This speech by Congressman Matt Gaetz is actually very important. Listen carefully to what he is saying – he and others will not vote for this “uni-party” candidate Kevin McCarthy from California. I cannot emphasize more that what he is talking about is what I have been writing about for a long time.
John McCain would have voted for Hillary before Trump because they are all the same – they protect the SWAMP. The battle is not as fierce between the Republicans and Democrats as it often appears. Both sides like things the way they are. Kevin McCarthy would simply be another Pelosi. There really would be no difference. This is why we must simply Crash & Burn. Politics is hopeless. The corruption has eaten away everything from the inside out. Gaetz is correct for they call it on the Hill the “uni-party” where it is not for the people, but for maintaining power.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 3, 2023 | Sundance
Apparently, California Representative Kevin McCarthy has already moved his personal effects and furniture into the House Speaker’s Office despite not winning enough votes to be considered Speaker of the House.
Republican House member Matt Gaetz, a strong opponent of Mr McCarthy, sends a letter of inquiry asking how is this possible?
Posted originally on the CTH on January 3, 2023 | Sundance
The management and branding team behind Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continue to track a transparent path toward a 2024 nomination run. Florida Governor DeSantis was sworn into office today at Noon eastern, complete with Jeb Bush as a special on-stage guest of honor.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is one of the primary organizers and influencers for DeSantis ’24 presidential bid. Former governors Rick Scott (R) and Charlie Crist (R/D) did not participate in the ceremony. Additionally, despite the early hour and not appearing to be coincidental, it appeared the political branding team decided to have Casey DeSantis take a page from First Lady Melania Trump’s wardrobe style. WATCH:
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They are going to recreate Camelot whether you want it or not. However, once you see the strings on the marionettes, it’s impossible not to watch the performance and not see them.
Ron DeSantis is the counterfeit $100 bill on a fishing string being dragged through the MAGAhood by the professional political class and Bush family revenge operations.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 3, 2023 | Sundance
The House of Representatives failed to elect a House Speaker through three rounds of voting. Approximately 20 members of the Republican conference will not vote for Kevin McCarthy, as a result there is a stalemate. The Republican caucus requested adjournment until noon tomorrow, Wednesday January 4th.
Essentially Kevin McCarthy needs to: (1) step aside and accept he will not be Speaker, or (2) continue the House voting in futility, or (3) find a way to convince the Republican holdouts to support him.
“They’re just not into you Kevin”…
This has happened before, just not in the modern political era. The holdouts want Jim Jordan to accept the Speaker position.
Don’t get defrosted, worried or overly attached to any outcome. This is simply the way our system was designed.
Posted originally on the CTH on January 3, 2023 | Sundance
The House of Representatives continues efforts to elect a Speaker of the House. Republican candidate Kevin McCarthy failed in his first-round effort on the floor in dramatic fashion. A group of conservatives blocked his path amid one of the smallest GOP House majorities in history. Democrat Hakeem Jeffries had the highest overall number of votes, but still not enough to become speaker.
As noted by Politico, “In a stunning moment of chaos on the first day of the new Congress, McCarthy and his allies will now attempt to quell the revolt, preparing members to take repeated votes as pressure mounts from their colleagues. It will mark only the second time since the Civil War that a party will need multiple attempts to choose its leader on the House floor — with all business in the chamber, even the swearing-in of members, halted until a speaker is chosen.”
Voting continues, video below. UPDATE After Three Failed Votes, the House is adjourned until noon tomorrow:
Zelensky’s forces of the Ukrainian military had fired four long-range missiles that had been provided by the US (HIMARS) with US training to kill Russian soldiers in the barracks on New Year’s Eve. Russia says that they shot down two of the four. Just after midnight on New Year’s Day, Ukrainian missiles were fired and struck a vocational school in Makiivka that housed soldiers. Some 300 are injured and 63 are dead. While that is not supposed to be fair in war just killing soldiers in the barracks rather than on a battlefield, this war is anything but normal.
