ve accomplished in the 117th, the most divided Congress we’ve ever had, and we did more substantial bills, I think that’s going to be transformational.
CHUCK TODD: You think those first two years of Biden and this Democratic Congress is going to be historic?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: I think it’s going to be transformational and historical, yes, because here you had a bipartisan infrastructure bill we haven’t done for years.
CHUCK TODD: Yeah.
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: You had then on top of that the CHIPS Act, which will bring manufacturing back so we don’t have supply chains that we’re depending on that aren’t loyal and trustworthy. And then we have the Inflation Reduction Act, which is going to give us – it’s been misaligned because this administration basically said it’s environmental, environmental, environmental. That bill is designed to be energy security, Chuck. And energy security is exactly what we need.
CHUCK TODD: And you’re frustrated that the White House won’t say the phrase “energy security”?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: They will not use the word, and they haven’t. I’m begging you all, please. Energy security. We have to have fossil. We do it better and cleaner than anywhere in the world. And we can be energy secured for ten years, and also be able to invest in technology of the future.
CHUCK TODD: Is this an agenda you can run for reelection on in West Virginia?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Oh, most certainly because we’re seeing right now, I’ve got a battery plant coming in. I’ve got basically hydrogen coming in that direction. We’ve got expansion. And we’re raising our coal with carbon capture sequestration. We’ve got basically methane capturing using gas. We have people that are fighting continuously. And you have to have the pipeline to move this product. And it’s going to be needed. If not, you’re going to end up like Europe. And that’s where I didn’t want to rub it into them, but Europe took an approach that they’re going to say, “We’re going to have cap-and-trade.” And we’re going to be basically charging you a carbon tax.” I’ve said, “I’m not going to support that and vote for it because I think it doesn’t work.” So I took the approach, and basically we wrote this bill with incentives. And it was working. And that’s why they were all upset. That’s why the chancellor and that’s why presidents of other countries were very upset on this bill and concerned about it.
CHUCK TODD: If you run for office in 2024, are you going to run as a Democrat?
SEN. JOE MANCHIN: Chuck, I haven’t made a decision what I’m going to do in 2024. I’ve got two years ahead of me now to do the best I can for the state and for my country.
CHUCK TODD: What are – what’s on the table? Is reelection on the table?
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