The Ukrainians used New Year’s Eve. We should be on guard now for attacks over Orthodox Christmas. Both sides will most likely attack fiercely.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on December 15, 2022 | Sundance
Friends, in the late summer and fall of 2021 CTH warned of massive waves of price increases that would push inflation to record highs. We watched as each wave arrived almost on schedule throughout 2022, and as a direct result of Joe Biden energy and economic policy, prices necessarily skyrocketed.
In essence in 2021 we were warning about the expenditure side of the ledger that all working-class and fixed income families would experience. We advised to take every proactive measure possible to avoid future price increases.
Now, unfortunately, we begin moving those same warnings to the other side of the ledger; because as a natural consequence of consumer checkbook pain, the financial pressure always transfers to the income and employment side of the economic dynamic.
Keep in mind, retail sales are calculated in dollars spent by consumers. November 2022 retail sales as reported by the commerce department today [DATA pdf], reflect a 0.6% decrease in spending vs October. November data includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and the traditional early holiday shopping. 0.6% less dollars were spent, despite prices being double digits higher than the prior year.
When the prices you are charging for goods and/or services are 10, 20, even as high as 60 percent more than prior year, yet your sales are running flat to negative – that means consumer purchases of those goods/services are substantially lower.
If you were selling 100 widgets for $1 each in 2021, you gross $100. If your widgets now sell for $1.25 and you gross $94 in 2022 sales, you have sold 75 widgets.
In 2021 you sold 100 widgets, in 2022 you sold 75 widgets, a difference of 25 widgets.
Everything attached to the raw material, creation, manufacturing, distribution and sale of those 25 missing widgets is no longer part of the economic activity associated with your widget business. You are now telling your suppliers you don’t need as many widgets, because they are not selling. You have lost 25% of your business in this scenario.
Everything associated with the drop in consumer spending now begins to downsize. Downsizing means less labor needed. This process triggers the economic impact shifting from the consumer sales side of the ledger to the income side of the ledger for employers, employees and workers.
If this consumer spending trend continues, and there is absolutely no reason to think it will reverse, we are entering a phase of serious financial instability for the American worker, at a scale that will dwarf the 2006/’07 and ’08 recession.
I am not a doomsayer pundit on economic matters. I am a proactive planner on economic forecasts. With consumer credit costing more, with fed interest rates climbing, with import orders cancelled, with shipping costs dropping, with consumer spending contracting, with fewer units moving, with inventories climbing, all of the data only points in one direction.
Serious consumer defaults are looming.
Government policy has been hammering the demand side of the economy, proclaiming -falsely- that excessive consumer demand was the cause of inflation. This game of economic pretending is about to get very serious.
Consumer spending, as measured in actual units created and purchased in the economy, has been contracting since the third quarter of 2021 (started June, July, August ’21). Simultaneously, consumer spending as measured in actual dollars spent to purchase food, fuel and energy, has been skyrocketing. This is a supply side inflationary cycle with no soft landing.
(Wall Street Journal) – U.S. retail spending and manufacturing weakened in November, signs of a slowing economy as the Federal Reserve continues its battle against high inflation.
November retail sales fell 0.6% from the prior month for the biggest decline this year, the Commerce Department said Thursday. Budget-conscious shoppers pulled back sharply on holiday-related purchases, home projects and autos. Manufacturing output declined 0.6%, the first drop since June, the Fed said in a separate report.
The Fed on Wednesday raised its benchmark interest rate 0.5 percentage point to a 15-year high and signaled plans to continue lifting rates through the spring. Fed officials have increased rates at the fastest pace since the 1980s to cool the economy and bring down inflation, which is running near a 40-year high.
“Most households are acting strategically, planning for a road ahead that may be more difficult to traverse, with higher interest rates, the housing slump, and ongoing inflation—and the very real possibility of a recession,” said Craig Johnson, president of the retail consulting firm Customer Growth Partners. (read more)
Businesses are going to start cutting expenses in order to survive.
The number one expense for almost all businesses is the labor cost.
Non-essential and high wage labor is going to get removed first.
Posted originally on the conservative tree house on November 26, 2022 | Sundance
“Crowds? I see nothing. I’m surprised,” retail worker Jeremy Pritchett told FOX 2. “Normally, it’s wrapped all the way around the building. Today: no one.”
That’s the typical ground report from areas all over the country. No one, literally almost no one, is doing any holiday shopping and the traditional Black Friday rush to get deals and discounts just didn’t happen. Financial media are scratching their puzzlers, perplexed with furrowed brows.
Interestingly, almost every financial media outlet is using the same Retail Federation talking point about anticipating an 8% increase in holiday sales this year. Apparently, pretenses must be maintained. Meanwhile, news crews and camera crews are having a desperate time finding any holiday shopping to use as background footage for the claims that sales are strong.
“Look, over there. There’s a person buying something. Oh, wait, no, that’s just an employee dusting the empty cash register.” At a certain point, one would have to believe reality would run head-first into the mass delusional pretending. Maybe this holiday season will be it, maybe not.
Reuters – […] About 166 million people were planning to shop from Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday through this coming “Cyber Monday,” according to the National Retail Federation, almost 8 million more than last year. But with sporadic rain in some parts of the country, stores were less busy than usual on Black Friday.
“Usually at this time of the year you struggle to find parking. This year, I haven’t had an issue getting a parking spot,” said Marshal Cohen, chief industry adviser of the NPD Group Inc.
“It’s a lot of social shopping, everybody is only looking to get what they need. There is no sense of urgency,” Cohen added, based on his store checks in New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia.
At the American Dream mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey, there were no lines outside stores. A Toys ‘R’ Us employee was handing out flyers with a list of the Black Friday “door buster” promotions. (read more)
It’s almost Kafkaesque to see how the media are continuing to maintain economic pretenses, yet the reality of a completely collapsed consumer economy is physically staring them in the face.
(Bloomberg) – Activity Light at One San Francisco Mall (4:40 p.m.) – At the Stonestown mall in San Francisco, shoppers were few and far between. The Target and Zara stores were mostly empty, and there was no line for the mall’s Santa Claus. Uniqlo and Apple were the busiest locations, but they still weren’t crowded.
[…] Crowds were thin in the late morning at the Stamford Town Center mall. Kay Jeweler, empty. Safavieh, empty. Only a couple of people waited at the checkout line at Forever 21 and just a few were in line for a purchase at Barnes & Noble.
[…] At a Target store on Chicago’s North Side, the parking lot was barely half full at about 9 a.m. local time. Shoppers were greeted with $3 ornaments and discounted Christmas trees when entering, and the store seemed calm and relatively quiet.
[…] The Macy’s in Stamford, Connecticut, was neat and orderly — maybe a little too neat and orderly on a day associated with shopping chaos. The furniture section was nearly deserted, though there were more shoppers looking at shoes. (read more)
Are you ready for the government to monitor what you buy and sell on a daily basis? Because that is what could happen if you start using the new “digital dollar” that they are now testing. Of course using the new “digital dollar” would be voluntary at first, but what if it eventually becomes mandatory? The use of physical currency continues to decline year after year, and some governments in Europe have already taken radical measures to phase out the use of cash. Many among the elite consider digital currencies to be the key to a whole new era of strict governmental control over the way that we live our lives, and there would be so much potential for abuse.
On Tuesday, an extremely ambitious 12 week test of the “digital dollar” was publicly announced. As you can see, some of the biggest companies in the financial world are participating…
Global banking giants are starting a 12-week digital dollar pilot with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the participants announced on Tuesday.
Citigroup Inc, HSBC Holdings Plc, Mastercard Inc and Wells Fargo & Co are among the financial companies participating in the experiment alongside the New York Fed’s innovation center, they said in a statement. The project, which is called the regulated liability network, will be conducted in a test environment and use simulated data, the New York Fed said.
When asked about his firm’s participation in the project, a Citigroup executive sounded very enthusiastic…
“Programmable US dollars may be necessary to support new business models and provide a foundation to much-needed innovations in financial settlements and infrastructure,” Tony McLaughlin, managing director for emerging payments and business development at Citigroup’s treasury and trade solutions division, said in a statement. “Projects like this, that focus on the digitization of central bank money and individual bank deposits, could be expanded to take a broader view of the opportunity.”
This is something that the Federal Reserve has been working on for a long time.
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Back in January, the Fed released a “much-anticipated discussion paper” on the possibility of a “digital dollar”, and they invited the public to comment on the paper for four months…
In January, the Fed took a first step toward weighing the use of a central bank digital currency when it released its much-anticipated discussion paper and opened a four-month public comment period to receive input.
The paper said that a CBDC could streamline cross-border payments and could further enshrine and preserve the dominance of the dollar’s international role, including as the world’s reserve currency.
Obviously the Fed did not meet with too much resistance during that stage, and so now they are moving on to fully testing the “digital dollar” that they have come up with.
The fact that they are going to spend an enormous amount of time, money and energy testing this new “digital dollar” strongly indicates that they already have plans to introduce it.
The “digital dollar” would be very similar to Bitcoin and other popular cryptocurrencies.
But instead of a decentralized system, the government would control the currency and would have the ability to track every single transaction.
And as Michael Maharrey of Schiff Gold has noted, there would even be the potential for the government to “turn off” the ability of certain individuals to make purchases…
Imagine if there was no cash. It would be impossible to hide even the smallest transaction from government eyes. Something as simple as your morning trip to Starbucks wouldn’t be a secret from government officials. As Bloomberg put it in an article published when China launched its digital yuan pilot program, digital currency “offers China’s authorities a degree of control never possible with physical money.”
The government could even “turn off” an individual’s ability to make purchases.
We don’t want the government to have that much power over our lives.
Thankfully, some members of Congress are sounding the alarm. In fact, Senator James Lankford has actually introduced a bill “which would require the U.S. Treasury to keep printing and coining money if the government issues an official digital currency”…
On September 29, Republican Senator James Lankford introduced the No Digital Dollar Act, which would require the U.S. Treasury to keep printing and coining money if the government issues an official digital currency.
Lankford said in a news release: “While some Oklahomans are open to digital currencies, many still prefer hard currency or at least the option of hard currency. There are still questions, cyber concerns, and security risks for digital money. There is no reason we can’t continue to have paper and digital money in our nation and allow the American people to decide how to carry and spend their own money. As technology advances, Americans should not have to worry about every transaction in their financial life being tracked or their money being deleted.”
Unfortunately, that sort of a bill is extremely unlikely to get through Congress.
Most of our leaders seem quite eager to explore the “possibilities” of implementing such a system.
And as we have seen over the past few years, those with authoritarian tendencies are not afraid to push the envelope to frightening extremes.
In an article for MaineWire, Steve Robinson listed several hypothetical scenarios that we could potentially see if a “digital dollar” starts being used on a widespread basis…
1.) To protest governmental limits on personal freedom, liberty activists stage a peaceful protest around the nation’s capital. That nation’s leader, wanting to quell the protest and protect his power, instructs his Minister of Economic Control to reduce the protesters’ CBDC balances by 50 percent everyday until the protest ends. The protest ends shortly after the message pings on the CBDC smartphone app.
2.) Economic growth is lagging, and the economists in the federal government suspect it is because consumer spending isn’t strong enough. People are saving their money, rather than spending it. To fix this problem, the Ministry of Economic Control announces a new year-long negative interest rate for all CBDC accounts. Unspent balances of CBDC will be reduced by 10 percent every month. As a result, no one saves, every one spends, and the economists have saved the economy.
3.) You’re at the grocery store picking up some ribeye steaks because some friends are coming over for a barbecue. When you get up to the counter, there’s a problem. The cashier says the payment isn’t going through. You check the CBDC app on your smartphone. There is an alert: “You have exceeded your monthly carbon credit usage; please remove the following items from your grocery cart in order to proceed…”
4.) You want to pick up a new firearm for hunting season, so you swing by the local sporting goods store. But when you go to transfer CBDC credits for the purchase, you’re denied. The trusty CBDC app explains: “We’ve detected activity on your social media accounts that suggests you are at risk of causing harm to yourself or others. You are prohibited from purchasing a firearm for one year.”
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This is a library of News Events not reported by the Main Stream Media documenting & connecting the dots on How the Obama Marxist Liberal agenda is destroying America